Update from Albania 🔥

Dear partners,

I’m writing to you from a train station in Vienna. I have just landed from Albania 🇦🇱  and am enroute to Germany to meet with a young minister that I have started discipling online. I have one of the Grace Ambassador Boot Camp graduates with me while the rest of the team are on their way home.

We spent 10 days in Durrës. The team primarily went about connecting with people on the streets, in coffee shops and public places, with the aim of building relationships, sharing the gospel, and inviting them to connect to the church family for discipleship and community. 

This was certainly one of our most effective mission trips as we were more intentional and strategic with connecting to the same people frequently.  One of the greatest barriers that we have in Albania is the language but God encouraged me as we arrived in Albania saying that He had some English speaking people in the city for us to connect to, we had to simply find them. Like Jesus, who came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10) we went around on the streets seeking people to minister to. We would greet people in English and if they responded jn English we would continue the conversation.  The team had multiple opportunities to make connections and share the gospel with people.  Coming from South Africa, I often expect reaching the lost to be easy and I tend to expect many people to receive the gospel, however,  in places like Albania (a largely unreached nation) hearts are a lot harder and thus more resistant to the message of Jesus. This is for a number of reasons: communism, atheism, and nominal or even counterfeit Christianity.

But we thank God that we had many positive connections and many who were interested in the gospel. One girl even responded to Anna, one of our team members, saying, “that sounds too good to be true!” Another guy said to Julius and Reuben, “I need someone to clean my heart.” To which Reuben responded, saying, “I know someone who can!” Another team member, Sean, built a good friendship with a waiter in town, and after few connections, he eventually received  Christ!

During the week in Durrës I spent some time with our pastors, Carl and Alecià, and I had the opportunity to spend some time with Benjamin Conway from London. He is a good friend, and one of our ministry’s overseers. He flew out to Albania with his son, Reuben (who joined in with them team), just to connect with me and minister to the church.  What a blessing!

The mission continues… Sean and I will be reaching out, as we travel onto Germany (mostly via train), and then I will spend some time with a few people I am discipling. Please pray for us? Trust with us for divine connections and opportunities share Jesus with people.

Thank you to everyone who has so generously given to this trip. Your support is so very appreciated. Your SOWING I an investment into a great vision that God has given me to reach Europe, stretching East towards China. This area is largely unreached with the least percentage of believers in the world. There is much work to be done! During this trip, God has already connected us with key people in a number of Eastern European countries. In the next year, we look forward to the Grace Ambassadors’ part of GraceLife, raising up disciples to go into this area to reach the unreached and start churches.

Our vision is primarily focused on Eastern Europe but not limited to it. We will always be open to go wherever the Lord leads. For example, after I get home, Marna, the boys and I will be going to Zululand to train Pastors in discipleship! We will be ministering into three different communities.

Here are a few ways that you can be a part of this vision:
*We have a new full time three-month school starting end-January. (1) Pray about joining us and getting equipped to change the world. (2) Pray about partnering with us to help offer bursaries to students who cannot afford the fees (we have a young couple wanting to come from Albania, and we want to help them.)
*we are still on mission, as I write this, and are needing to raise some partners to help meet the budget. (3) consider giving toward this trip and (4) the Zululand trip.

If you give into the GraceLife central account, and reference it “missions your name” it will get to where it needs to be.

The next update you’ll receive from me will be when I’m back in South Africa 🇿🇦

If there is anything that I can pray for you for, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Much love to you all.

Shayne, Marna, William, and Elliott