Christians In Albania Reach Out (With Bibles And Basketball) To A Persecuted People
FUSHE-KRUJE, Albania — A once-mighty fortress stands atop a mountain overlooking this southeastern European city. Albania’s national hero, Skanderbeg, led a guerrilla war here against the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1400s — a rare example of successful Christian resistance to the Turks, historians say.
In a small town at the foot of the mountain is a monument, of sorts, to a much later political leader. George W. Bush was here in 2007 — the first U.S. president to visit Albania while in office. He and First Lady Laura Bush hosted a roundtable gathering at Cafe Cela, where they praised Albanians who had participated in a microloan program sponsored by the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development.
On a Sunday afternoon, Bledi Valca and his two sons, Lemuel and Liam, treat a Christian Chronicle reporter to a cappuccino at the cafe, which was redubbed The George W. Bush Bar after the presidential visit. Valca ministers for a Church of Christ in Albania’s capital, Tirana. He and his boys made the 45-minute trip north to Fushë Krujë to serve a people overlooked by heroes and presidents alike.
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They’re known as the Roma. Throughout the centuries they’ve been called “gypsies” among other epithets — such as grifters, drifters, pickpockets, thieves. Originally from northern India, they live in communities across Central and Eastern Europe, often in homes without basic services. Counting them is difficult, and estimates of their population in Albania range from 1,300 to 120,000. They face forced evictions and lack the same access to education and employment as most of the country’s 2.7 million souls.
“Many nongovernmental agencies have tried to assist them,” Bledi Valca says, “but their problems, unfortunately, are structural problems (that) require more than just raising awareness.”
For the past three years, the Tirana Church of Christ has reached out to Roma communities in the capital, offering tutoring sessions, Bible classes and youth sports. Valca stresses that he is only a small part of the work.
Lisa Foreman, a member of the Tirana church, leads the initiative, which takes its name, Mission 567, from 1 Peter 5:6-7, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Originally from Detroit, Foreman served as an apprentice to missionary Gary Jackson through Adventures in Missions, a ministry of Texas-based Sunset International Bible Institute, from 1986 to 1988 in Belgrade, then capital of communist Yugoslavia. She felt compassion for the Roma communities she encountered there. “All these years since, it felt like I had unfinished business to do,” she said.
Last November, the church expanded the outreach to Fushë Krujë, a town with a large Roma population. Church members rented a facility to offer Bible classes and schoolwork help on Saturdays and church services on Sunday evenings.
Soon, it’s time to leave the George W. Bush Bar for that service. Valca pulls his car up to the entrance, and his boys hop in. A woman appears at the window, asking for money.
“Is she Roma?” the reporter asks.
“Yes,” Valca says.
‘I’ve discovered who they truly are …’
Children wait as Valca parks on the gravel road by the church’s meeting place. Across the alley, scarves and towels hang on a clothesline against a brick wall. Nearby, a group of black-clad Roma women sit in a circle of worn dining room chairs.
The children rush into the building and watch, fascinated, as Kela Rama pours wine into tiny communion cups. Then a tall, slender African in a T-shirt that reads “Harding Track & Field” walks into the room, greeting them with hugs and high-fives.
Yves Bilong, originally from Cameroon, lives in northwest France and is about to begin his senior year at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. A track scholarship brought him to the school, which is associated with Churches of Christ. Baptized in Searcy, he learned about a summer internship with the Tirana church through Jackson, the former missionary who now teaches in Harding’s College of Bible and Ministry.
“I know that this might not be the easiest population to reach,” Bilong says of the Roma, “and this actually motivated me more.”
His fellow Europeans often “see them as marginals, outside of society,” he says. “Here, I’ve discovered who they truly are — not from a distance but from a very close viewpoint. With the kids, and even with the adults, we’ve had great conversations. Some of them have a very good perspective about life.
“The only difference between them and us Christians is that they don’t know about God.”
‘Whoever is not against us …’
A child crawls into Bilong’s lap as the service begins.
Arjan Muca, a member of the Tirana church, leads an Albanian-language hymn, “Ti Krijove Universin” (“You Created the Universe”), and the children sing along — loudly.
Another Tirana church member, David Xhaferaj, preaches from Mark 9, when Jesus’ apostles see a man driving out demons in Jesus’ name, and one apostle, John, tells him to stop “because he was not one of us.” Jesus corrects John, saying “whoever is not against us is for us.”
For many of the Roma kids, church is a new experience. A few wander in and out of the building during the service. Others walk by on the gravel road, glancing curiously inside.
The younger children gather in a back room, where Selin Dragoti teaches them from Luke 7. A Roman centurion — a Gentile, an outsider — approaches Jesus and asks him to heal his servant, believing that Jesus can do so even from a distance. Jesus responds, “I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”
Dragoti, 20, was baptized two years ago in her hometown of Berat, Albania. She came to this part of the country for university. She loves working with the Roma children, who pay attention and answer her questions after the lesson.
“They say that Jesus is our Savior, Jesus is our God,” Dragoti says. “Jesus can help us.”
Love and basketball
In addition to serving the Roma, the Sunday night service gives young Christians like Bilong and Dragoti the chance to put their faith into practice, Bledi Valca says.
His son, Lemuel, age 16, leads singing and preaches on occasion.
At first he was a bit nervous about sharing his faith with a different culture, Lemuel says. But he soon discovered that he and the Roma children speak the same language — football (or, to Americans, soccer). Lemuel and several of the kids have bonded over their love of the sport and have asked him to teach them basketball, which Lemuel plays as part of a national youth league.
Churches of Christ in Albania sponsor their own basketball league, Rebound. The Tirana team is about half Roma. They named themselves “Wings of Eagles” after Isaiah 40:31. Fushë Krujë also has a team, though some of its members joined before learning to dribble. They dubbed themselves “The Sons of Thunder,” the nicknames of apostles James and John in Mark 3:17.
Near the church’s meeting place in Fushë Krujë, Christians installed a basketball hoop so the kids could practice, though a neighbor who thinks the gave have been getting too competitive deliberately parks her car under the goal.
Worse or better?
After the service, Lemuel and Liam Valca kick a soccer ball with two of the Roma kids on the gravel street. Bilong picks up a badminton racket and hits a shuttlecock to one of the teens. Dragoti talks to a couple of girls on the porch.
Just a few feet away, a group of Roma men smoke at a bar that adjoins the church’s rented facility. As the men watch the children play with the Christians, a woman serves them drinks. Her T-shirt reads, in English, “Don’t worry, things are going to get a lot worse.”
The church has reached out to its next-door neighbors, Bledi Valca says. So far, interest and interaction with the bar patrons have been minimal.
But things in Fushë Krujë — a city once defended by an Albanian hero and lauded by a U.S. president, yet home to those on the margins of society — are getting better, Lemuel Valca says. He sees evidence of growing trust among the Roma — that the church is in their community for good.
When he preached a couple of Sundays ago, “I was very encouraged by the words that one of the teenage guys said,” Lemuel recalls. “When another kid urged him to leave the service to play football, he said, ‘I’m here to listen carefully because my friend is speaking.’”
This article was originally published by The Christian Chronicle.
Erik Tryggestad is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.