Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Report from Albania.

[0:02] It’s great to be here, especially after the lovely lunch that we had.

To be thankful to the Lord, but even to the sisters who had prepared, and we feel thankful, about it.

Now if you want to, the lights are dimmed, and so if you want to follow with closed eyes, I don’t have any problem.

I fully understand that. So, we can turn to the scripture.

1 Corinthians chapter nine, or you have the verse on the screen.

1 Corinthians chapter nine.

[0:50] Verse 22.

For sake of time, we can’t read all the passage, But verse 22, Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and he said, “‘To the weak became I as weak, that I may gain the weak.

I made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.'” I’ve made my things, Paul says, myself, all things to all men, that I may save some.

I’m going to speak about the work of the Lord in Albania. My report is going to, you’ll see, in just three parts, some just general information about the country, some information about the assemblies there, and then our ministry and where we fit with the wider view.

So where is Albania? in the Bible Romans 15 Paul says I went preaching from Jerusalem unto Illyricum. So that Illyricum is Albania of today is in southeast of of Europe right you are you’re here somewhere And we are just on the other side.

So.

[2:11] It’s just next to Greece, maybe you have heard, or Italy. It’s a small country, it’s relatively small, so this is our map. Its population is 3 million. Now, it will be 3 million Albanians speaking in Albania within our borders, but there are up to 6 or 7 million of Albanians speaking, in the region, in the Balkan region. So, there are 2 million that they speak in Kosovo.

They speak the same language. There’ll be almost a million in Greece.

There’ll be good numbers in Macedonia, or Republic North Macedonia now, and Montenegro as well.

So, and the Balkan region, which is the third peninsula in Europe.

[2:57] There’ll be, I said, up to seven million speaking Albanian.

So the language is Albanian, religious by tradition.

Now it’s a Muslim country, has been, we used to, or the Ottomans, Ottoman Empire came, the country used to be nominal Christian, so Catholic and Orthodox, but after five centuries, you have 70% of Islam, so it’s an Islamic country.

And Albanian Orthodox has 20%, and then Roman Catholic, 10%.

That’s to have a general about the demographics and religion.

So capital Tirana approximately is a million.

Now, as you saw on the title of my presentation, it says, Albania, new work, new challenges, new opportunities.

[3:51] And this is a big challenge. You have a country of 3 million, a million lives in a capital.

So a third of a country is in Tirana, the capital.

And that is a big challenge, especially for people who have moved from north and south, east and west, who have come there.

They’ll come from small places, small villages, obviously for a better life.

Or they will come as students and at university in Tirana and they will stay there.

So it’s a big challenge to them in a way. Why is that? Because when you come from your own town or from your own city, everybody knows you.

You come in Tirana, you lose your identity.

[4:36] And that is in a way a big challenge. But we as Christians have to get that challenge and make it as opportunity.

When we talk of the challenges, we have to be fully aware. The challenge is a relatively new word.

The use of it came from this land, from America.

In Europe, people, or everywhere, people used to talk of problems.

See, nowadays, you don’t talk anymore of problems, you talk of challenges.

Have you ever thought what is the difference between a challenge and a problem?

Now, a problem is there, and you say, I have a problem.

A challenge is there, and the question that comes into your mind is, how I can get over it?

A problem is a wall, and you say, the wall is there, I cannot move it.

I can’t do anything, I feel helpless.

The challenge is, how can I get the other side?

[5:31] And as we all live our Christian lives, we have to see our problems as challenges.

How are we gonna get on the other side?

Now, there were three, again, three brothers, and they were going to hunt for wolves, because the fur of the, you know, the skin of the wolves is going quite expensive.

So they went there nighttime with their guns ready to hunt for wolves.

[6:06] The night came, they all fell asleep. And here in the middle of the night, the youngest brother woke up and woke the other.

He says, Do you see we are circled about… there are loads of wolves around us. Keep quiet.

But he woken up the other brother. He says, wake up, we are rich now.

[6:32] Obviously they were hunting wolves and they got the wolves. And that’s the difference between a challenge and a problem.

A big challenge in Tirana, a million of population there, is a crowded city, but that is a good opportunity to share the gospel.

As they come, as I said, with no identity anymore, you are no one in Tirana, in this big city.

You don’t have friends, you can make friends.

And Christians are there to make them friends, to befriend them, and to invite them into gospel meetings, and to share the gospel with them. So, I go on.

Tirana is a country of contrast. Albania is a country of contrast.

When I think of Albania, you might think it’s a poor country.

It is a poor country.

It’s a country, or they call it today, like a country in development.

It’s a poor country, but it’s a country of contrast. You hear of reports, a poor country, not everywhere is poor. Here we go, two pictures.

First picture, you can see here, a Merc. People love massive cars out there, And then you see a public transport donkey.

And then another picture shows a big contrast.

Now, when I show this picture, people think that contrast is the big mama and the thin lady. No, it’s not that.

[7:50] A contrast is, you see where these people live, and then that’s the town, the city.

So it’s a country of contrast.

How the assemblies have started, yes, there is always another side, that’s a beautiful north.

That’s Sais, and that’s Tirana, and that’s our beautiful Sais again.

So it’s a beautiful country.

Tourism, tourism is coming over there. We have actually this year was the best ever that we had.

So it’s a nice country.

[8:26] Remember why I spoke of Barnabas, that he went and took Saul, right?

So young guys, I can come and I can recruit you.

So be aware of it.

So, right, work of the assemblies in Albania have started in 1991.

Nah, before that, there was nothing.

When we say nothing, there was nothing.

Remember, you have read in Matthew, the people which sought in darkness, they saw a great light.

And that was Albania.

After the Second World War, in Albania was established one of the fiercest regimes ever we saw, right?

You have heard maybe of reports on Romania of Ceausescu or, I don’t know, Soviet Union of Stalin and persecuted church and all that.

There is no persecution of church in Albania, because there’s no church at all.

[9:31] For 50 years, more than one generation, the communists established a very hard core communism in the country.

They wiped out everything that was there.

[9:46] And the young guys, you that I see, the privilege that you have to be grown up in a Christian family, We don’t realize that. I didn’t have that. Anyway, in 1976, the government had a new constitution, and it was a specific article saying that we don’t have any religion we do not believe, and atheism is our official ideology.

The first country in the world atheist by constitution.

A total darkness. I’ve been raised in an average Albanian family.

I have to come tomorrow to hear that.

But in my childhood, I never heard the name of God.

God didn’t exist, you go to school and all that. No, it’s all myths.

Anyway, and that was Albania. In 1991, the light of the gospel came into my country.

And that was this man who came from Italy.

They were praying for Albania for so many years. Albania was such an isolated, and then democracy came, open up.

[11:12] They came with a team of 10 people, only 10 people. They didn’t know any language, they didn’t know anything.

And then they established themselves in Tirana, the capital.

[11:25] When you speak of the Lord’s work in Albania, you have to speak of the Lord’s work in Italy, actually.

Because in March of that year, there were Albanians who left Albania, went to Italy, migrating by boats.

And then the assemblies there welcomed them, giving them shelter, shared the gospel with them.

And then when Albania opened up in November, they came to visit the families of those immigrants and refugees that they give shelter.

So they had open homes everywhere.

And the testimony started slowly, slowly in the main cities in Tirana, in the center, You can see, and from Tirana, and Vlora, and from Tirana, and Skoda, from Skoda to Al-Basan.

And this is how everything started. Remember now, you all remember the strawberries?

Here’s some strawberries now.

[12:22] There are today 15 assemblies and testimony. By testimony, I mean a place where they don’t break bread, it’s not assembly, but they still can have the preaching of the Gospels.

And this is the situation today. People would start in darkness, total darkness, but they saw a great light of the Gospels.

The Lord’s people is there. So this is our family. Actually we have the up-to-date photography.

So this is our family. We all know now.

Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16.

Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16.

Oops, went too far. Benjamin and then Esther. So, as you might gather, my accent is a bit different.

Luke is 16. Luke is 16.

[13:08] I’m, you know, it’s similar to the Hamiltons, and that is because my wife is from Northern Ireland.

I moved to Northern Ireland in 2004, and I stayed there for some time.

As I said, I was involved in the assemblies in Albania, I saw them, loads of assemblies starting up and growing, and then we met with Sylvia and moved to Northern Ireland.

When I moved to Northern Ireland, I have to say that everything is nice there.

You know, you have a nice house, you have a nice assembly, have a nice job, and everything is nice, but the weather.

But you can cope with it anyway.

And as we were there, you know, trying to do our best for the kingdom and in our local assembly, a burden came to our hearts.

Sylvia was very still, it’s a mission-minded, she has been to Zambia, to Africa more than once.

And so we were praying, and as we were praying where the Lord wanted us, and a burden came to our hearts.

When Nehemiah, when he was in exile, now, in exile in Babylon wasn’t like slavery in Egypt.

[14:32] They’re well off. Daniel, civil servant, Nehemiah, civil servant, and all that.

But there was one day when the king, emperor, asked Nehemiah, he said, why your face is sad, Nehemiah?

And Nehemiah said.

[14:50] How my face cannot be sad if I see my people in distress, and I see the gates of Jerusalem in ruin.

So, and that was the burden that the Lord put in our hearts, and that is in 2008.

And as we were praying, and I want to make a long story short, as we were praying, we shared this burden with our elders.

And we said we feel that the Lord wants us to go back to Albania.

And there they were more than happy to commend us to the work of the Lord.

And that is October 2008.

Luke was two and a half. Benjamin was just a few months old.

And then we went back to Albania.

And they said they were more than happy to commend us.

Maybe they wanted to get rid of us.

Anyway, so what is our ministry? Teaching, preaching and training ministry.

Now a big challenge over there is everything is new.

I’ve been to Northern Ireland and I’ve been so much encouraged by the elderly brothers and sisters.

You see in Albania you don’t have that. You don’t have a 60 years old or 70 years old or 80 years old Christian.

[16:11] Everything is brand new. And I remember coming back, you know, and the dual carriageway from a Bushmill Bible reading.

And as we were flying on that dual carriageway, we overtook a brother.

He was maybe 80, and his little car, you know, going back to Belfast.

And it dawned on me, I said, if God has been faithful to him for so many years, the same God will be faithful to me.

[16:42] And if he has been faithful to his God for so many years, that means I can be faithful to God, same as him.

And as I said, it’s a big challenge to him.

Oh, everything new.

Why is that? Because people are not used, everything is new.

You have to translate the hymns.

You have to, you know, when I got saved 30 years ago, there was no Bible, there was just a New Testament.

Everything started by scratch.

And that, as I said, is a big challenge. You don’t have, you know, brethren that you can call them and say, Listen, what about the Ezekiel 37 and Ezekiel 38, is it?

[17:27] No, you have to do it yourself. You have to go to the scripture and read it on your own and find it out.

[17:35] And that is as a teaching and preaching and training ministry. So as you can see here, this is not an assembly gathering. This is on Saturday morning when we do Bible classes, when we gather the young people and others and we open the scripture and we go same as in a class or here with nurses.

Sylvia, she is involved in a Christian clinic and what they do, they organize seminar for the nurses, you know, on a medical basis.

But every time that they are there will be a section, one will be the preaching of the gospel.

And that’s me there. Now, because of COVID, we have learned Zoom.

Everybody’s learned them. Everybody has learned to go online and all that.

So we’re developing a website, and Moodle, for those who are in education might know what Moodle is.

And then we are trying to put a Bible lesson structured so people can go there, can learn there about the Bible, New Testament, Old Testament, and all that.

So teaching and preaching ministry takes a lot of our time. And then publishing ministry.

I’ve started to publish the Emmaus courses.

[19:01] I would encourage the young guys to do them. I’ve done in 1991, 1992 from Italian, What the Bible teaches was eye-opening to me.

[19:11] You know, and I started to do them in Albanian, translating them and printing them.

That’s before I moved for Ireland. And then when I moved in 2008, we’re doing some outreach, but we realized that there was no many leaflets.

So we started to do leaflets. There’s no proper bookshop. There’s just one, actually, we can go, but there’s no, a lot of materials.

So we started to do, to write leaflets and to print them, hundreds, thousands of them.

And now this is the latest one, as you can see, it’s COVID-19.

Calendars, calendars, we started to do them for, it’s 15 years now, we’ve printed to the country and hundreds and thousands of them.

As Paul says, by all means, by all means, as we give out calendars, not only in Tirana, but we give calendars to other assemblies around the country.

There are people who are asking, and you get, because we put a phone number, We put a contact detail.

There are people who ask questions.

And it’s quite good to see that people read not only the calendars, because especially the latest years, we have done some more interactive calendar with a question there, with a short story or so.

And then we started to do books.

Now, I like books.

[20:31] And as I like books, because I can read them in English or Italian or other language.

And then you say, I love this, so people can have that, can read that.

And then another thing, another question is the question of legacy.

If the Lord does not come for a hundred years or so, nobody will be here.

What is the legacy? we have left.

The brother talk of a library, 1800 writings.

[21:03] Although we have them in Albanian. So we started to do books, and slowly, slowly.

[21:09] That is our books that we have done so far.

And as you can see, you can, this is David Gooding’s, and this is John Lennox, Determined to Believe, and this is If You Want to Go Far, or From Now On, Ralph Charles, from assemblies in France, and so on.

So books are a good legacy.

And as I said, we’re trying to do the translation as a very long process.

I don’t translate personally, I do the copy editing. So I get the material and then you go, almost paragraph for paragraph, word by word to see the accuracy of translation.

And then after that, you read it again for a second time, full book, to see how the thought is flowing, if it makes sense in Albanian.

And then again you print it, for a third time you read it again.

And to see maybe grammar mistakes and so on.

And then came the laity.

So a part of the translation, these other processes, I do them personally.

So publishing ministry, we have three books, Israel and the Church, a very good book, Ronde prose, he was from New Zealand, he’s with the Lord now, he’s a missionary in Italy, and it’s a very good book between, tells of the difference between Israel and the Church.

Can we trust the Gospels?

[22:37] It’s a very, very good book. Again, the challenge that we have there, in Albina we are like a sandwich between Islam and Atheism.

[22:48] So, can you trust the gospels, answer to both, to Islam and to atheists as well.

And then the later one was almost done, has to do with eschatology.

So it’s the first book of that kind in Albania, I’m quite excited, and soon we’ll have it to print. So I have to go on.

A Bible exhibition, I like, I love history.

And as I love history, I want the people to know that our faith is based on historical facts.

So, the idea of it started when I was in the book fair. I’m going to mention book fair again, but just this is a Gutenberg press replica and it works.

You see, I’m showing them, I just printed here and just showing them John 3, 16.

Try this, you know how you print?

You go to file, you go to print, and you print.

[23:49] 500 years ago, it wasn’t like now. So it was quite a complicated process.

But anyway, so, and this became the idea of the Bible Exhibition, to show people how the Bible came.

And again, this are some, this is a Jewish scroll, and there’s some new texts and manuscripts.

Now, there’s nothing original or old replicas, but they work.

So, and then we started to prepare panels, how the scripture came, and this is, the Jews in Egypt, how they’re making bricks and all that.

[24:23] So how does it work? It’s like a small museum. Here’s my van there, and you put them, everything on a whole, a bit like that, like this one here, and then you assemble it, and here it is.

We have almost 40, a bit more than 40 displays, and it takes you, first part is how we have the, how we had the Bible, and then the second will be a longest one, you know, from Genesis to Revelation, and it will be a lot of archeological site pictures, and actually we wrote to museum, British Museum to get some high resolution, of their material as well.

They’re more than happy to send them to us.

So, and what you do, you go to a place, and we hire, you hire a hall, And then you put up the exhibition and you go with the billboards, go on the local radio and you announce it.

And then you have people coming.

[25:22] Now, because of COVID over there, it stopped this last two years.

We didn’t have any of that, but we plan to have soon a Bible exhibition.

So sometimes it can be an event. If you go in a small town, it can be an event.

The mayor will come there and they will have an opening ceremony.

And so it’s a good way to present the gospel, to present the Bible, the scriptures, to people.

So I was in the book fair last November, and there was a young guy who came, and he said, you know, he shook hands with me, and he said, do you remember me?

I said, I’m sorry, I don’t know you.

I’ve been to your Bible exhibition, and that was the first introduction, my introduction, he said, to the Bible. Now, he’s saved, he goes somewhere else, doesn’t matter, by all means, Paul says.

[26:08] ABC Christian Clinic. Now, she’s a doctor, she’s a family doctor, she’s a GP, and then she has a license to practice in the UK, she has a license to practice in Albina. There’s a lot of bureaucracy to get that license, but anyway, so this is how they start their day. So all staff is Christians, and then they are there to serve people and to show the love of God. And they do a lot of training as well for young doctors, young nurses, and that is a great opportunity. As I mentioned before that.

[26:40] Lot of them have come to the knowledge of truth through those seminars. We had a girl in our assembly and then as she came to one of them, she was from a nursing faculty and then she was listening and she asked the question, I never heard this, how do you get saved? And then she, got saved, baptized, and fellowshiped in our assembly. So please pray for the ABC clinic, that’s during COVID, as you can see, and that’s the star. And I have to run. What’s the children’s home in Jurocastro. Now our God is the father of the fatherless. This ministry has started more than 25 years ago by a sister commanded by the Dutch assemblies. She came in Albania.

Whoever you are, if you are motivated to serve the Lord, brother or sister, you can be used mightily by a great God. She came on her own, commanded, the elders commanded her, they didn’t know much, you know, how she was going. Today there is a well-established ministry, 15 children, 13 at the moment, but full capacity, almost.

And we have them, there is.

[28:08] Let me show you, here it is, it’s a home, it’s not an institution, it’s not an orphanage. It’s a home.

When they do homework, when they play together, it’s just a lovely environment.

So please remember that the children’s home.

I’m one of the trustees and I’m actively involved. I go there, visit them, not only to see the well-being of the children, but everything that has to do with legalities and with the staff and all that.

So please remember Children’s Home in Jiricaster.

[28:39] And then as the new outreach, the last but not the least, this is into my heart, right?

In 2009, somebody asked me to take a youth camp, and that was in August of that year.

And here I am, I’m here, you can see more darks here and I’m getting wet.

Anyway, one guy got saved there and it thrilled our hearts and then I said, is there any follow-up?

They said, no, we’ve just moved.

We were in, you know, a year or so, we’re fellowshipping another assembly there, but this was the other side of time.

So at the same time in November, I was at the book fair. The book fairs are a massive family event, it’s usually a third week in November.

And the first time on that book fair, I went in 2008, we were just in the country.

I took my son, Look, and visiting the stalls, as I said, a lot of publishing houses, they’ll bring their books and there’ll be a lot of advertisement and all that, as I said, it’s very family orientated.

And as I was there, I noticed that every other stall

[29:53] A Muslim stall. So I said, right, we have to do something. We have to be here.

And then this is how it started. In November 2009, we were at that big fair.

Here it is, giving out tracts and presenting people with the gospel literature.

And as that developed, we said, why don’t we do something else? A kind of outreach.

Now, people are not churchy there. If you ask somebody, do you want to come to church? No, church doesn’t mean anything to them.

But if you tell them, do you want to come to a conference or do you want to come to a seminar?

And I say, yes, okay, it might come. So the first seminar that we organized was, has man created God or God created man? Because that is a bottom line question.

If God has created us, that means we are responsible, accountable to him. So this is how we started we gained a bit of momentum and the people the young guys they were coming they called themselves explore uh people are great you know are modern english there they want to speak english and everything like that they called expo they said we are here to explore and as we explore we find Christ.

[31:14] EXPLOSION, stand for explosion also, as we have found Christ we want to affect others, that they may come to the same knowledge and that is our motto still is in and out.

[31:33] And as i said we we gain a bit of momentum that time we started to have this kind of seminars and And from every fortnight start, almost every Saturday night, and then we’re having, preparing leaflets and people starting to come.

And we started children’s meeting that time, the same time. And there were four couples, but two couples moved again because they got married, moved to Tirana.

And we were having, as I said, Bible studies together, and we’re having a prayer together, When we’re having fellowship together, you see, something is missing, isn’t it?

And then in May 2011, we said, right, in fellowship with other assemblies in the country, we said we’ll establish ourselves as a new assembly.

We’re only four couples. Out of those four couples, we’re just left two.

Migration is a big challenge, a huge challenge. As a small assembly we have seen couples with children left for abroad, obviously for a better life.

Now we can’t stop that, but we are asking people to think about their dimension in eternity.

[32:54] What is going on? How much am I investing for heaven? How much am I investing for when I’m going to be there on the other side, when I’m going to see my Lord as we read, as we sang together.

So there’s us working as a new assembly. So there’s a tent, Sylvia and the colleagues having a medical tent there, and what is that?

That’s a youth meeting, the teenagers actually, and then this is one of the Christmas dinners before COVID. So please pray for the new assembly. Now last year we celebrated together 10 years, we have retreats, usually happens in September, last year we had it in May. So assembly in lockdown, you are all familiar to that, that Zoom, we discovered Zoom, we never knew Zoom before March 2020 but anyway in the middle of lockdown in the middle of of COVID there are some light there. We had two couples getting married and they, whoops.

[34:08] Here it is. And one of them, they’re taking responsibility with the youth and meeting that we have. So please pray for the for the assembly. Ten years. This is a historical picture, at least for us. One, two, three, four. These couple here, they were not baptized at that time.

Now they’re baptized, but they migrated as well, unfortunately. And ten years after, here we are. We’re almost 30 in fellowship and we’ll have the children and teenagers and all that. Now before I close I’d like to speak of these two very dear to my heart. Now they’re, all dear to my heart and these two in special. In 2007 I was in Albania in Vlor and I was taking, some sort of Easter conference and after one of the sessions somebody came to me and he said, He said, I want to give you, I want to thank you. He said, why?

I said, he said, I want to thank you. I said, don’t think I know you, but he said, I’ve heard you on the radio.

Said, speaking. And because of that, he said, I got saved. He said, praise the Lord.

Now, this guy who got saved in 207 is his cousin, okay?

[35:24] And he shared the gospel with him. That time, he was engaged to her.

Not interested but her.

She started to come to the English classes and then she got saved.

And then after that we are having a dinner with all the couples and they were married that time and then we said, why don’t you come bring your husband and he came for the first time and then later on he got saved.

And they got baptized just three years ago.

And then he spoke to her, who was a sister of him.

And she got saved. You see, when she came for the very first time in our meeting, it was just Sunday morning.

[36:15] And I said, we are not a big crowd, you know. We don’t have this kind of gathering over there.

As she came on the Sunday morning, she thought that we were faking it.

[36:26] Because people are so nice. People are so lovely to each other.

And she said, oh, maybe they are faking it because I am here.

And then after two, three months, she got saved. She got baptized just last December.

By all means, all sense, it can be an English class, it can be a couple’s dinner, it can, be just by visiting the assembly.

So be encouraged.

The Lord wants us to be used and you can be used if you allow yourself to be used.

The last verse I’d like to leave with you is this one here.

Paul says that we may all strive together in prayers for what I will be delivered from, them who do not believe in Judea. We will be delivered from the dangers.

There are a lot of dangers over there.

And then that our ministry may be accepted and that we all may find ourselves in the, will of God. And that’s the most important thing.

Wherever you are, here in the States, back in Albania, in Europe, in Ireland, everywhere, important is that you may be in the will of God.

And that is what we want all to be. Amen.

Filed under: Conf Report, Conferences, nase-enris