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Our Trip to Albania!

Melanie —  March 7, 2024

Wow, we are so very grateful to the Lord for allowing us the privilege of serving him in Albania.  Last summer, some of the church leaders in the area invited Peter to come back and teach them again.  We decided to go all together as a family which was such a joy!  For me (Melanie), it was such a healthy step – getting out of my comfort zone, trusting God with fears and unknowns and actually putting my passion for missions into action.  For many years, my heart has been to spread the gospel to the nations which is of course what we’ve been doing here in the United Kingdom and beyond.  But Peter has mostly been the one doing the foreign trips and the upfront ministry. I’ve always believed that we are a team and I am just as much a part of the ministry as he is, even if I was holding down the fort at home, taking care of our growing family.  But it was a special joy for me to be able to join him and serve alongside him this time in a cross-cultural setting.  Perhaps it’s the beginning of a new season for our family as none of our children are tiny now, and they are gradually but steadily flying the nest. It’s always been our vision to serve as a family and be willing to go wherever God sends us.

Albania is an incredibly needy nation – both materially and spiritually.  About half the population are Muslim and half are Orthodox, though most people do not practice their religion.  Still, people consider their religion as part of their identity and are often not open to anything different. The church is very small and lacks resources (money and leaders and training).  There are many, many towns and villages without any evangelical witness and even where there are churches, they are struggling and often without leadership.

Our church, Trinity Chippenham, has started partnering with The Way of Peace church in the town of Lushnje that is led by Pastor Berti (you can read his amazing story in the book God’s Secret Listener).  We sent a team last year to help support them in their outreach in a small village and we’ll send another one this coming August, Lord willing. So one of our goals in this trip was to continue to strengthen the relationship between the churches and do what we could to bless them and especially, pour into the leaders.  There is a wonderful Ukranian missionary family (the L’s) who serve alongside Berti and his wife Tana so another of our goals was also to spend time with them and encourage them.

Here are some highlights and answered prayers from our time in Albania:

  1. Small (but big!) thing . . . I am so thankful that I had no migraines on this trip and our family stayed healthy! (Peter and the kids had colds and coughs right up until we left.)
  2. Peter found real joy in preaching in a prison (a very rough place) and meeting some Christian prisoners who were full of Jesus and actively sharing him with others.  One man’s story in particular was incredibly moving. He is in prison basically for life but says he actually doesn’t want to leave because he feels that is his mission field.
  3. We were delighted that our dear friend, Arber and his wife, Sara, surprised us and drove from another city to meet with us. Arber became a Christian himself in prison and is now in full time prison ministry. Their enthusiasm for the Lord and desire to start up a transitional house for released prisoners was so exciting.
  4. Peter was asked to do 2 seminars for church leaders and their wives on the topic of what is the church and how to encourage people to attend and value the fellowship of believers.  I shared with the wives and encouraged them from Matthew 6 that even though their service for the Lord may be hidden, the Lord sees it and he will reward them.  He also preached in 3 churches (Psalm 17 and Matthew 8) and I gave my testimony in 2 of them.  Again, a joy to see hungry hearts and be able to encourage these precious believers. I personally felt like the Lord helped me to trust him with the public speaking (not something I love).
  5. Peter and I were able to go into the school connected with the Way of Peace church and do conversational English with the children.  It was really fun! We got to go to six classes in 3 hours.  The school is an outreach to the community and doing a wonderful work.
  6. We and (especially) our children spent a lot of time with the L family and forged (or deepened) their friendships with their children.  This family is so full of Jesus and his love and we loved every minute we got to spend with them.  Their single-minded hearts to serve the Lord, live simply and persevere in planting seeds in the hard soil of Albania was inspiring to us.  They were so gracious to us and fed us many delicious meals! Time with this family was a huge highlight for us.
  7. It was also so encouraging to spend time with S, the pastor of the Mosaic Church in Lushnje.  He is full of energy and passion to share the gospel, especially among the outcasts and marginalised people of the city. The love and warmth in his church was tangible and the church is doing a wonderful work.
  8. The last night we were there, Berti and Tana invited us over to their house.  It was a wonderful evening and Pastor Berti shared with us about some of the challenges they face every day in ministry and the needs for church leaders. He also shared about some of the development projects they are faithfully working to implement in the village which is very impoverished.  I feel more determined than ever to continue to support them and the L family. They are faithful, hard-working servants of Jesus in a spiritually dark place. I have so much respect and love for them. We can put you in touch with them if you’d like to support what they are doing financially.
  9. Everyone we met was so generous and kind to us! We also very much enjoyed the Albanian food we were served.  The olives and goat/sheep cheese were amazing.  My family enjoyed the byrek (Lushnje is famous for this national favourite food – pastry with cheese or meat or spinach) and the dried fruits, fig jam, olive oil – everything is fresh and delicious.

Finally, for some photos:

Us with Sara and Arber

 

Speaking in the Way of Peace church

 

Giving my testimony . . .

 

Some of the believers from the Way of Peace church.

 

One of the seminars . . .

 

 

Joel, talking with a man at Mosaic Church. He’s been learning Albanian as his language in school this year so this trip was a great chance to practice!

 

Peter speaking at Mosaic church. I noticed the woman in front of me recorded his whole service in sections and was sending it to someone on WhatsApp!

 

Bitaj village church . . .

 

This church is almost all women. The men seem to have a barrier in coming to church or even showing any kind of interest in the gospel. Please pray for many men to be saved and added to this little church.

 

Kaylah and Jessah with some of the Bitaj girls. Kaylah was delighted to reconnect with a few of them that she met last summer.

 

And some of the village ladies.

 

Speaking English with the students in the school.

 

The first couple of days we were there, the weather was lovely and we went to a few beautiful places. I just drank in all the views of real mountains, like we have back in the Pacific NW in the USA.

 

We visited an old castle in the town of Berat which is more than 2,000 years old!

 

Berat is called the city of 10,000 windows.

 

We also had a walk in a resort area (Albania is really building its tourist industry) which in February was almost completely deserted and . . . brrrrr. . . very cold!

 

God blessed us with a beautiful sunset!

 

Here we are on our last night with the L family and Pastor Berti and Tana. They were so gracious and hospitable to us. We love their hearts for Jesus!

 

Mrs. L and me. The photo at the top of this post is us with their family after we did a globe puzzle together. Spot the “pray for the world” pose of people’s hands!

 

Please pray for Albania!l Pray for more workers – especially Albanian leaders and missionaries who are willing and able to serve in the smaller cities and villages. Pray for the Lord to shine the light of the gospel into hearts and open blind eyes to see his love and truth.  And pray for Trinity Chippenham as we send another team this summer and seek to keep supporting what God is doing in Lushnje and beyond!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Family News, Ministry Report, Pictures
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Christmas fun and the start of 2024

Melanie —  February 11, 2024

We are happy to share a little update with you from the past few months!  December feels a long time ago now.  We had a special month. With Aliyah home, we were all together as a family.  These days are times to treasure!

 

Sisters!

 

Aliyah came with the younger girls and I to a homeschool Christmas event at a Zoo Farm. We had such a sweet time together.

 

A big focus of the month was our church’s Nativity musical outreach. There were 3 performances over two days and we rejoice that the gospel was so clearly shared!

 

It involved a huge number of our church family and was truly amazing! We had many people attend who did not know Jesus. We pray that the Spirit will continue to remind them of the message they heard. 

 

Peter and Joel were Roman soldiers! They stayed in character as they welcomed people into the building – I think they scared a few people!

 

Mariah was Mary and did a wonderful job acting and singing.

 

Jessah was a villager child and in another scene she was a crazy runaway sheep!

 

Hannah was a villager and in another scene, a wise woman!

 

Kaylah had an important behind the scenes role – controlling all the recorded audios (sound effects, music, etc). I got to watch all three performances and I was so moved every time.  Of course I was really proud of my family but actually my heart was so warmed to see so many of our church family playing their roles too. We had young kids controlling spotlights (under adult supervision), an advertising/social media team, musicians performing live music, a catering team, a backstage team helping the actors with timings, make-up, props, etc. and more! It was so beautiful to see all the parts of the body of Christ working together to do something to share Jesus with our community.  We pray for much fruit!

 

Christmas was extra special as it was the first one with Noah and Hannah with us as a married couple!

 

As is our tradition, we had Grandpa and Grandma Mead join us for Christmas afternoon and evening dinner.

 

In early January, Mariah went to Albania to help a dear Ukranian missionary friend who was having a baby. She thoroughly enjoyed her time there!

 

The boys of her family became like brothers to her.

 

The same day Mariah left, Aliyah left for Canada to visit her boyfriend, Michael and then went back to Moody for the new semester. She seems to be thriving there in her classes and many ministry opportunities.  Hannah and Noah left for the USA at the end of January in order to re-apply for his UK visa.  We are thanking God that the first appointment he needed came through very quickly and the visa in now in process.  Hannah is working remotely at the moment, but will need to return to the UK for work in mid-Marc.h We are asking God for a super speedy visa approval process for Noah so they can be apart as little as possible.  We miss them but we are so happy they are getting this time with Noah’s family – an unplanned visit but we hope a blessed one.

 

Before they left, Hannah gifted Kaylah with an early birthday present – a second-hand but very nice camera that had belonged to her. Kaylah was thrilled!

 

Thank you for praying for our family!  We’ll be sending out an email update shortly that will have more ministry news.  We are thankful to be a team with you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Albania Trip Update

Peter —  November 8, 2023

Albania – Looking Back!

This is a long overdue report of our trip to Albania in August!  It was really exciting to send a missions team for the first time as a new church.  We’ve sent individuals before, but this August we sent a team of 12 from Trinity Chippenham to serve in Albania.  That team included five Meads, which made it special for us as a family.

Our team, plus some of the local workers

We were based in the town of Lushnje, supporting a small local church there that has planted a church in a nearby village.  Despite being small themselves, they have a desire to plant a church in each of the 100 unreached villages in the area! Their passion is such a challenge and inspiration to us.  We spent 10 days working alongside the local believers.  This included five days of children’s outreach in the village, five church services in three churches (preaching, testimony, music, etc.), and several seminars for church leaders and the ladies of the Lushnje church.

I, Peter, enjoyed being on a missions team like this again.  I did quite a number of trips like this before we got married.  This time I experienced the strange combination of various worlds.  There was the world of ministry in a foreign setting which included preaching with minimal warning, through a translator, sometimes uncertain of details like expected timing, etc.  There was the world of a missions team with all the blessings and challenges that come from being involved in the leadership of a team doing ministry (actually, I was just supporting Aliyah who was the team leader and did a great job!).  There was the world of being a Dad, with four of my six children on the team.  And there was the world of being a church elder, shepherding the team from Trinity Chippenham.  It was a fun collision of worlds!  I found it stretching in some ways, but hugely encouraging in so many ways.

Here are some reflections from our children.  While I (Peter) had visited briefly in April to set up the trip, the three older Meadlings were returning as they had been on the OM team last year.  Here are some of their reflections:

Joel: “The Albania trip was a huge encouragement. I had been to the same town and village the year before, so to go again and reconnect with so many of the same people was very exciting. It was a blessing to see the perseverance the local church has in spreading the gospel to the surrounding area despite setbacks and difficulties. It’s exciting to see the way God is working in that part of the world.”  (Note: Joel is the shark in the picture with the children of Bitaj!)

Aliyah: “I was so encouraged to go back to the same village and see one of the girls who had become a Christian the last time still following the Lord. She excitedly told me how she has been reading her Bible and coming to church with her mom, and the fruit of the Spirit was evident as I spent time with her throughout the week. Saying goodbye to her was really hard knowing that she doesn’t have older girls to look up to or to disciple her in daily life. That spurred me on to keep heading in the direction of discipling where there is great need!”

Mariah: “Returning to Albania to love and serve the people there was such a great experience. Their love and devotion for the Lord was beautiful to see and through it I was able to know God’s heart for his people in a deeper way.”

We also had Kaylah with us.  As one of three under-18s on the team, Kaylah did great! She was able to share her testimony during the children’s program, and she eagerly jumped into serving each day in various ways.  Kaylah says, “I really enjoyed my first mission trip and I can’t wait to go back! It was wonderful to worship together with the Albanians at the churches we went to.  The Lord helped me in many moments when I had to step out of my comfort zone, including when I shared my testimony through translation and also trying to communicate with people each day through the language barrier.”

We are so thankful that we were able to help with evangelism and building up the church and its leadership. The Albanian church is tiny and lacks resources so it was such a privilege to come alongside them. We were also able to encourage a wonderful Ukrainian family who are serving as missionaries in Albania.  If you prayed for us in this project, thank you so much!

We were sad to leave Albania!

Albania – Looking Forward!

The believers there were eager for us to return, and we want to keep building the connection. We don’t want to just dip in and out of this mission field.  We have such a passion for building relationships and hopefully having a deeper impact as a result.  So, we have some follow-up plans!

Mariah is planning to visit the Ukrainian missionary family in January for almost three weeks.  They are having a baby and she is going to support them at this important time.

Peter was invited to return and offer some training for the local church leaders.  We are planning to go as a family (6 of us) for five days in February.  Peter will run a seminar for local church leaders, and preach in the three churches that we visited this summer.  As a family, we hope to continue to build relationships with the precious brothers and sisters in these churches and let God use us in whatever way he sees fit!  We are excited to bring Melanie and Jessah along for the first time.

And . . . .Trinity Chippenham is making plans for another team to visit Lushnje in the summer of 2024!  More information to follow, but please pray for us as we make these plans.  If you would like to get involved in praying for our family’s trips or the summer team from Trinity Chippenham, please do let us know.

Albania is largely unreached (0.5% evangelical) and we are thrilled to be able to join in with what God is doing to build his church there!  His heart is for every person on this planet to hear about his love and we want to have that heart too.

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