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Short-Term Missions: Albania and Romania 2018, by Pastor Charlie Handren

By Anonymous
     Last week, I wrote about the vision for global missions at GCF and toward the end I mentioned that we sometimes partner with our global partners by sending small, short-term teams to encourage them, pray with them, and serve alongside them in a variety of ways. For several years, we’ve wanted to send a small team to Albania to encourage and work alongside our partners there, Amos and Meredith Anderson. The Andersons have been working to plant churches in that needy country, first in Korche and now in the capital city of Tirana.

     Accordingly, I reached out to the Andersons last summer and asked if it would bless and help them to have a team from GCF visit for about a week in June of 2018. At the time, Amos thought it would, however, as their spring and summer plans solidified, it became clear to them that they would be better served by a shorter visit by a very small team of two or three.
     When offering to visit with our global partners, our primary goal is to glorify Christ by serving them well. Often, the things we think will serve them actually bring a lot of stress upon them, and so we go out of our way to communicate our hearts desire and then we follow their lead when making our plans. Therefore, when the Andersons expressed their desire to change the original plan, our immediate response was to affirm their wisdom and follow their lead.
     So, here’s the plan. By the grace of God, Ethan Larson and I are planning to travel to Sighet, Romania with Training Leaders International to continue training pastors there in the interpretation and proclamation of the Bible. Specifically, we’ll be using the Old Testament books of Ruth and Jonah to demonstrate how to rightly handle the Word of God in all its parts. We are scheduled to arrive in Sighet on June 3, teach from June 4-8, preach in several churches on June 10, and then return home June 11.
     Since we’ll be in the neighborhood, we plan to travel to Tirana, Albania on May 30 and then continue on to Romania on June 3. This will allow us to spend two full-days with the Andersons, seeing their ministry context, praying with and encouraging them, and learning ways we can support them in prayer and otherwise. 
     In the coming months, we’ll have more to say about the trip but for now let me call you to prayer for the short-term ministries of GCF, the Andersons, the pastors of Romania, and Training Leaders International, and Ethan and I. May the Lord hear and answer the cry of our hearts! 

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