Street Outreach: Albania

Country Profile

Street Outreach

Albania | OM International

Connecting people with the Gospel on the streets is challenging anywhere, but especially in cultures like Albania, where friendships and relationships dictate how people perceive each other and even how the Gospel is received. As a result, local believers and foreign workers tend to focus on reaching out to friends – so going on the streets to tell complete strangers about Jesus goes against the grain. But then two teams arrived in Lushnje this summer from USA and South Korea, with street outreach programmes! Nothing like this had been tried for at least 10 years…

Jim (OM Albania) takes up the story:

“We prayed that the Lord would give the Albanian believers (and us) strength and courage and for the Holy Spirit to pave the way! From the very first night, God was moving. To get people’s attention, we set up a portable sound system at a park in the centre of town to play music, plus a table on the side prepared for kids’ face painting. Next came live music with a guitar and djembe followed by dramas, a testimony and preaching. By the end of our "set" that first evening there were a couple hundred people watching, and many great one-on-one conversations were had. On following nights, other teams displayed talents such as animal balloons, interpretive dancing and Tae Kwon Do, with similar crowds gathering each time. The result of those events was more than we could have asked for! The Albanian host church working with these teams had only around 30 believers before, but now10-15 new believers faithfully attend worship regularly! And we believe that the local Christians have been encouraged to know that God works in many different ways, transcending even our own culture. We’ve all been reminded not to limit God, but to be sensitive to the moving of His Spirit.”