Three important events happened 38 years ago today, two of which were to have a huge impact on Captain Berti Dosti.
Firstly, on Wednesday, November 14, 1973, the UK celebrated as HRH Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips, pictured below.
Secondly, it was the day when Sali Rahmani arrived in England after working for the European Christian Mission in Vienna, Austria.
Thirdly and sadly, it was the day Alfred Andoni, who had worked for the BBC World Service and then ECM, died. He had a cataract operation and never woke up after the anaesthetic.
Alfred had been an answer to prayer. When in 1967 Albania declared itself an atheistic country ECM general director, the Rev Stuart Harris, was looking for a way to get the Christian message into the country by radio.
ECM already had a radio studio as they were recording messages for their work in Italy, but he needed someone who could speak Albanian and who lived in England, a tall order in those days.
In July 1968, Stuart heard the BBC was cutting back on its foreign services and was axing a number of jobs, including Alfred Andoni’s job on the Albania desk.
Alfred was Albanian, married to an English woman and lived in London, where he worked part-time for the BBC in their Albanian broadcasts and part-time for British intelligence.
Alfred would write and read news in Albanian for the BBC and listened to all possible broadcasts from Albania to gather whatever information he could about what was going on inside the closed country.
Stuart offered to pay Alfred to translate messages from English into Albanian.
Alfred went to WEC’s Radio Worldwide studios, a Christian radio in south London, to record his messages, which were then sent to Rawtenstall to Heightside’s technical expert who forwarded them to Monte Carlo for Trans World Radio to beam into Albania.
The first time they went to record the programme, the Christians said: “We will start with a prayer.”
“Why,” asked Alfred? The Christians explained they were committing the programmes to God.
Five years later, Alfred asked to meet Stuart in London. When he asked him what the spiritual problem was, Alfred said it was heart and he now wanted to become a believer.
They prayed together and to show how serious Alfred was about becoming a Christian, he said to Stuart afterwards: “I have made a besa” (An Albanian word for a code of honour, which they wouldn’t break).
Alfred was probably the first person converted by the Albanian radio programme, and it was likely the first time a radio presenter had been converted by his own programme.
The radio staff were wondering where they were going to find another Albanian speaker when in walked Sali – complete with 12 Albanian radio scripts he had been asked to bring over with him.
To find out more about how the story unfolded read God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion Hudson Monarch, signed copies of which are available from mailto:from%20John@jbutterworth.plus.com for a special Christmas price of £6 plus postage.
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