Record sale of books at festival

With more and more Christian festivals every year one of the friendliest has to be Gorsley Festival, near Ross-on-Wye, on the Gloucestershire and Herefordshire border.

Gorsley Chapel Baptist Church, which is only half a mile from junction one of the M50, again provided a top line-up for five days over the August Bank Holiday.

Jan and I ranthe European Christian Mission stand (pictured below) for the third year running and we were given a brilliant welcome.

Senior Minister John Lewis and his team at the Baptist Church, which has an average weekly congregation of more than 450, put on a well-run festival.

It ranged from a stunning flower display in the church to an in-flight simulator provided by Mission Aviation Fellowship as well as a first class worship and teaching session for all ages.

Groups attending were as diverse as Gloucester Christian Motorcyclist Association,  Newent Choir plus the Good News Centre, also from nearby Newent.

The leadership was a family effort as the Rev Dr Clive Calver, now senior pastor at Walnut Hill Community Church in Bethel, Connecticut, USA, and his son Gavin gave the teaching on the Good News and the Kingdom while Clive’s wife, Ruth, led some of the seminars.

On Saturday night the main marquee was packed to overflowing for an evening concert with Graham Kendrick.

The whole site was buzzing as coach parties arrived on a day trip from South Wales to see the flowers while the campsite was packed with those staying for the whole festival.

I confess we weren’t braved enough to camp, preferring to stay at the nearby 19^th century Malswick Mill, a first class bed and breakfast location complete with its own carp lake.

There were many visitors to the mission tent and for a break there was always the food area nearby where tables were heaving with home-made cakes, cream teas and local produce.

It was a great success for us in that we almost ran out of literature on the ECM stand handing out more than 120 magazines.

One day it was good to meet up with some old friends from Shrewsbury when a coachload came to the festival and I managed to sell them some copies of Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel.

But we were there mainly to promote ECM and to sell copies of God’s Secret Listener, published by the Monarch Division of Lion Hudson in Oxford, of which I am delighted to say I sold a festival record of 126 books.

Another gift for Victory School

I was delighted to be able to send Berti Dosti another £500 this week as the latest net profits so far this year from the sales of God’s Secret Listener to help pay for more poor children to be educated at the Victory School in Lushnje, Albania.

Last year I was able to send £2,000 to pay for 80 poor children to attend the school.

Berti, who is pastor of the church and also principal of the school, said these youngsters would not have been able to afford the three-year course without these gifts.

Victory School, which started in the autumn of 1997 with just eight pupils, now teaches more than 750 pupils a year offering classes in English, Italian and computer studies.

Students, whose ages range from eight years to 40 plus, learn English by using the New Interchange scheme for adults and the Cambridge method for youngsters.

The scheme consists of five levels and students study each one for six months by coming three times a week for afternoon classes. The children also attend a state school in the morning.

Interestingly, the pupils do not wear a uniform, but the teachers do, all having a pink overall, some of whom are pictured below.

The students will also be given the chance to learn Microsoft Word be as all new students at the school are given free computer lessons for a year.

With Albania now a member of NATO and wanting to join the European Union more and more Albanian children wish to learn English to give them a better chance of a job.

If you would like to read more about the Victory School email me at John@jbutterworth.plus.com  to buy a copy of God’s Secret Listener, published by the Monarch division of Lion Hudson, for £7.50 including postage within the UK or £8.50 anywhere in the world.

Trans World Radio joy at book response

I was delighted to receive an unexpected email from Trans World Radio in America this week in connection with my book, God’s Secret Listener.

It’s the true story of Berti Dosti, a captain and radio specialist in Enver Hoxha’s Albanian army, whose job in the 1970s and 80s was to listen in to the world’s airwaves to give the Stalinist dictator early warning in case Britain, America or Russia were about to invade.

Berti, pictured below, never found an enemy signal, but he stumbled across a radio programme broadcast by Trans World Radio and the European Christian Mission into the Balkan country which had been closed to the rest of the world for 47 years and had banned Christianity.

At great risk to himself Berti became a secret listener and after communism fell in the late 1980s Captain Dosti became Pastor Dosti of a newly-revived Albanian church and the principal of The Victory School in Lushnje, which now teaches English to 750 Albanian youngsters every year.

Trans World Radio in America were delighted with the story and bought 250 copies of my book last year to use in a direct mail effort to supporters and potential new ones.

In this week’s email, Bob Hall, Director of Donor Services of TWR Americas, wrote: “Response to your book God’s Secret Listener was very positive when we used it as a donor premium in our direct mail efforts.

 “Since the book has such a close connection to TWR and was very well received by our constituents, we would very much like to use this book on a regular basis.”

TWR, which broadcasts in 230 languages to more than 160 countries with millions of listeners, wondered if we could print the book in the USA.

After speaking to Tony Collins, editorial director of the Monarch division of Lion Hudson who published the book, I was delighted to be able to tell Bob that we already print God’s Secret Listener in the USA and we could provide him a sizeable order.

The story of how American Paul E Freed started Trans World Radio in 1954 and how they came to be broadcasting from Monte Carlo into Albania is told in my book.

To order a signed copy for £7.50 in the UK or £8.50 anywhere in the world including postage email John@jbutterworth.plus.com

Amazing meeting at Keswick Convention

I have just returned from a very successful and enjoyable week at the Keswick Convention.

It is the third year running I have been and I would say this was the most memorable for the many fascinating people I met and also the number of copies of God’s Secret Listener I sold.

It also made a difference that it hardly rained unlike the previous two years and that I was helped very ably on the European Christian Mission stand by the East of England volunteer Don Gyton and Philipp Ruesch who works for Trans World Radio in Vienna, Austria. Don is pictured left and Philipp on the right on the stand.

As well as European Christian Mission and Trans World Radio having links as told in Captain Berti Dosti’s story, published by Lion/Monarch of Oxford, the two agencies are now working closer together to help promote each other.

I again stayed in Brun Lea Guest House in Stanger Street which I can thoroughly recommend. It is only yards from the town centre and about 100 yards from the Earthworks exhibition area where all the mission stands were situated.

There were more than 3,000 visitors to the convention which went very well.

In particular I thought the guest lecturer, Andrew Dilnot, who spoke about Biblical principles in the funding of the care of the elderly was first class. He spoke well and the ensuing discussion was very helpful.

Andrew certainly has an impressive CV. He is Principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford; a Pro Vice Chancellor of Oxford University; Chairman of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority; Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies from 1991 to 2002 and Chairman of the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, which reported to the Government recently.

What amazed me was the number of faithful mission supporters visiting the convention and how many of them commented on how moving they found Berti Dosti’s visit and interview at Keswick last year.

But for me the most amazing event was when someone mentioned my name while I was in the coffee queue and a young man came over to me and asked me: “Are you the John Butterworth who was a dormitory leader at the Felixstowe Explorer Camp in 1989?”

I said I was and then Simeon Locke said he had been in my group for two years running when he had been nine and ten years old.

Simeon is now married to Gemma and they have a young baby daughter Elodie.

They are about to go with ReachAcross to help the church in Kayes in Mali in West Africa or if the political situation in that country worsens they will go first to Senegal.

I was touched he remembered me and delighted he came over to introduce himself to me.

It capped a memorable Keswick Convention for me.

If you would like to order a signed copy of the book for £7, including postage within the UK or £8 anywhere in the world also email John@jbutterworth.plus.com 

Auspicious day for Sali Rahmani

July 26 will always remain an auspicious day for Sali Rahmani, whose story is told in God’s Secret Listener.

Thirty-six years ago today the former Berwick-upon-Tweed Bible College student married Helen McGinley at Mosspark Baptist Church in Glasgow.

After a three-day honeymoon in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the newly-married couple drove out to Munich where Sali began a new ministry there helping overseas workers.

He also continued sending his Christian tapes in Albanian back to the European Christian Mission studio in Rawtenstall which were then beamed into the Balkan country by Trans World Radio in Monte Carlo.

Sali, pictured below, never realised how important his wedding day was until six years later in April 1983 when he decided to combine a trip home to Kosovo to see his parents and to go into the nearby villages and towns to find if there were any listeners to his radio programme there.

He was arrested by the Yugoslav police who accused him of propagating the Christian message, mostly through his radio work.

After days of questioning they produced a couple of plastic bags with an Albanian John’s Gospel in it, plus a large straw to keep the bag afloat, some chewing gum and Christian literature on which there were Sali’s contact details.

What do you know about these, demanded his interrogators? Sali knew about them, but very wisely, he had asked the Christians involved not to tell him too many details. Now he was glad he had been careful.

Some Christians had approached him with an imaginative scheme to get the Christian message into Albania.

This group had filled 1,000 plastic bags and dropped them into the 335 kilometre-long River Drin in Kosovo to float downstream into Albania.

His interrogators refused to accept that Sali had nothing to do with this unusual plastic bags mission, despite all his protestations.

Anyway, the interrogators told him it had been a useless enterprise as the authorities had fished all the plastic bags out of the river.

So Sali was delighted when he was visiting Christians in Kruje about ten years later and one of them produced the plastic bag and Christian literature, which he had found in the river and had read.

Meanwhile, Sali was wondering how he could convince them of his innocence, when one of the interrogators let slip the plastic bags had been put into the river on Saturday, June 26, 1976.

Suddenly Sali shouted with delight. “I can prove it wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with those plastic bags dropped into the river. I wasn’t even in Kosovo on that day.

“I was a couple of thousand miles away,” he said triumphantly. “I was in Glasgow, it was my wedding day.”

Sali’s story is told in God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Monarch of Oxford.

To order a copy for £7.50 including postage in the UK and £9 anywhere in the world email John@jbutterworth.plus.com 

Birthday congratulations go to Alma

Belated birthday congratulations go to another unsung heroine in the Albanian church as Alma Syla celebrated a special milestone on Saturday.

A couple of weeks ago it was celebration time for Berti Dosti’s wife Tatyana. Then at the weekend it was the turn of Alma, pictured below, a deacon and a leading member of the Way of Peace Church in Lushnje and also the senior teacher at the Victory School.

As a young girl Alma grew up at the end of the Enver Hoxha era. She had always wanted to be a teacher but she had to do it the hard way.

When Communism fell she managed in 1990 to get a post in a remote village school as well as gaining a scholarship to study at a university in Tirana.

To get to the school in Spolet, it meant catching the 6.30am bus from Lushnje for an hour’s journey before a 45-minute walk through two villages to the school, where she started teaching at 8.30am and finished at 1.30pm. Then she had to repeat the journey, arriving home at 3pm.

After a meal and a rest, she started her own studies and preparing the next day’s lessons, until 10.30pm, depending on whether there were any power cuts, which were frequent in those days.

She travelled to school with on the bus with Elsa, a Christian teacher at the school who helped her become a believer.

In 2000 Alma started teaching at the Victory School and has played a pivotal role there and in the church.

Congratulations to Alma and I hope she had a memorable day with her husband Drini and two daughters Sabrina and Kaltrina.

Alma’s story is told in God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Monarch of Oxford.

To order a copy for £7.50 including postage in the UK and £9 anywhere in the world email John@jbutterworth.plus.com 

Albania strikes oil

I am indebted to journalist colleague and friend Barrie Farnsworth for sending me a press release announcing that Albania has discovered massive oil deposits in the Adriatic Sea.

This Balkan country already has one of the highest economic growth markets in south eastern European and this discovery is predicted to produce around one billion barrels of oil giving a huge boost to the economy.

Indeed, the discovery has led the Balkan nation to consider how it will best spend its new found fortune given that Albania earns 10% of gross production and makes 50% of earnings from oil sales according to the standard contract that the government uses with foreign companies searching for oil.

Ravin Maharajah, Partner of Lalzit Bay Resort and Spa, the 5 star luxury residential development, pictured below, on Albania’s Adriatic coastline, commented: “There are very high hopes for an oil boom in Albania.

"Indeed, foreign direct investment into Albania derived from global conglomerates Shell and Petromanas joining in partnership to explore for oil in the country will no doubt increase, making a real impact on the Balkan nation.

“As well as banking on oil, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will assist the Albanian government in September 2012 with a project that aims to rejuvenate Albania's outdated railways with a particular focus on rehabilitating the Durres-Tirana railway line seeing as 40% of Albania's population is based there.

"This will no doubt help push more tourism into the area further boosting the nation’s economic prospects.”

Maharajah continues: “As a testament to Albania's potential, our customer base is constantly growing with interest rapidly increasing in our 5 star resort.

“Indeed, the expectation of increased GDP growth as well as high visitor numbers in coming years thanks to a wider range of infrastructure projects such as the new railways, Lalzit Bay Resort and Spa will provide the perfect property investment opportunity for as little as €38,000.

Lalzit Bay Resort and Spa offers a premium, exclusive product to buyers who want the benefits of villa ownership including private gardens and terraces, exclusive services, and more privacy as well as a range of facilities including private swimming pools, a BBQ area, tennis courts and superb restaurants."

I wonder what on earth Communist dictator Enver Hozha would have thought of this economic boom and what he would have done with all this wealth if Albania had struck gold when he ruled from 1944-85.

 Would its history would have been so different?

To find out more about Albania read God’s Secret Listener published by Lion/Monarch of Oxford.

To buy a copy of the book, £6.50 including postage within the UK or £7.50 anywhere in the world email John@jbutterworth.plus.com