I was so pleased by the success of my new blog on my latest book Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury that I decided to do one on my other recent book, God’s Secret Listener, which was published by Lion/Monarch/Hudson.
Over the next few months I will keep you up to date with all the fun of launching a new book, the reaction from readers and also new stories unearthed about the book which I have asked people to email me.
When I was made redundant after being Editor of the Shrewsbury Chronicle, one of the oldest weekly paid-for papers in the country, for 12 years from 1997 to 2008 I wondered what to do next.
I was invited to go to Albania in the Balkans where I met Berti Dosti (pictured below), who had been a captain in Enver Hoxha’s army. The Stalinist dictator aimed to abolish God and turn his country into the world’s atheistic state.
A whole generation in Albania was brought up with no knowledge of God as all the borders were closed to the rest of the world for 47 years.
Berti, whose expertise was signals and radio, had to listen into the airwaves to give the Albanian authorities early warning if Britain, USA or Russia, the three countries they feared most, were about to attack.
The captain never found an enemy signal, but instead stumbled across a Christian radio station that European Christian Mission (ECM) and Trans World Radio (TWR) had been beaming the gospel into Albania for 22 years, not knowing if they had a single listener.
At great cost Berti became a secret listener and when he left the army he became a pastor and the principal of a school in Lushnje, Tirana, teaching 700 Albanian children English.
My book is the story of Berti’s journey to faith and the people who helped him told against the backdrop of Albania’s change from isolated Stalinist dictatorship to an open Western democracy which is now a member of NATO and wanting to join the European Union.
I will be writing regular posts over the next few days about the book, how I ended up going to Albania, the amazing people I have met researching the book and what life was like growing up in a country shut off from the rest of the world.
Priced £7.99 the book is available at Christian bookshops, and signed copies through John Butterworth, john@jbutterworth.plus.com, or mobile 07955 262633.
