Mutual friends in Hartshill

The most knowledgeable group on Albania I have met so far in the UK has to be the Hartshill Bible Church in Stoke-on-Trent.

The pastor, Phil Roberts, has visited the country five times while the missions secretary, Lorna Elks, has been there once. Also at the midweek Bible and prayer group was Ida (pronounced Isa) Trinder, who was born in Fier, Albania, and is now living in the Potteries after marrying a member of the group.

When I was told all that on my arrival on Wednesday evening I quickly adapted my talk and didn’t start with my usual formula of showing the group the Albanian flag and asking them which country it was and where is it.

Then Phil told me he had met Berti Dosti, Sali Rahmani, Stephen Bell and Gani Smolica, who are all in the God’s Secret Listener book, so I knew it was going to be a challenging evening for me to talk about  Albania to them.

And then Ida interrupted to say she knew Sali and Stephen, who is pictured below, as they had baptised her in Fier when she became a Christian.

However, the group were very gracious and welcoming and we had a good time sharing our experiences of the country and praying for the Albanian government, the people and the church in Lushnje.

Hartshill Bible Church, which was established in 2000, meets in The Willows School.

The church has close links with other churches in the area and is part of the North Staffs. Fellowship of Evangelical Churches (NoSFEC) and nationally is a member of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC).

It is also twinned with a church in Tirana led by Olti Todo and Ida worshipped there while she was based in the capital.

The evening showed what a small world it is for Christians as Phil said he had been on a number of European Christian Mission conferences and we knew many mutual friends.

Then Phil said he had four sons, one of whom was teaching English in a Chinese industrial city, Shenyang, well off the beaten tourist track in the north east of the country not far from the border with North Korean.

It was the turn of Phil and his wife, Joy, to be surprised when I said I had visited that city in 1986 on the first ever exchange of regional editors between the Newspaper Society in the UK and the All China Journalists Association.

It is amazing when you meet other Christians how soon you find you have many people and places in common.