Stephen's most unusual Christmas present

Twenty years ago this Christmas Day European Christian Missionary Stephen Bell received his most unusual present from a most unlikely source.

In December 1991 he was asked to drive a borrowed car 70 kilometres from the capital Tiurana to Elbasan, the Albanian industrial town where Berti Dosti had worked as a young man, to show the Jesus film at a believer's house.

But when he arrived at Anastas's home, that's when the problems started.

The person, who was supposed to bring the film from Greece, hadn't arrived. Then Stephen became violently sick, and  due to his constant retching and toilet visits he neglected to guard the car.

As night fell at 5pm the unguarded car was robbed – of its windscreen!

The next day Stephen, pictured below, had no option but to drive back over the mountains in the freezing December weather in a car, minus its windscreen, thinking he would have to buy a replacement back in Tirana.

He never dreamt he would see the windscreen again, but two days later, Stephen had his most unusual Christmas present.

On Christmas Day 1991, Anastas, plus the car owner and a stranger arrived at his house, having driven the 70 kilometres from Elbasan to Tirana to see him.

Anastas had tracked down the thief and challenged him about the windscreen, which he said belonged to ‘God’s messenger’ and warned him about the consequences of his wrongdoing.

“Such was the thief’s conviction,” said Stephen, “that not only did he apologise, but he brought the windscreen to me in person, asked for my forgiveness, and said he wanted to become a Christian.

“I forgave him, hugged him and shared one of my Christmas presents from my parents in England with him, a Mars bar – an unknown delight in those early days in Albania.”

There’s more about Stephen’s story in God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch.

Signed copies for £6 including postage within the UK can be can be obtained by emailing John@jbutterworth.plus.com  

A memorable Christmas in Albania

Christmas 1993 was a special time for the church in Lushnje. Since it had been resurrected on Friday, July 23, 1993, after nearly 50 years of religion being banned in Albania, numbers had increased steadily.

Missionaries led the service at Berti and Tatjana Dosti’s home, but after the first meeting, they decided to ask the former Albanian captain, because of his good organisational skills, to set up and lead the service.

Berti, pictured below, also taught the children while the missionaries took it in turn to preach.

But with rising numbers the home became too small, so the Christians began to look for a large room to rent for the church.

In Lushnje, they found a dental clinic where 50 people worked in 20 rooms. On the third floor was a large room used for meetings, which Berti’s friend, Dr Gjergji, helped them to rent.

On Christmas Day, 1993, at 11am, the new Lushnje church, celebrated the first service there.

It was now called the Way of Peace Church (in Albanian Rruga e Paqes) after the name of the Albanian programme on Trans World Radio which Berti had listened to in secret while in the army.

A total of 25 people attended, already a healthy increase on the 16 who had met at the first church meeting only five months ago.

The centre was ideal in every way, except for the entrance. To get there, worshippers had to climb three sets of stairs, which were usually splattered with blood from the patients leaving after having had their dental treatment.

Party officials had used the same room, where the Christians met, in Enver Hoxha’s time.

Workers came there to study Hoxha’s books, to discuss and underline passages and then to memorise them, finishing by saying praise to Enver Hoxha.

Now Christians were using the same room to study God’s word, to discuss and underline passages from the Bible and to memorise verses before finishing by saying and singing praises to God.

This Christmas more than 280 Christians will be meeting at the Way of Peace Church in Lushnje, which now meets in its own building at the back of the Victory School.

There will be 140 people from the villages around Lushnje at the Christmas Eve service on Saturday and another 140 from the town itself in church on Christmas Day.

Since 1998 Berti, who has been supported by the European Christian Mission, has been the pastor there.

There’s more on this story in God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch.

Signed copies are available for £6 including postage within the UK by emailing John@jbutterworth.plus.com 

From the Antarctic to solar panels to teaching subbing

It has been a very entertaining and enjoyable final week of work before Christmas.

Last Thursday I was in Shrewsbury where I wrote a couple of press releases for The Lion Hotel and the stories will be on my blog in the next few days.

I was quite saddened to hear the owner, Howard Astbury, who was a great supporter of my book project, is retiring and has put the hotel up for sale at £2.95 million.

One press release is about a couple who spent their honeymoon night at The Lion and returned there 50 years later to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary.

Howard said he would knock the original amount off the present bill if they could produce their 1961 receipt – and they did.

The second story was about a group who had worked in the 1970s for the British Antarctic Survey at Halley, the most southerly British base.

Amazingly, they held a reunion at The Lion, Shrewsbury, because one of their leaders lives nearby.

They enjoyed their weekend so much they have already booked another one at the hotel – in 2013.

Then on Friday I was talking Steve Legg, publisher editor of the only men’s Christian magazine, Sorted, whom I met at the Gorsley Festival, near Ross-on-Wye, over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

He told me they were running a big feature on God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch, in their latest edition.

The magazine arrived today and I was delighted to see they had done a brilliant job with three pages on Berti Dosti, a 2,000-word article and pictures.

On Monday I learned that a press release I had written for the Solorvox solar panel company had appeared in seven different newspapers throughout the Midlands and a delighted director, Ron Fox, said within 24 hours they had already received three inquiries from interested customers.

Then on Tuesday I had a fascinating day in Manchester where I was invited to give a 90-minute lecture to journalism students at the News Associates training centre just by Piccadilly Railway Station.

It was my third visit there and this time I was teaching subbing and then helping the 24 students design their first page from scratch.

The students, who were on a 26-week intensive training course, were eager to learn and did excellently.

It was no surprise to learn that News Associates, was ranked the best course overall by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) in their 2009/2010 annual report

They do two journalism courses at their London and Manchester offices.

The NCTJ 20-week Fast Track course has two intakes a year – in March and September.

Trainees attend full time Monday to Thursday and are expected to work Fridays at a work placement on a newspaper or news outlet.

Then there is the NCTJ-accredited 40-week Earn While you Learn course which has two intakes a year in London in January and September and a September intake at Manchester.

This course allows trainees to work part-time and study on Monday evenings and all-day Saturday plus a two-week work placement.

Albania can give hope to North Korea

The announcement of the death of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il today has many uncanny parallels with the end of Albania’s dictator Enver Hoxha.

North Korea remains the mostly isolated and secret country of the 21^st century with China as its only ally while Albania was closed to the rest of the world for 47 years in the 20^th century having fallen out in turn with its three friends, Yugoslavia, Russia and China.

The North Korean people were only told about the demise of their 69-year-old leader, pictured below, 48 hours after he had suffered a fatal attack on Saturday.

The Albanian military learnt about Enver Hoxha dying on Thursday, April 11, 1985, in a secret coded message from their government.

But the people were not told for another couple of hours and they never realised he had been ill for the previous couple of years with diabetes.

North Koreans wept openly on the streets of the capital, Pyongyang, as they mourned their leader.

In Albania everyone cried at the news of Hoxha. Berti Dosti recalled in the book, God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch: “It was a case of the more a person cried the more it honoured our leader.”

He said the country was put on the highest military alert as the national government was  worried that the army might lose its discipline and that external enemies might seize the opportunity to attack Albania, or that the internal enemy might lead an uprising and overthrow the government.

As Alma Syla, a teacher in Berti’s school who was only 13 when Albania lost its long-time leader said: “We were frightened; we didn’t know what was going to happen next. We believed Enver Hoxha had made our country secure, a strong castle, that no one would attack. But what would we be like now without a leader?”

Today as the official North Korean news agency KCNA described one of his sons, Kim Jong-un, as the "great successor" whom North Koreans should unite behind, Pyongyang's neighbours went on military alert fearing instability in the poor and isolated nuclear-armed nation.

North and South Korea are still technically at war, and the US has nearly 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea.

Ruling party members in one North Korean county were shown on state TV banging tables and crying.

"I can't believe it," a party member named as Kang Tae-Ho was quoted as saying. "How can he go like this? What are we supposed to do?"

Another, Hong Sun-Ok, said: "He tried so hard to make our lives much better and he just left like this."

The state news agency said a funeral would be held in Pyongyang on December 28 and a period of national mourning has been declared from December 17 to 29.

Likewise in Albania a week of national mourning was declared for Hoxha and every school opened a book for pupils to submit their poems and songs about their leader.

Kim Jong-il will be succeeded by his third son, Kim Jong-un, of whom little is known.

He was unveiled as his father's likely successor just over a year ago and was educated in Switzerland.

He is in his late 20s and is thought to be Kim Jong-il's third son - born to Mr Kim's reportedly favourite wife, the late Ko Yong-hui.

However, he is not thought to be very experienced politically and this could lead to very unstable times in the country.

Following Enver Hoxha’s death, his appointed successor in Albania was the not so well known Ramiz Alia, the leader of the Party of Labour (the Communist Party) who tried to introduce a programme of cautious liberalization.

But the people were impatient for change as they watched the Berlin Wall come down and the old governments of Eastern Europe overthrown.

Students led the street protests and on February 21, 1991, crowds pulled down the statue of Enver Hoxha in the central square of the capital Tirana.

That was the end of communism and the new democratic Albania opened its borders later that year to the rest of the world.

Hoxha had declared Albania the world’s first atheistic state, had closed down all churches, imprisoned many church leaders and abolished religion.

Missionaries poured in and the Albanian church was resurrected after, in the words of one believer, “God had been stolen from us for 47 years.”  

North Korea has closed down all its churches, imprisoned up to 70,000 Christians in labour camps and has the dubious record of being number one in Open Doors’ list of the country that is the biggest persecutor of believers.

The hope and prayer of many Christians worldwide is that what happened is Albania more than 20 years ago will be repeated in North Korea and that the church there will be resurrected in the near future.

50 books sold after coffee at M40 service station

It was good to meet Chris Wigram, the international director of the European Christian Mission, last week, for the first time.

We had a coffee at the Warwick Service Station on the M40 as I wanted to discuss a couple of ideas with him.

Firstly, we discussed how we could use my book, God’s Secret Listener, to promote ECM internationally and secondly to talk about translating the book into Portuguese so it could be used by ECM Brazil.

This was an idea by ECM missionary Stephen Bell, who is working in Croatia and has linked up with Brazil and Ukrainian churches that are helping him church plant in the Balkans by sending missionaries from their countries.

The idea is to let the Brazilians have the book at cost price so they can excite the churches there about missionary work in Europe and to use any profits from the project to help fund the workers.

If that goes well we would look at a Ukrainian edition.

So I was delighted to receive an email from Chris, pictured below, to say that three days later he had taken my book along to Northwood Hills Evangelical Church in Middlesex where he was preaching that Sunday and had sold all 20 of his books.

He had also met at the church a volunteer with Trans World Radio who had ordered a further 30 copies.

Fifty books sold – and all after a chat over coffee on the M40. Now Chris wants some more books.

Incidentally, Chris is an author as well with his latest book, The Bible and Mission in Faith Perspective about J Hudson Taylor and the Early China Inland Mission, published by Boekencentrum.

It is still not too late if you would like to order a signed copy of God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch for £6 including postage within the UK.

Email me at John@jbutterworth.plus.com to order your books.

Gani thanks supporters for great trip

I was delighted to see Gani Smolica at Rising Brook Baptist Church in Stafford when he came over to the UK this autumn for six weeks to speak to his supporting churches.

Gani, pictured below, who appeared in God’s Secret Listener, has now written to say he and his family are back in ‘foggy’ Peja, Kosova, where they are working for the European Christian Mission after moving there in 2000 following seven years in Albania.

He thanked everyone for their hospitality, generosity, prayers, support and for ensuring Adile and he had a pleasant stay and journey.

Gani wrote: “Without your help, prayers and support our planning for the trip, the speaking engagements and travelling throughout UK would not be possible. We thank the Lord for your prayers and generosity.

“We praise the Lord for all you who took part in planning the travels, organising the meetings and having us at your homes.

“A special thank to so many of you who opened your homes for us to stay with you. You really made us feel important in God’s eyes.

“Deep in our hearts we feel that our deputation was a success and that God used all of you for that.”

He added: “Now, we are back home to our ministry. There are many things that need to be done, improved and planned in order to continue building His Church in Peja.”

But he said the deacons at their church in Peja had done very well while they were away and were helped by two or three friends.

Finally, Gani asked everyone to pray for his mother as she is soon to have an operation to remove a kidney.

To read more about Gani’s story email John@jbutterworth.plus.com to order a copy of God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch, at the special Christmas price of £6, including postage within the UK.

Anniversary of Albania's first student protest

Students in the UK and throughout Western Europe have protested on many occasions.

But 21 years ago today there was the first ever student protest in Albania.

The leader of the Party of Labour, the Communist Party, Ramiz Alia, had tried to introduce a programme of cautious liberalisation following the death of Enver Hoxha.

However, the people were impatient for change as they watched the Berlin Wall being torn down and the old governments of Eastern Europe being overthrown, including the Ceausescu regime in nearby Romania.

The authorities became nervous as rioting broke out all over the country and with the first students’ protest on December 8, 1990, which started in Kavaja.

The Government responded by closing the universities and didn’t re-open them until the following April and by ordering the military to draw up a Rapid Defence Force to quell the riots and to protect public buildings from the mobs.

This affected Alma Syla, who was later to become a teacher at Berti Dosti’s Victory School. She had begun a diploma in Albanian language and literature at a university in Tirana in autumn 1990, but the closure of educational buildings meant she had to delay her studies for a term.

One of those the Defence Ministry called up first for the Rapid Defence Force was Berti, who was sent to a special base at Kavaja at the end of 1989.

While the units were in training, the political situation deteriorated further as thousands of Albanians fled to Greece and crowds, mainly young people, seized many of the foreign embassies.

Tanks were stationed on the Albanian streets and Berti’s job, as communications chief at Kavaja, was to be the link between the soldiers in the tanks and his Commandant.

Berti admitted the soldiers were unhappy to be deployed against their own people, but they were told not to confront the protesters who wanted democracy, and to avoid trouble if possible.

The protests on the streets continued throughout 1990 and into 1991, when on February 21, crowds, pictured below, pulled down the large statue of Enver Hoxha in the central square of Tirana.

It was a symbolic image, which was to be repeated 12 years later when crowds toppled the statue of the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in Fardus Square, Baghdad, on April 9, 2003.

“That was the day Communism in Albania ended,” said Berti.

For more about this story read God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch, which is available for the special Christmas price of £6 including postage within the UK by emailing John@jbutterworth.plus.com  

Rare find goes on show in Stone

I have always been interested in history and I was delighted last week to be invited to a private viewing at St Michael’s Church of the Augustinian Stone Priory seal, pictured below.

In October Surrey County Council said that a metal detector in Cobham had dug up an artefact of cast copper alloy, which experts have dated as 13^th century.

Now the seal matrix, which measures 7cm long and 5cm, has been loaned to the town.

Mystery surrounds how the archaeological find, which had its origins at Stone Priory, ended up 170 miles away in Surrey.

The ancient building, which once stood on the present site of St Michael’s and St Wulfad’s Church, was founded between 1138 and 1147 by Robert de Stafford, an ancestor of the present Lord Stafford.

The link was made with Stone after the seal, which bears the image of the Virgin and child, was deciphered.

It reads: “S’ecce Sce Marie et Sci W(v)lfadi Martiris de Stanis” – which is “seal of the church of Saint Mary and Saint Wulfad, Martyr of Stone.”

The seal would have been used by the Prior to leave an impression on wax to seal important documents to prove that they were secure and authentic.

One theory is that when Stone Priory was one of the first to be dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1537 canons from Stone took it to the Augustinian Priory at Newark in Surrey, which is not far from Cobham, for safe keeping.

Stone Priory was founded around 1138-47 as a daughter house of Kenilworth Priory in Warwickshire.

The Priory continued to be used as a parish church until it was demolished and replaced by the current church of St Michael and St Wulfad, pictured below, in 1758.

The finder of the seal, Tony Burke, is keen that the artefact, believed to be worth around £7,000 is returned to Stone on a permanent and secure basis.

To find out more about the seal contact St Michael and St Wulfad's church on http://www.achurchnearyou.com/stone-st-michael/on

Enjoyable Rotary meeting

It was good going back to Shrewsbury last Wednesday to speak to the Rotary Club of Shrewsbury and to see some old friends.

I had a great welcome, the lunch at the Lord Hill Hotel was excellent and I sold some copies of both Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel and God’s Secret Listener.

All in all it was an enjoyable and successful trip.

I am pictured below with the Rotary club president, Paul Pascoe.

If you would like to buy a copy of Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel or God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch, for the special Christmas price of £6 each including postage to anywhere in the UK email John@jbutterworth.plus.com

To see my other blog go to http://thelionhotelbook.blogspot.com

Albania mourns as King Zog's son dies

Albania has declared a day of mourning tomorrow (Saturday) after the son of the last king of Albania died on Wednesday aged 72.

Crown Prince Leka Zogu, son of King Zog I, was the pretender to the Albanian throne who returned to the country in 2002 after 63 years in exile.

He was only two days old when his family left the capital Tirana after the Italian invasion on April 7, 1939.

In his obituary in The Times the paper said he had spent most of his life in England, Egypt, Spain, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, but he had made two attempts to return home in 1993 and 1997.

On the first occasion he wasn’t allowed in because his passport was declared invalid as he had listed his profession as King.

On the second occasion a referendum was held over the restoration of the monarchy, which was rejected by a two thirds majority, although Leka believed the vote had been rigged and this led to civil unrest.

Leka, pictured below, returned to South Africa where he dealt in commodities. An Albanian court sentenced him in his absence to three years’ imprisonment for sedition, but in March 2002 he was pardoned and returned to live privately in Tirana where he died on November 30.

As mentioned in my book, God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch, a young tribal leader, Ahmet Zogu, returned from exile in Yugoslavia in 1924 to lead his country and was later crowned King Zog after the 1921 Conference of Ambassadors in Paris  had recognised Albania as an independent sovereign state.

But when in 1939 the king refused to allow the Italian Government to use the Albanian ports for military purposes Mussolini’s forces invaded and ended the monarchy in Tirana.

Leka lived at the Ritz Hotel in London for a time before being educated at Parmoor House and at English schools in Egypt, then becoming a cadet at Sandhurst in the mid-1950s, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

In 1976 he married Susan Barbara Cullen-Ward, a teacher, who was the daughter of an Australian sheep farmer and the couple stayed together until she died in 2004.

Three years later in 1979 he was expelled from Spain accused of trying to overthrow the Albanian Communist government of Enver Hoxha.

There were rumours, which he denied, that he was an arms dealer and it is believed he was imprisoned in Thailand on gun-running charges.

However, he was arrested in February 1999 in South Africa of unlawfully possessing arms, but the charges were later withdrawn.

It was said throughout his life Leka always feared being assassinated by the Albanian secret police.

His ‘Royal Minister of Court’ once famously said of the Prince: “From the moment he was born there was a gun under his pillow, and he has worn it all his life.”

When his father, King Zog, died in 1961 Leka was regarded by Albanian monarchists as the new king, but he never took power.

However, 72 members of the Albanian Parliament voted to ask the royal family to return in 2002.

Although he was backed by the Legality party, which formed a collation with other parties, Leka would not take part in politics.

He said: “I am above all political parties, even my own.”

Leka is survived by his son Leka Anwar Zog Reza Baudouin Msiziwe, who is an official at the Albanian Interior Ministry.

Anniversary of Berti's momentous move

Forty-four years ago this month ten-year-old Berti Dosti arrived in Lushnje after having already lived in six homes as his father had been moved all around the country by the Albanian Army.

He was probably hoping for some stability, but even Berti did not expect in December 1967 for this medium sized industrial, lowland town to be home for the next 44 years and the base for his amazing Christian ministry.

Lushnje was the also start of a lifelong friendship with a neighbour’s boy, Ladi, who would keep cropping up throughout Berti’s life when help was most needed.

Although the nine-year-old was a year younger than Berti they soon became close friends, especially as Ladi had a large house with a big garden, ideal for football and hide and seek.

They didn’t go to the same school, but as soon as Berti returned home, he dashed out again to play in Ladi’s garden.

Berti and Ladi lived close to the town’s most famous and historic house, pictured below, where the Congress of Lushnje was held and which is still open to the public today.

It was there in 1920 that an historic vote was taken by the Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox members for total national independence, the first town in Albania to do so.

The Congress of Lushnje set up a Council of Regency, which led to the founding of modern Albania.

In Lushnje, Berti finished his primary school education and started his four years at secondary school, where he became interested in electronics and radios.

Being the son of an Albanian army officer, he had a privileged upbringing as the military had a higher than average salary and a better house than many.

Berti lived in a two-bedroomed house with a kitchen, good furniture, TV with Albanian programmes only, and a fridge.

As an officer, his father had some perks, including uniform, boots and shoes and some free groceries.

Berti was fortunate; many thousands of Albanians had a much tougher time.

Although Berti moved away from Lushnje for military training the family kept the house there and for Berti it was always home.

Even when he married Tatjana they started their new life together in the family home as the army had allowed Berti to keep it when he had finished his military training and as his father had already moved north to the capital Tirana.

Lushnje was where their two children, Alta and Dorian, were born and brought up and where Berti and the European Christian Mission helped found the Way of Peace Church there and The Victory School.

Berti and Tatjana are still in Lushnje today, although they are now living in a pleasant flat overlooking the town park.

If you want to find out more about Berti’s story in God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch, email John@jbutterworth.plus.com for a signed copy at the special Christmas price of £6 including posting within the UK.