In the cathedral - for Any Questions?

My wife Jan and I were delighted to have an evening off on Friday night when we were invited to the BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions?.

The topical discussion in which a panel of personalities from the worlds of politics, media and elsewhere are posed questions by the audience came last week from Lichfield Cathedral.

It was fascinating to see what is involved in producing a live radio show.

We had to be in our seats by 7.15pm for the show which goes out live at 8.02pm.

The cathedral looked dramatic outside against the night sky and very atmospheric inside with its subdued lighting and a packed audience of almost 1,000 people.

Producer Victoria Wakely explained that the Any Questions? show is one of the longest running radio programmes.

It started as a six-week pilot and is still going strong 74 years later.

Tony Benn holds the record for most guest appearances having been on the show more than 80 times.

Every member of the audience is invited to submit questions as they arrive and the authors of the nine questions picked by the producer are then invited to take their seats in the front two rows.

The panellists are kept well away from the audience and have no idea of the questions until they are asked live on air by chairman Jonathan Dimbleby.

The panellists last Friday were David Blunkett, the former Labour Cabinet Minister; Daniel Finkelstein, Executive Editor of The Times; Anna Soubry, a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of Health and Sunder Katwala, Director of the Think Tank, British Future.

Topics ranged from the Olympics opening ceremony to the cap on Benefits and bankers’ bonuses.

The only heated debate was the HS2, the proposed new London to Birmingham fast rail link, which drew the only slight heckling of the night.

On the whole the evening was a credit to Radio 4 with a high level of debate conducted very politely in the atmospheric setting of a beautiful cathedral - and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you to the Rev. David Primrose, the Lichfield Diocesan Director of Transforming Communities, who gave us the tickets.

Good news from Portugal - and Wigan

It has been an encouraging couple of days for my book, God’s Secret Listener.

A few days ago I received a letter from Portugal from Mr and Mrs P M Horton, who live in Colinas do Cruzeiro, near Odivelas, just north of Lisbon Airport.

They wrote to say about the Albania story: “Thank you for a thrilling read as I could also identify with some of the people mentioned, especially Stephen Etches who ministered to our teams in Brest, France, in 1975/6. I remember him using the Jerusalem Bible all the time.”

Although Stephen Etches is only mentioned a little in the book he played a huge role in the newly-established Albanian church translating both the Old Testament and New Testament into modern Albanian.

He worked for a time in the European Christian Mission office in Vienna, Austria, before teaching at a seminary in Yugoslavia.

Mr Horton then went on to add that he and his family also had connection with places where I had worked.

I had been editor of the Post and Times in Leek, North Staffordshire, and he said his mother used to love shopping in the town when they lived in Ashley.

I also mentioned that I had been editor of the Shrewsbury Chronicle and he said that his Portuguese wife had had one of her 13 operations there.

Then today I had lunch with the Rev Trevor Baker, pictured below, one of the two main leaders of the Albanian Evangelical Mission.

I met him last November when he bought 65 copies of God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion Hudson Monarch, off me.

He rang me this week and said could we meet for lunch again at the Bears Arms, a lovely 17^th century historical pub at Brereton, near Sandbach, as he wanted to buy another 130 books off me because they had been selling “like hot cakes”.

Trevor, who had been the pastor for 20 years at Jireh Baptist Church, in Orrell, Wigan, before joining the Albanian Evangelical Mission in 1996, gives around 100 talks a year for the mission.

He said he always takes my book along to meeting and he sells up to ten copies every time.

Trevor, who still lives in Wigan, also gave me a disk with the names and addresses of church contacts in the Midlands and Wales as I am linking up with the mission.

Since David Young retired last month as head and of the mission they only have two main leaders for the whole of the UK.

I have offered to cover some or all of David’s churches in Shropshire, Herefordshire and Wales and any other talks they need help on while at the same time continuing my links as the Midlands volunteer for the European Christian Mission.

I am also planning to go out to Albania this year to meet some of their missionaries working in the southern part of the country including Sarande and Korce, places which appear in the book and which I have always wanted to visit.

Notable day in Albanian history

Today is a notable day in Albanian history. On January 17, 1468, the Albanian national hero, Gjergjj Kastrioti Skenderbeu, was buried in St Nicholas Church, Lezha.

Skenderbeu was born in 1405 and he and his three brothers were taken hostage by the Turks in 1423. When his father, Gjon, died, three of his sons were poisoned.

Gjergjj, pictured below, was the only one who survived. He joined the Turks’ Ottoman army and did so well he was hailed ‘Chief of the League of the Albanian People’ and was given the name Skenderbeu, after Alexander the Great.

He then re-converted to Christianity, changed sides and was named ‘Champion of Christendom’ by Pope Nicholas V for his successful battles against the Turkish invaders.

He died in 1468 of fever and was buried in Lezha on January 17.

However, the Turks had their revenge. When they took the town at the end of the 15^th century they dug up his body in St Nicholas Church, dismembered it and made charms out of his bones.

Today a bronze bust of Skenderbeu stands on the nave floor with replicas of a sword and a helmet.

Life-changing decision for the Smolicas

Eighteen years ago this week Gani and Adile Smolica, pictured below, and their three children made a life-changing decision.

Gani decided to give up a good university job in Prishtina and to move his family from Kosovo and go to what Gani called ‘his promised land of Albania’.

A few months previously Stephen Bell had invited them to come to Albania and look after four churches in Tirana, Patos, Fier and Berat, while he took time off to return home to get married.

Stephen decided Gani was the ideal person as he had been on a three-month Bible course, was excellent at encouraging new Albanian Christians to grow in the faith, as well as answering radio listeners’ letters, translating documents and helping new missionaries adjust to the country.

Understandably, their children were not too keen on the idea, nor was a horrified Gani’s mother who said to Adile: “Tell him not to go, and don’t take the children.”

But on January 15, 1993, the family, who were now supported by the European Christian Mission, left Prishtina by truck and by bus and for political reasons drove to their new home in Tirana, via Macedonia.

It was a difficult time and a tough baptism for the Smolica family.

Gani said: “I was a spiritual sheep and a shepherd at the same time. I had had hardly any training, so I was learning from Stephen and then teaching others.”

Adile said: “It was difficult bringing up the children there.” After the relatively good lifestyle in Kosovo, she found life in Albania much harder.

“I couldn’t find any meat to buy and nowhere was very clean,” she admitted.

However, just as they were settling down to life in Tirana, Stephen left them on Sunday, March 14, to go home to England and Germany for his wedding.

He handed over full responsibility for the Fier, Berat, Tirana and Patos churches to Gani.

However, the Smolica family soon adapted to their new home as did Gani  to his new role - and they stayed there for seven years.

To find out more about their story email John@jbutterworth.plus.com for a signed copy of God’s Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch, for £6 including postage within the UK, or £8 abroad.