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.