Life at Way of Hope

Life is never boring at Way of Hope because aspects of church life are constantly changing. Two areas in particular being the building and the people:

People

We are beginning to see many young families in the church and therefore a lot more babies and young children are a part of our fellowship. Crying and potty training in the home with two children is multiplied six times when you get to church! We have a crèche and a Sunday school but they will need developing dramatically if our church members continue to ignore the somewhat fanciful term 'family planning'. Actually, it is an absolute joy to see so many children in the church and supporting young Christian families is so important for the future growth and maturity of the Albanian church.

Buildings

One area of concern is that at present the numbers of people coming cannot fit into the space provided. So until 30 September 2004, the church has been given a one-year trial period to test how it can cope with managing and organising a building. This is a huge challenge for the church to discern and discover if it is financially viable, practically useful and most importantly able to use the building for outreach and mission to the local community. We hope that in the next few months we can knock down a wall and build a bigger area to meet for Sunday worship. We are really excited by the prospect of meeting this challenge and seeing the church take ownership and responsibility for a building. We are mindful however, that buildings can be both a blessing and a bane and during this year we simply want to learn in which 'b' it will turn out to be!

Continuing work — prison

As well as looking after the children, Hannah is managing to squeeze some time to overseeing the prison project and it is going well. Rezarta, the social worker that Hannah is mentoring, has been looking at various ways to broaden the existing programme. One significant new venture is to support four young mothers in the prison. The women prisoners were pregnant when they were convicted and they are allowed to keep their babies for a period of three years with them in the prison. Hannah and the team from the church are trying to help these four new mothers by providing new cots, baby clothing and general advice and support.

Developing work — youth

One of the most exciting aspects of the church has been the development of the youth work. The church has a church worker whose name is Ardita. During the past year Ardita has been involved in many areas of work within the church but this past year was about finding the right area of ministry for her. The summer gave Ardita time and space to reflect upon the area of church she would most like to develop. Alongside the support of the church members, Ardita will now focus primarily on youth work. As in Britain where churches are beginning to discover the need for specialised ministry, particularly in the area of youth, so the church here is keen to provide an exciting, vibrant and relevant youth work. Please pray for Ardita as she continues to discover more about this vital work for our church.

New work — a church committed to sport

A recent work that is gaining pace is our sports ministry. At the moment we have a football team and play once a week. Sometimes our matches are against other churches and sometimes against work/pub teams. The purpose of the team is threefold:

v      To create better friendship among the lads in the church.

v      To help the lads grow as Christians.
At the moment we are giving teaching on how to show the character of Christ when enjoying sport. This is especially important in a culture where the Christian life is a Sunday activity and every other part of the week you can do what you like. We want to teach and show that being a Christian means to develop behaviour in all areas of life and we hope sport can be an appropriate way to do this.

v      To invite friends who aren't Christian to meet us through playing sport and so develop natural ways of sharing the gospel.

Future dreams

There are always ideas, dreams, hopes and vision to be shared about the Way of Hope. There is a definite buzz about the place. One common idea is the desire to use the building for a computer course centre combined as a cafe. This idea has huge potential to reach our community. For now it is simply a dream but who knows, in time, it may become a reality.