Kosovo

The group arrived in Kosovo with 8,000 leaflets, 2 boxes of Albanian books and 200 copies of 'Your Share in God's Promises' in Albanian. Becky Paul and Simon Peel had both campaigned in Kosovo before; for the others it was a new area of preaching activity. Talks were given in the conference room of Hotel Iliria starting at 7:30 on the evenings of the 12, 13 and 14 February. Afterwards there was much discussion about the Bible, contact details were recorded and literature distributed as well as bookings taken for those wishing to receive Bible Course Correspondence. Simon Peel spoke on 'Freedom in Christ', Andrew Goodwin on 'Why it does matter what you believe' and Tim Archer on 'The hope of the Kingdom'. A digital projector was very helpful in showing the verses in Albanian (although it packed up after a power failure on the first night). A translator was used for all the talks.

During the day the group met for breakfast readings and discussion on the previous night's lecture and contacts. They then spent the morning and afternoon fly-billing. This was a very effective way of distributing the bills as people are keen and interested to take them and to talk with us. We also met up with existing contacts including the Hyseni family and students from the City University. We saw the University as a good place to preach and considered trying to book a room there for a lecture on a future visit.

We printed additional leaflets and also used posters effectively to advertise our events. In total we distributed roughly 13,000 leaflets. We were pleased with the evening attendance: Tues - 30, Wed - 29, Thurs - 49. We would say that roughly 70% were new contacts. We hope to work on a more coherent way of collecting and maintaining contact data which will include photos where possible. We tried to take as many photos as possible and to use name badges which helped make this task easier.

Since returning home we have divided the contacts between us and have been corresponding with some of them on email and the younger contacts on Facebook. The Christadelphian community uses Facebook profitably and this could be a good way of keeping in touch and introducing them to a wider worldwide group of Christadelphians. We will also be sending out a letter/email to all who attended. We have also posted a short video of our trip on YouTube, which can be viewed by clicking here.

We feel a large responsibility to our contacts in Kosovo and hold high hopes for some of our regular contacts. We continue to keep them in our prayers and God willing hope to visit again before the end of this year.