The northwestern side of Albania has experienced 31 earthquakes in the last month, many around a 4.5 magnitude and one as large as 6.4.
Latif is a leader in the Roma, or gypsy, community. He has served God for more than 15 years in his village, and his home has become a community center and church where people from the village gather. Everyone knows his door is open anytime, and God has done incredible work to heal many of his hometown’s troubles.
There was just one little problem: the church had children services with skits and stories from their Bible, and her darling granddaughter loved it.
What was a poor Muslim grandmother to do?
She’d endure anything for her sweet mbesë, even these Christians.
The Roma community in Europe is often classified as the most economically depressed.
Mynevere Saliu, more often called Vera by friends and family, was born into a Muslim Roma family in the city Peqin.
I live in Rruga-Ura, a suburb of Albania’s capital, where most residents are Roma with a Muslim background.
This is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Tirana, and it was difficult growing up here. People got into fights practically every day, and alcohol was almost everywhere
In 1953, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon where he stated, “…the methods of communism are diametrically opposed to Christianity.”
An Open Window of Blessing in Albania
Loving society’s most marginalized can often feel like an overwhelming task, but for Blerta Kamberi, it has become her heart’s desire and her full-time job.
Blerta is a leader of CHE Albania, one of World Challenge’s ministry partners in the Balkans, and she focuses on serving the Roma community, sometimes called gypsies.
Recently, a member of the European Parliament pointed out, “There is not a single European country where Roma people have equal rights to non-Roma people. They are treated as a problem...”
