Fall 2012

Just twenty years ago, this country was officially atheist, openly antagonistic toward any thoughts of God, much less the Church. With the fall of communism, courageous missionaries and Albanian nationals began preaching Christ across the nation. Spiritually hungry people opened their hearts to the Gospel and churches sprang up in cities, growing fast and needing encouragement and teaching. Several radio ministries such as HCJB, Blessings for Obedience (BFO) and TWR helped Albanian leaders to start small Christian radio stations in several towns and cities. One of the first ministries to reach Albania once opened established a Christian restaurant/coffee house in the heart of the Albanian capital city of Tirana. Called The Stephens Center, one of its purposes is to draw the Body of Christ there together for fellowship, teaching and strategic conferences. The leaders, Chris and Laura Dakas, found the radio stations were asking for training in order to compete with any secular radio stations springing up in the country. The Stephens Center became a Strategic partner of Sharing International and asked us to come to teach a Media Seminar in Tirana. Forty Christ broadcast leaders representing all but one of the Christian stations on the air converged at The Stephens Center as Sharing Associates Chuck Pollak and Sarah Pollak-Hoffman led the participants though an intensive three day seminar on all aspects of radio operations and strategic planning. Only on the second day of the meetings did we realize that this was the very first official gathering of these Albanian Christian broadcast pioneers!