Day 3: “Vision 8!”

Dear friends & family, 

Thank you for your patience with this update!

A couple of you requested the Give Send Go link, so before I forget– here it is! https://www.givesendgo.com/DearlyLovedAlbania

Day 3 was incredibly exciting and so much to share with you all. This will go down in history as a time where the vision of reaching Albania with the Gospel was shared, and we enjoyed the fruits of God’s promises. 

 Even as I write this, I am reminded that being a missionary often feels like a “Mission Impossible” movie. All the Tom Cruises on the mission field are brought together to complete one goal: the Great Commission. In order that the Gospel be preached effectively, there needs to be two things. The first is Vision and the second is Humility. Where there is no vision, the mission dies!!!! Without a clear and concise Vision from the Lord, there is no hope or ability to capture the heavenly dreams and make them a reality on earth. The Lord’s prayer teaches us the second thing we need to be effective, which is humility. Operating out of a place of humility allows us, as image-bearers of our Creator, to love others in our deepest capacity. Without this humility, there is no multiplication in the Kingdom. So, just as in a Mission Impossible movie, we see that there is first a plan set in place, as well as the humility of the team, to cohesively make things happen. 

With this in mind, I would like to share the Vision with you all!!! 

Pastor Kristian shared with us the vision that God gave him to reach not just Elbasan (the city we are at) but all of Albania with God’s love. This is called “Vision 8.”

Here is a map with the major roads connecting the 3 nearby cities of Elbasan, Cerrik and Kucove. This is in a figure ‘8’ with all the little red dots being the villages. As you can see, when people live in the remote villages, there is extreme difficulty to reach Elbasan to go to church. Not everyone has a car, and people travel far just to hear the good news in Elbasan. 

The Vision 8 plan is to plant churches in the major cities of Elbasan, Cerrik and Kucove in order to bring the Gospel to the people. There is a thriving church in Elbasan, but we need to plant churches in the other cities too!! 

After these churches are planted in Cerrik and Kucove, we can begin planting more “house churches” in the remote villages. In the villages, there tends to be heavier muslim populations that can often deter missionaries from reaching or even planting churches. This is due to the relational culture of Albania, and the fact that evangelizing through friendship takes YEARS to even think about bearing fruit or conversions. The remote areas of Albania have a higher population of muslims, with stronger convictions within Islam, and require lots and lots of prayer and focus. 

From what I have seen and gathered, there are several local missionaries in the capital of Albania (which is Tirana) but my hope is for God to raise up people to start going outside of the cities and take the Gospel to the people. We need more boots on the ground with the people who are unreached. Not just short trips to the villages, but we need stable churches residing amongst the people year-round.

After hearing about Vision 8, my heart has been placed in a spot of tender humility in seeking what God is saying. My personal goal is to bring support to the Kotorris in making these dreams happen.  I plan to do this through communicating the vision across the board to all my contacts (and yours if you can help me), assembling Mission teams to go on outreach when possible, and developing leadership summits to grow the churches. I will be writing devotional studies and translating them to Albanian to go alongside the leadership summit materials. (I will be asking my brother Noah to help me translate. God has given him a supernatural ability to pick up the language. He spends roughly 5-7hours a day learning). 

These are a couple of my goals that I am sharing with you all to keep us in prayer for. Of course, this is in addition to my work as a local Youth Pastor in the Portland area– in which I am so deeply excited to encourage teens in actively pursuing the Lord. We will be doing Bible studies, hosting fun community outreach events, and watering the pastures of the Scappoose area for growing in God. As always, my heart has been championed through wanting to connect people through the same mission: Pursuing Jesus. It is ALL about Jesus.

Every moment is captivated in these precious pearls of time, treasured by God. He sees us and His heart glows with warmth because He loves us. He loves us so much that He gave His Son, His ONLY Son, to live and die for us. Not only live and die, but to spend eternal life with Him!

Please enjoy the pictures of Vision 8, and thank you all for keeping us in your prayers. I cannot wait to share with you all Day 4!! 

Blessings, 

Destiny Rose 

GIVE SEND GO : https://www.givesendgo.com/DearlyLovedAlbania