Who: Edi and Bona Demo ... kids ... Noel and Sion
Where: Tirana, Albania
Background: Albanian MBBs (since 1993)
With: Illyricum Movement- planting and establishing churches among Muslims
New Church Plant
God’s grace has been so plentiful upon us that after only 14 months since starting the first church in the Yzberisht area, we are now able to start the second church, this time in the DonBosko area, which is in north part of Tirana. We have just rented the building, and we will start to do some preparation for it. We will begin the church by doing evangelism on the street, but also through using English Classes as a tool to reach people. We will start spreading the word from March 15–31 in the area of DonBosko about a second English course. On Saturdays we will encourage people to stay after the English classes to have Biblical discussions and songs. In the last week of April we will have a team from Wisconsin that will come and help us in this church plant. We feel so blessed to have them partnering with us. We would appreciate if you can take a moment and ask the Lord to lead and direct us; also please pray that God will continue to provide financially for this second church plant.
2014 Raising up Leaders
The vision that we at Illyricum Movement have is to plant churches and raise leaders from within the church, to train and equip them to be future leaders. This year 2013 has been one in which most of the focus was on evangelism. The 2014 focus will continue to be on evangelism but with a strong emphasis on building leaders. We want to have others who will take over leadership. In this way we will be free to plant other churches. Multiplication is very important and crucial. After praying about God’s leading, we had a weekend conference with six wonderful potential leaders of Eklesia Church at the beginning of January. With this group we will go through Systematic Theology training to help them grow in their knowledge. Each will also be preaching once a month at the Sunday meetings. Our staff will be teaching, training and helping them to take steps of faith. Please pray for Edlir, Roni, Xhoi, Redi, Ersid and Petrit as they have entered in this process that God will be glorified and honored.
Family News
This month has been a bit difficult for Bona since Edi was gone to the Netherlands. Bona has been taking care of the kids and helping the ladies at the church. Her health is still not very good. Her kidneys are working about 40% of total which makes her feel tired and without much energy especially in the evenings. She is taking medication and she has examinations every month to check the situation.
The kids are doing very well. Noel and Sion are growing very fast. They both are doing very well at school. While I was gone Noel had some problems with his behavior and this we think is mostly because of the influence of the friends that he has in school. We are working to find a better solution for him regarding the school. We are so glad that we are now back together as a family: worshiping, memorizing verses and talking daily about the Lord, as is our habit. Bona and I are committed to influencing them with the word of God and raising them up in the faith. We would appreciate if you can continue to pray for our family.
