New Beginning- From the Pastor.

The gospel has come to this land after more than 500 years. Once being Christian country, led by God now a country of 95 % Muslims and very few Christians.

We believe that God is not finished with our country yet, because the Bible says: His mercy endures forever.

We say and believe that His Mercy endures forever  more and more because it has been over 15 years that the gospel has come back again in our land and people are saved.

After the war in 1999 doors opened for missionaries to come to Kosova. Missionaries to our town first came from Switzerland and then from America. They preached the gospel and people believed and the Church started after more than 500 years. 

Randy Harvey was the first pastor of the church of Malisheve and he did a wonderful work leading many people to Christ and disciplining them.

From Pastor Randy Harvey the ministry was passed on to his son in law Jeff Harry and then from Jeff the ministry was passed to me and my wife Teuta this August.

God not only He blessed me with a wonderful wife this year but also with  responsibility of being the Pastor and leading the Church and with an awesome ministry team. 
These great people who love Him and want to serve Him along side me. 
There new missionaries that joined the team; Jennifer Mellor who has been here some years ago in Malisheve, and now she is back and part of the ministry team.
Ryan Gleason, who came to assist me for a period of one year with the possibility of continuing, Lord willing.

In the same time we are blessed to say that we have two believers studying at the Bible College in
Tirana Albania and willing to come back and serve the Lord. Also one more is going this fall to the Bible College, his name is Rinor.

So finally I am so blessed to have people who pray and support us while we are on the front lines sharing the Love of Christ with the lost.

It is a new beginning for the Church with new mercies and new grace but the same wonderful God and Savior.

We are very excited about what God is going to do with new open doors we have this year to serve God.

Thanks to all who has been part of this work here by being personally in the mission field or by prayers and support.

We will posting now on once a month about what God is doing in Malisheve.

LOFTL Team.

Transition

  Praise God! He is so good! Even in the midst of this sin sick and perverse world, He is working out a plan that is beautiful beyond comprehension in His Love. We are sorry it has been so long since we have updated this blog. Much has happened and, well, we have been left without words by many of the challenging and even overwhelming situations that we have been facing. But as stated above, "God is good." We see now, the well known Scriptural teaching, that God uses the worst things to bring about the best. The prime example being Jesus' betrayal, defamation, false accusation, mutilation and crucifixion bringing about our salvation.  In our darkest days God brought people to the church asking to be saved, asking how to pray to Jesus, humbling themselves before God. We have seen more than 10 people come to faith in Christ within the last year and more are coming each month. This may seem like very few to the western evangelical mind but here we know it is a great work of God.
   Another wonderful thing that the Lord has done is to raise up a local believer to pastor the church here in Malishevë. This is, I believe, always the goal of the foreign missionary, to see God replace them with national leaders. Urim was ordained as a pastor in November 2014 (picture above: Urim and Jeff just after the ordination service). He is the first Albanian national pastor to be ordained in the church of Malishevë since the gospel returned to this region after the war in 1999. This also means that he is very likely the first Christian pastor ordained in the region since before the Islamic Ottoman reign, beginning over 600 years ago, and even before that it was the Roman Catholic Church that dominated this area for hundreds of years after the initial coming of Paul the Apostle which he mentioned is Romans 15:19. It is likely that Urim is the first Protestant evangelical pastor ever ordained in this small municipality of Kosovo. But praise God, just like in other regions of Kosovo, Light is shining out of the darkness through national saints whom the Lord has prepared and sent to labor in His harvest.
   Urim is now serving as the lead pastor of the church of Malishevë. Jeff is helping Urim and the church through this transition from foreign to national leadership as well as preparing to transition he and his family back to the States this summer. God is also bring two new missionaries to serve on the Love on the Front Line ministry team: Jen Mellor and Ryan Gleason. (See "Team" page to find out more about them). And two other local believers are in Bible College currently, including Bisere from the internship program.
   We are so excited about what the Lord is doing in and through the church of Malishevë, The Love on the Front Line Ministry Team and the Diamond in the Rough Outreach.
   Please pray with us for the Lord to continue to send laborers into His harvest field here in Malishevë, Kosovo and beyond, laborers from the church here locally and from foreign countries. Pray for this crucial time of transition for the church. And pray with us to see if the Lord would have you join in the work in some way. Then see the "Join Us" page on this blog for possible ways that you can do that.
   The front line is moving forward by the power of the love of God. Let us keep expanding the borders of the kingdom of God together through our prayers, sacrificial service and giving toward the lost and unreached who need that love the most.
  
Thank you so much and may God bless and direct you,

-LOTFL Team

Internship program update:

A Face for the Vision

   Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law.
                                                                                                                          Proverbs 29:18
Every ministry is constantly communicating something to the people around. That thing that we are communicating is our vision (or sometimes lack of vision). If we have no vision we lose our direction and spin out of control and crash (cast off restraint). If our vision is split we will confuse and divide and eventually fall, for a house divided against itself cannot stand. But if our vision is from the LORD and is according to the Word of the LORD nothing can stop us. By that prophetic vision we will wage the good warfare (1 Timothy 1:18) and win for we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37).
   Our vision in love on the front line (as seen on the vision page above) is guided by Love, the Word and Prayer period.  In seeking to put a face on that vision here in Malisheve and to cover all of the different activities that we do from the Conversational English Corner to our expanding Bible College program, the Lord has led us to the name "Diamond in the Rough". I will explain below.
   A diamond is so insanely valuable. We know from Scripture that each human being is incalculably valuable to God so much so that "He did not spare His own Son" for them (Romans 8:32). This is what we want to communicate wherever we go and in whatever we do to serve people. So we want to show them how insanely valuable that they are to God. This can only be done by the love of God through us.
   A diamond is also extremely rare. We also recognize (especially in ministry here in this time) that it is very rare for a person to count the cost, come to Christ and endure in their faith through the trials that come. Wide is the gate that leads to destruction but narrow and hard is the way that leads to life and there are "few" that go by it. So everyday we want to look hard for those "few" people whom God has prepared, who are willing respond with faith to the Word of God in the gospel. So we want to dig all day and not give up, no matter how tired and dirty we become, until we find those precious few.
   A diamond comes from black coal deep in the earth. We are surrounded by blackness and darkness in this world. But it is there that the most beautiful, valuable, precious treasures are found. So we are not afraid of the darkness but we dive into it will joy knowing that our purpose is to find these invaluable souls and that we will find them.
   A diamond is born out of great pressure. All the glory that God has in store for people will never be realized unless we submit to the pressure and pain that the transformation takes and ultimately unless we join in Christ's sufferings. Only when the hard decisions are made, when the price is paid, only when we are broken can we be remade. The church here in Kosovo is going through that pressure. So we must be willing to first go through the pain ourselves before we experience the blessing and breakthrough.
   A diamond is originally rough and unattractive. It needs the cutting and polishing of a master. This is true of every one of us. We are born as sinners. We need a rebirth and then we need the cutting and polishing of the Master, called sanctification, daily. This is an ongoing process. So we serve with patience knowing that each person whom we serve is not the finished product yet but still "rough" around the edges as the master does His work in His way.
   As I returned to Kosovo after our furlough this summer, I was contemplating these things and this new vision during one of my first trips back into the villages driving believers to and from meetings. I picked up a young man and a couple of boys to give them a lift on my way back to town. The group was headed to soccer practice so, having my son with me as well, we talked about the soccer season, schedules and such. Then the young man began asking about our meetings and about the church activities. He had know me from years ago when he was a child, though I did not remember him. I was embarrassed to ask his name since he knew mine and I felt I should have known his (This happens often after 12 years of ministry here). But I went ahead and asked anyway. he told me that his name was Diamond. I realized then that this is what the Lord wants us to do, to find the diamonds on the road, at the park, in the store or at the gas station, drinking chai, plowing fields, watching cows, or begging for money. I'm here for the diamond in the rough.
   Thank you for joining us in prayer and support to seek and save these diamonds in the rough.

-Pastor Jeff

RADIO MINISTRY 

God every time  is searching for the heart that are ready to serve Him , and then He will give them all the  necessary tools to carry out His will.

We as a ministry team here in Malisheve in our church have been asking God and continue to seek God to extend our borders for the gospel.

God is answering our prayers and besides other ministries that we have God has given us a special vision to share the  gospel. This is an opportunity, through a local radio to share the gospel once  a week.

We will broadcast starting next week  one time per week, every Monday Biblical messages for the character and attributes of God, for a few minutes in Radio Malisheve.
These messages will be broadcast, in the city of Malisheva and its 45 villages, where more than 70 thousand inhabitants live.


Please Pray:
• Pray that this message directly touches people's hearts for the gospel.
• Pray for God to provide  more time for our  messages on Radio Malisheva.
• Pray when people here these messages they would know God, come to Salvation.
                                       

                                      OCTOBER 2012 UPDATE ( Urim Zogaj)

October update (by: Urim Zogaj)

KIDS MINISTRY

Now that we are ending the summer season and entering the season of autumn is the time when children entered school in their second semester. They begin school with great joy, excited that they will meet their friends and teachers.

At the same time children are happy to be back in our church after a long summer where most of them have gone on holiday in the countryside or to their relatives.

We praise God that this season has started so well and the number of children coming regularly to our meetings every Friday is increasing daily, the number of them goes from 30-40 children for a meeting.

We are teaching kids the basic things of life, we have been teaching them what is Sin, what is eternal life, eternal death, and more importantly, who is the Savior Jesus.

Since they come from Muslim families it is difficult for us and for them, but God is working in the lives of these children and many of them joyfully sing song to God, they answer question about every lesson and they memorize Bible verses.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven      belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 19:14

FRIDAY KIDS CLUB

·       Please pray that these kids would come to a personal encounter with the

Lord Jesus and they will know Him personally as their King.

·       Pray that the kids would be a witness to their families for Jesus.

·       Pray that God would keep them safe and they would not be hinder to come at the church.

June 2012 Update (Urim Zogaj)

Thank you so much for praying for me and the ministry here in Malishevë. God has been working so much here in our church and the ministries He has opened doors.

-Children’s Ministry

When I asked to pray last time for God to open doors and reach out to the kids of our community, I just wanted to let you know now that I have seen the faithfulness of our God. Now we have two groups of kids that come to our church on Fridays.

In the first group there are 40 kids that come regularly. It is amazing how God is making that happen for those kids to come every week, even though their families are Muslims. Kids are coming and are learning Christian principals of life, for the first time they can hear that God loves them, cares for them, has a plan for them, they are sinners and need to be saved, and something like that they never had the opportunity to learn growing up as Muslim.

In the second group there are around 30 kids. They are older than the first group and praise God they can grasp easily the teachings of the Bible. I have been teaching them Bible Verses to learn and say it by heart so a lot of them now can say verses by heart.

Please pray that God will open their hearts to receive Christ.

Pray that the Kids will not stop coming because of their family influence.

Please pray for these kids they are from one family two sisters and one brother.

                           Their names are: Arbesa, Agnesa and Rrezart.

-Malishevë  Bible Study

I have been doing Bible studies once a week at church for believers.  Themes which I have been teaching are: The Authority of God’s word, God’s will, Prayer, Faith etc…

What is amazing about the Bible studies we have been doing is that God has been touching lives of the believers here in our church in Malishevë and changing their lives. Our church is growing. A lesson God has been teaching me is that I have seen the importance of feeding the believers here with the word of God and encouraging them in their walk with Christ.

Doing Bible studies have been such a blessing to see also non- believers being part if the studies so often.

Please you pray that God would touch all the youth who have been coming in our Bible Studies.

We have been very busy with teams reaching out to people in many different ways. Now as we are entering into summer season please pray for the plans we have for the summer and different activities we are going to do, to reach out to kids, youth, and families.

Thank you so much again for your prayers and support. Please keep our church in your prayers.

God bless you.

Zoti ju bekoft

In Him

Sincerely

Urim Zogaj