Loving the cast-off Children of Albania (December 2006)

Loving the cast-off Children of Albania
by Andre van der Bergh, OM Albania

It all started with a bag of bananas.

Late one evening two years ago, one of our friends went on an outreach to sailors in the port area of Durres, Albania.  While he was sharing the gospel on an Indian ship, one of the crew gave him a bag of bananas.  My friend tried to refuse it.  What would he do with a whole bag of bananas?

But the Indian insisted.  While walking through a port, our friend saw a group of children sitting
between shipping containers.  He went over to them and gave them the bananas.  Much to his surprise, more and more children came out from behind the containers.  He asked them what they were all doing there at 11 at night, and then he started to listen to their stories.  There & then he caught the vision to open a center for street children in Durres. 

We have been running the center now for nearly two years, and God has been blessing us richly.  We rented a house in the center of the city, and about 50 children come three times a week to
receive a meal, clothes and stories of Jesus.  Some of the children also sleep at the center during the night. 

About 70 percent of the children are Gypsies, and their ages range between five and seventeen.  Most of them have never learned to read & write more than their names. 

The kids sleep between containers in the port area, in the open air.  In the winter, they huddle up against each other for warmth.  Some of the children were sold to child traffickers for sexual
Exploitation, but they ran away to try to make a living on the street.  Others have had some of their organs removed for sale on the black markets to clinics in other countries.  A kidney goes for 1,500 Euros.  The system provides an easy way for the parents to get their hands on money.  Because of fear of their parents, these children run away and turn to our center for help. 

Each day we deal with different trauma cases.  Some of the children are being sexually abused by their family members; others were thrown out in the street and told never to return to their families.  We also have orphans with no one to take care of them.  Some kids also have medical problems that need attention.  We love these children so much, and we know that God can change their lives and give them hope.  Every Wednesday, my wife and I hold a kids’ club for them.  They are always so eager to hear about Jesus and to learn new memory verses.  Some of them have received Jesus as their Savior, and we can already see a change in them.  They now understand that they are not alone.  They have a Father taking care of them.


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