Pastor

OLTI TODO

A few words of Background

In 1967 Albania government closed every place of worship and declared itself as the First Atheist Country in the World. Under these conditions, the former general director of European Christian Mission, Stuart Harris, committed himself following the vision of reaching the country through Christian Radio Communications. The First transmission was on Friday, 5^th of July 1968 and was called ‘The Way of Peace’.

Years later in 1992 a church was founded in Tirana and was known firstly as “the meeting of radio phonic people” with 150 that had correspondence with ECM radio programs in Albanian or reading materials distributed by this mission through mail. The organizers of the meeting recall sending more than 200 telegrams written by hand.

From January 1993 a couple from Kosova moved to Albania to take the lead of the church and served for 7 years. After that they moved back to Peja planting a church called ‘The Way of Peace church of Peja’.

From June 2000 – November 2008 another missionary came to Tirana from Northern Ireland. Next challenge of the church, under his care, was getting structured accordingly to the principles of The Word of God. A long process started to prepare The Statement of Faith and the Constitution proceeding with pointing of elders and church membership.

In 23 September of 2006 holding a special service, all the members of the Church made a Covenant in front of the Lord pledging to walk according to His Word. This is what church is doing though that missionary left and is now is under the ministry of an Albanian leadership team.

Google maps can take you there!

Olti’s Testimony

As a child I used to think many times about the death and what was after. Unable to get satisfactory answers, came to a conclusion that nothing was there besides darkness and emptiness. I grew up under the communist regime and all what I knew about Jesus was that he was a person who helped the poor and died at a young age. I was taught that believing in him was nonsense.

After the communism fell down and Albania had freedom of religion many people started to show their zeal by following up different religions. I was somehow a confrontational person to others as religion looked nonsense to me. However inside me I had a battle: it is those we oppose more who often become more valuable to us, and this is what happened to me. I was opposed to Christ and yet at the same time I had an increasing desire to know more about him. I didn’t know that God was working on me. I attended some open air meetings, had correspondence with some missions, got a New Testament to our National Library and read it within a week. I was very frightened reading the book of Revelation. But no change yet.

God used also some circumstances around me to realize how weak I was. I was in the last year of my high school studies (18 years old) and before me was no future and hope. No peace. No assurance of anything. During one of those correspondences I got a brochure explaining the life of Christ. At the end of it I was challenged with a decision to make, accept it or not. God made me realize that without Christ I was totally lost forever, and one evening, alone in my room His promises made sense to me that much as to be seriously repented and trust in Christ as my Saviour. For the first time I had true peace inside, together with real joy and a surprisingly deep love for God. This was approximately three months before I joined the ‘Way of Peace’ church in Tirana which started its regular meetings in December 1992.

I never left the church from the moment stepped in. In the beginning of 1994 I started my service in the military for 15 months. During that time though being in another city, got involved with some believers that planted the ‘Way of Peace’ church in Vlora. I had opportunity to start leading and preaching together with them. After being back in my home church my involvement increased as that time missionary-pastor, Gani Smolica, started to encourage me more in the ministry. As a result church appointed me as a deacon by the middle of June 2000. Gani was replaced soon by another leader, Andy Oliver from Northern Ireland. He had a clear vision of organizing the church in a proper structure led by Albanian leaders.

Some of us got involved on preparing for some years our Statement of Faith altogether with Church Constitution. That was revolutionary for that time among Albanian churches. After three years preparing and preaching and teaching in the church we all agreed to accept those documents for ruling our church membership. Also church appointed three elders; one of those was me, by September of 2006. After two years Andy left the church to follow God’s calling as a chaplain in the British Army. A year before he left asked me to consider being the future pastor of the church. That was a proposition which I did not accept immediately. After almost a year of prayers and discussions with my wife decided to accept it. I had to consider being more depended on God and trust him to fulfil my needs. That was a totally different experience for me. I accepted that position since I wanted to help and encourage more my fellow believers to grow in the Lord.

A year later, 2009, started as a student in South Eastern Theological Seminary (SETS). The purpose for it was the desire to be more trained and able to preach and teach and minister to the folk of God I was responsible. I used to take lessons from Andy for some years on different subjects which helped me a lot (hermeneutic, worship, homiletic, theology, doctrines of grace etc). So being a student in the Seminar was another big step. I enjoy learning there though is difficult finding time to manage everything else.

Before being a pastor I was a full time printer in a Christian print shop. That changed to part time for about 10 years. I got again involved full time with the printing but in the position of an administrator together with a brother of mine. We founded a printing company called Vision Printing after the closure of the former print shop. There is a joy to continue printing many Christian materials though the challenges are big. But I continue to trust him and try to do my best with the capabilities he has gifted me.