Greece, Albania, Croatia and more!

Mark Dijkens, our European director is on tour this week visiting all the amazing projects across eastern Europe that CBN is supporting. Read on to get the latest update from him, on the ground in Albania.

Hope In Action

This and next week, I have the privilege of travelling through Europe with Ron Oates, our Director for Operation Blessing. Together we are visiting humanitarian relief projects in Greece, Albania, Croatia, Germany and in The United Kingdom in order to see the life changing impact of the projects that are made possible by CBN partners.

Operation Blessing is helping vulnerable widows, children and families who have lost their homes during the recent earthquakes in Albania. In conjunction with our ministry partners and local churches we are able to bring food, heaters, shoes, blankets, mattresses and hygiene kits.

These families live in very remote areas near Durres, close to the epicentre of the recent quakes. The only way to get there is by four–wheel drive. The government have marked their houses as inhabitable due to severe structural damage. In a matter of seconds, the family homes which people have built and families have grown up in, were lost and beyond recovery.

As a result, families are having to live in tents through the winter months. They do not know what the future will bring.

We met an elderly widow high up in the Albanian mountains who lost her farmhouse in the recent earthquake. She now lives in a tent, provided by the government. Soon after the earthquake happened, our partners on the ground visited this precious lady and provided her with food, supplies and blankets. Today we returned to see how she is doing. She was so thankful that we came and brought her a large bag of supplies!

The girl in the picture is Gloria. She goes to school in the village and has to take the bus every day to get there. It is a long trip over a rocky and dusty mountain road, but for her it is more than worth it. She loves school and her favourite subject is foreign languages including French. She was so happy with the new boots we brought her!

We continue to visit over 100 families in very remote areas who are not being supported by the government, other than the tents they were given. These people are very vulnerable and need our help.

‘The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Matthew 25:40.

Thanks to CBN partners we are able to make a life-changing difference by providing gas heaters, cooking stoves, blankets, food parcels, shoes, clothing and other essentials. As we provide practical help, trauma support and a shoulder to lean on, we are able to provide hope and a lifeline to people in extreme poverty in Jesus’ name.