Four years ago Sali and Svileta came from a poor area in the north of Albania (Kukes) to Fllaka Village looking for a better life. However, life hasn’t really improved and they are facing different economical and social problems. Sali (47) can only find casual day work in the construction sector and only earns about 15000 Leks/ month ($AU148) and Svileta (42) is the housekeeper. They have a daughter Eglantina 20 and four sons Izmir 18, Ariston 16, Edmond 14 and Milson 12 who is the only child still attending school (Grade 6). The boys started to collect cans and iron scrap to help the parents, earning money by selling what they collect.

The family is living in a house (belonging to Sali’s brother) which has two rooms, and an outside toilet. There is no running water inside the home. Most of the furniture normally found in a house is lacking in this one, and they need items like a table and chairs, fridge, wood stove and firewood, washing machine, two couch beds and two mattresses. The family is quite poor and Pastor Gezim Spahija of the Assembly of God church suggested they be enrolled in the F2F Program. The family is open to the Gospel and the mother was baptised late last year.

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 Community: Fllake-Bisht Kamez ALBANIA-  The village of Fllake is located north of Durres and is 2kms away from Porto Romano, an area heavily polluted with toxic chemicals and pesticides from chemical plants and tanning factories which have now closed. Whilst Fllake does not face this problem of pollution, it does have high social and economic parameters of poverty and problems. There are about 1,000 people living in this community. During the communist dictatorship the village was used as an internment area. Most of the people earn their living from the agricultural sector, or men work occasionally in the building sector, but neither of these areas provide stable employment. The current rate of unemployment is about 70%.

There is a small health clinic and a dentist in the village, but there is no pharmacy for medicines. The people have to go into Durres city for medical emergencies. There are no specialist clothing or shoe stores or restaurants, only a ‘general’ store. There is only a pimary school in the village and so the teenagers have to walk more than 2kms to attend the High School in another area. The road is made of concrete. The water supply comes from village wells and a reservoir.

The most difficult aspect of life for the people who live in this community is the unemployment, the low level of living conditions, the lack of running water and the low cultural and educational background of the residents. The people in this community are poor and hopeless, so MWB is working, in cooperation with the local church, an AOG church that operates regularly in this village, and it has established a small community of believers and ’seekers’.