{"id":353,"date":"2014-08-29T08:46:17","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T08:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/29\/adventist-church-leaders-meet-the-minister-of-culture-in-albania\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T08:46:17","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T08:46:17","slug":"adventist-church-leaders-meet-the-minister-of-culture-in-albania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/adventist-church-leaders-meet-the-minister-of-culture-in-albania\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventist Church Leaders Meet the Minister of Culture in Albania"},"content":{"rendered":"

18 June 2012 Tirana, Albania<\/span><\/strong> [Julian Kastrati, ted<\/em>NEWS] Dr Bertil Wiklander, the President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division, held an official meeting with the Honorable Mr. Aldo Bum\u00e7i, MP, Minister of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports in Albania. He was accompanied by Dr Reinder Bruinsma, President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in\u00a0 Belgium and Luxemburg; pastor Leo N. Espa\u00f1a, President of the Seventh-day Church in Albania; Pastor Julian Kastrati, Executive Secretary of the Seventh-day Church in Albania; and Beatrice C. Kastrati, Director of ADRA in Albania.<\/p>\n

\n

Minister Bum\u00e7i thanked the guests for the role the Seventh-day Adventist Church has played in igniting and enriching the spiritual awakening of the Albanian people, following four decades of a repressive and atheistic communist regime. \u201cI take the opportunity to express our gratitude to your church and its humanitarian agency, for their 20-year contribution to Albanian society at large\u201d, said Mr Bum\u00e7i.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr Wiklander complimented Mr Bum\u00e7i and the Albanian Government for the exemplary freedom of conscience level as well as the admirable inter-faith harmony existing in Albania. He then proceeded by briefing the Minister about who Adventists are how their fundamental beliefs, including the Seventh-day Sabbath, are based solely on the Bible. In this context, Dr Wiklander presented to Minister Bum\u00e7i a special edition of the Thomson Study Bible in the Albanian language, which the Minister accepted gladly. Dr Wiklander also assured Mr Bum\u00e7i of the willingness Adventist Church to engage in dialogue and have good relations with all other denominations present in Albania.<\/p>\n

Dr Bruinsma highlighted the significant contribution that the Adventist Church has made worldwide towards the promotion and fostering of religious liberty. He made a kind suggestion to Minister Bum\u00e7i regarding the prospect of him participating as one of the main speakers in an international religious liberty conference, which Mr Bum\u00e7i not only agreed to, but rather positively asked in return: \u201cwhy not host [the conference] in Albania?\u201d<\/p>\n

On behalf of ADRA Albania, Mrs Kastrati informed the minister about the considerable contribution of ADRA Albania, as the first non-for-profit organisation that entered post-communist Albania, in various relief and development efforts and projects since 1991. She shared more information about the latest project relating to the civil society empowerment such as Roma people inclusion and integration, as well as community service.<\/p>\n

\"\" Pastor Espa\u00f1a kindly notified the Minister about the Sabbath jubilee event, as he made an expos\u00e9 of Adventism in Albania, with its roots going back to the 1930s. He reassured Mr Bum\u00e7i that Adventist pastors and lay members are committed to serving the Albanian people and praying regularly for the country’s authorities, as the Holy Bible counsels to do so. Subsequently, Pastor Kastrati thanked the Minister for the excellent relationship that the Church in Albania has with the country’s Regulatory Body for Religious Denominations. In this context, Mr Bum\u00e7i asured the guests that the above mentioned Regulatory Body will continue to advocate on behalf of the Adventist Church’s priority needs in Tirana and throughout the country.<\/p>\n

In closing, Mr Bum\u00e7i was presented a joint certificate of appreciation by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Albania and ADRA Albania in recognition of his contribution to religious liberty and promotion of humanitarian faith-based values for the Albanian people.<\/p>\n

For more information about the church in Albania and ADRA Albania, please visit www.adventist.al and www.adraalbania.blogspot.com [ted<\/em>NEWS].<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 June 2012 Tirana, Albania<\/span><\/strong> [Julian Kastrati, ted<\/em>NEWS] Dr Bertil Wiklander, the President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division, held an official meeting with the Honorable Mr. Aldo Bum\u00e7i, MP, Minister of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports in Albania. He was accompanied by Dr Reinder Bruinsma, President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in\u00a0 Belgium and Luxemburg; pastor Leo N. Espa\u00f1a, President of the Seventh-day Church in Albania; Pastor Julian Kastrati, Executive Secretary of the Seventh-day Church in Albania; and Beatrice C. Kastrati, Director of ADRA in Albania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1580,1576,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albania-croatia-slovenia","category-leadership-development","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}