{"id":5958,"date":"2020-11-10T16:47:14","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T16:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2020\/11\/10\/a-new-beginning-for-pristina-members\/"},"modified":"2020-11-10T16:47:14","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T16:47:14","slug":"a-new-beginning-for-pristina-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/a-new-beginning-for-pristina-members\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Beginning for Pri\u0161tina members"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 November 2020 | St Albans, UK [TED Communications]   <\/p>\n

With a population of 250,000, the city of Pri\u0161tina, Kosovo, has one of the youngest populations in Europe, on average aged 25 years old. Located in the south-eastern corner of Europe, just north of the Goljak mountains, the majority people group are Kosovo Albanians. With freedom of belief and conscience explicitly guaranteed in the state Constitution, Christianity maintains a low-profile presence, where mosque and church are seen together in the city landscape.<\/p>\n

The local Adventist community is ageing and few in number \u2013 but their commitment to being a beacon of hope is not impaired. Not least is to find a renewed purpose for their existing church building, open for just a few hours each week for sabbath worship.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

From January 2021 \u2013 a new opportunity arrives as they are joined by Adventist Frontier Mission workers (AFM), Edney and Carolina Miranda from Brazil. For the first year, the Mirandas will build networks and make friends with both congregation and community, listening, learning, training, and seeking to understand the unique people group they will serve. <\/p>\n

1,500 miles north of Pri\u0161tina, at the offices of the Trans-European Division (TED) in St. Albans, England, Pastor Raafat Kamal (President) shares how this new opportunity has arisen. \u201cOne of my roles requires me to chair numerous committees\u201d, he says. \u201cBut if there is one I find particularly energising, it is the TED Mission Board, which considers new projects to advance the work of the Church in our territory.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the October meeting of the Mission Board, a plan was approved for an Urban Centre of Influence (UCI) to be strategically located in downtown Pri\u0161tina and operated out of the current church building. Finance for this joint 5-year plan is provided by the General Conference (GC), the Trans-European Division, the South-East European Union, and Adventist Frontier Missions. <\/p>\n

With Pri\u0161tina\u2019s young population, the plan includes the creation of a children\u2019s day-care centre, classes in English, health education, and the formation of Discover Bible study groups. Eventually, the aim is to set up new home-based congregations around the city, with the church building as the hub. <\/p>\n

Pastor Dragan Gruji\u010di\u0107, President of the South-East European Union, supervising the project knows there are going to be challenges ahead. \u201cWhat interests me most, is the possibility of Pri\u0161tina\u2019s small church family extending their arms of loving friendship to youth and young families from a very different background.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo date this will be the 9th<\/sup> Urban Centre of Influence the GC and TED have provided support for\u201d, says Dr Daniel Duda, TED Adventist Mission director. \u201cSince 2015, the TED fields have initiated 8 Urban Centres of Influence within its territory in the countries of Albania, Croatia, Estonia, Denmark, Hungary, and Ireland.\u201d <\/p>\n

For the Pri\u0161tina members, the new Centre will bring added value to the life of the church. With the plan to open the doors of the church most days of the week, the worshipping church also becomes a serving church.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s good news for both the church and the community\u201c, says Dr Conrad Vine, President of Adventist Frontier Missions. \u201cI am delighted that we are able to partner with the Trans-European Division to support the South-East European Union\u2019s plan to bring hope and healing to the people of Pri\u0161tina.\u201c<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, editor; Deana Stojkovi\u0107, associate editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted.adventist.org<\/a>
Website: www.ted.adventist.org
ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division. Readers are free to republish or share this article with appropriate credit including an active hyperlink to the original article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 November 2020 | St Albans, UK [TED Communications]   <\/p>\n

With a population of 250,000, the city of Pri\u0161tina, Kosovo, has one of the youngest populations in Europe, on average aged 25 years old. Located in the south-eastern corner of Europe, just north of the Goljak mountains, the majority people group are Kosovo Albanians. With freedom of belief and conscience explicitly guaranteed in the state Constitution, Christianity maintains a low-profile presence, where mosque and church are seen together in the city landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1577,1588],"tags":[751,752,477,747,262,745,749,750,748],"class_list":["post-5958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-organisational-updates","category-united-kingdom-ireland","tag-adventist-frontier-missions","tag-afm","tag-centre-of-influence","tag-kosovo","tag-mission","tag-pristina","tag-seeuc","tag-south-east-european-union","tag-uci"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5958","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}