by Altin Shabani

At the end of October it will be 6 years of the presence and service of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood in Albania. The two parishes staffed by the Missionaries are in the North, in poor and marginalized places. The five centuries of the Ottoman occupation tried to knock down the strong and free spirit of Catholics and it nearly did. 50 years of comunist regime, a mix of anger and persecution, tried to meet the same goal of the Ottomans, even if they didn’t want to convert the Catholics to Islam. They just wanted to extinguish them.

The last 33 years of freedom harshly paid this hard and unfair past: dimmed faith, faded hope, fear and the insatiable desire to move away are the worst consequences ever. People wanted to move to the capital city and the other big towns to study and work. They wanted to leave Albania for a better life. In addition to the pastoral service on this land, nowadays the Missionaries try to find some ways and methods to cure somehow this wound that does not want to heal. It is such a big battle that sometimes makes us feel little and insignificant. However, we do not stop fighting. We stay to feed hope, enhance faith and preach the love of God.

We cannot force anybody to stay. But we want to stay with the ones who remain to build the beautiful city of God.