Hey! We want to tell you about a person with an incredible story. It starts off incredibly ordinary, for him at least. He grew up the youngest of six siblings in a small village in the hills of southern Albania. When he was seven years old, the communist government in his nation collapsed. For around 50 years after WWII, Albania was ruled by a communist dictator. At that time, it was declared an atheist nation, the only one so far in history. Now, we don’t have time to explain all of Albanian history (we recommend you look into it), but in 1991, for the first time in nearly 500 years, Christian missionaries were allowed to bring the Gospel into Albania. Nine years later, a group of missionaries from Switzerland brought the Gospel into Flori’s village, and at eleven years old, he was baptized, the first person in his family to begin following Jesus. After that, he continued to be discipled throughout his teen years, until at 18, he left home to become a shepherd. He recalls the only things he brought with him were, “One bag for food and another, full of books.” Then, for three years, he traveled with his flock of around two hundred, sometimes upwards of six hundred sheep at a time, taking care of his flock and reading his bag of Christian books, finishing 45 of them in one summer… wow. “I am the Good Shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” - John 10:11. Flori admitted it was hard to be a shepherd, but through those years, he also received a special part of God’s heart and saw what it was like for God to shepherd us as his sheep. He left that season of his life with a new mission: to share the Gospel. So, he went to university and came back to his hometown as a teacher. Each day, he would walk between his village and another to teach a class of a couple of kids, walking 1 hour and 30 minutes just to reach the school. It was during this time he got a motorcycle and began going from village to village to fulfill the Great Commission! Later on, he would begin taking others with him in a more somewhat suitable Ford Focus. Eventually, one day, he looked out across the mountains from his home. At least a hundred villages fill the area of Skrapar, Albania. Few of them have people who know Jesus, and none have a church. “My vision is someday to reach them all.” Today, Flori is the only Albanian missionary in his area. We’re making this because we want to help him; practically, we would love this to be a surprise for him as a parting gift before we leave. We want to help him afford a better car. Right now, his car has 200,000 miles on it, and often times has difficulties navigating the mountainous roads. We want to be able to help him travel to the farther, harder-to-reach villages, and you can help!! The Gospel is coming to Albania through the obedience of this man!! “Go into all the earth and preach the Gospel to all creation!” - Mark 16:15