In The Spotlight!

One of the students from ISTL, Jeton Bajram, pastor of Christian Centre Church located in Durrës, Albania wrote:

“I am endlessly grateful to ISTL! God is restructuring my life spiritually and refining my leadership through your work. Today I received the answer to 7 years of fatigue, tears, and prayers. It was precisely what God had spoken to me, but because of discouragement, I had started to doubt it.”

It is these moments that motivate us to keep working on our mission to equip and develop the future generation of Christian leaders. Classes included new subjects as well. Mental Health Referrals was one of them and we were happy to have an Albanian teacher cover this class – Kristi Kola graduate of General Medicine and resident in Psychiatry, at the University Health Clinic ‘Mother Theresa’, Tiranë.

At ISTL we don’t want our students to just learn the basics of Theology, but also learn how to care for their community. According to an INSTAT survey, 60-70% of all Albanian adults suffered from depression at some point.*  There is no wonder that some of these people can be from our congregations. This class was a needed innovation in our program and showed in the time that students took to share their stories and how that class opened a new perspective for them.  Let us also note that we have realized how important counseling is currently. The reason we believe so is that during the class on Basics of Counseling, we had in April, the students were all ears and excited about learning those basics. 

Another innovative way of operating this past year was having physical classes in other cities than Tirana. As you might be aware, ISTL is not limited to Tirana, not limited even to Albania. We have students who attend the classes via Zoom. There are hubs in Korça, Katjel, and Kosovo; this past year we had one of the teachers, Dr. Terri Young teach two classes at our hubs, Homiletics in Katjel and Basics of Counseling in Kosovo. Zoom classes are effective, however, they lack the excitement of having a teacher physically in class. So, we will reapply this method whenever possible next year.

We usually let our partners know what is going on at ISTL, but also fully realize the importance and effect of ISTL staff work, partners’ prayers, and support. This is the end of this academic year, but also a new beginning while we are preparing for the next year’s schedule, the new students that will join, the students’ conference and graduation and then we will begin the first week of the newly accredited program with our school year in October. Every prayer and support is appreciated.