Written by Conner Walker
GBC sent a team of four to Albania for a week at the end of October to serve alongside a CRU team that ministers to college students. Albania is considered an unreached country because less than 2% of their population is considered evangelical Christians which is primarily due to the country being under Ottoman rule for around 500 years and then communist rule during most of the 20th century. Outsiders were allowed into the country after the fall of communism in 1991 which allowed the Gospel to come in and spread. GBC has been partnering with CRU for nearly a decade to help their team build relationships and share the Gospel with Albanians.
The mission trip is very evangelistic as we are partnering with the CRU staff to build relationships with students through personal coffees and inviting them to our big outreach event called “America Night”! Albanians do everything in coffee shops, and if you’ve had their coffee you’d know why. We constantly get opportunities over coffee with students to share the Gospel and plant seeds that have borne great fruit from our trips over the years. The country is filled with a great sense of hospitality to welcome non-Albanians into their culture so both the Albanian students and CRU staff take great pride in welcoming our team. They are also very curious to hear our stories about life in America and talk about deeper things which allows us to share the Gospel much more easily than in our predominately Christian country.
Our trip happens at the end of October when the students are beginning their semester so many new students are eager to make friends and build relationships. The CRU staff does a great job of building those relationships as well as sharing the Gospel and discipling students in their ministry that have already decided to follow Christ. We got to help in all aspects of this by going to different campuses inviting students to personal coffees and America night as well as spending time with students and their local church in bible study and prayer nights.
America Night was a great success with over 60 students coming. Colyn Sevario led us singing worship songs and American classics like “Sweet Home Alabama”. Brooke Wilder shared her testimony with the students which was also deeply impacted by a college ministry, Campus Outreach. Lastly, Todd Richards shared a great Gospel presentation to the students around the theme of “No Filter” by telling them how Jesus already knows everything about us and yet still came to die for our sins so that we can be reconciled to him. We also ended
the night by getting to participate in Albanian culture by dancing with them which is always one of the most fun parts of the trip. The CRU staff was greatly encouraged by the evening and has had a lot of great follow-ups with students from our week over there.
The participants on our trip are a great testament to the relational disciple-making culture of our church. One of Colyn’s first GBC events was the Men’s dinner in Fall of 2022 where he met Todd being two of the few Louisiana Tech alums at our church. Later that fall, Conner and Colyn served alongside each other on the safety team for the turkey trot. Fast forward two years later and all three are serving alongside each other halfway across the world. Anyone that has ever been greeted by Colyn on Sunday knows the same energy and enthusiasm the Albanian students 
felt that met him on the campuses!
The CRU staff is busy continuing to meet with students and plans to have another big outreach event in December centered around celebrating Christmas with students. They would greatly appreciate your prayers to continue building those relationships and seeing students come to faith as this great country continues to be transformed by the power of the Gospel.
If you’d like to learn more about participating in future mission trips to Albania or other GBC mission trip opportunities, please contact stacie@gbchouston.org.