One of the things we have treasured during our first four months serving and living at European Nazarene College is meeting and getting to know the amazing students.
These young people from across Europe have answered God's call to pursue a deeper walk with Him through theological studies, and to prepare for ministry in many forms in their home countries.
I sat down recently with a student named Cezi, from Albania, and listened to her story. I wanted to share it with you, so you would begin to get to know some of these students as we have. I am posting her story as she has told it to me, in three parts. -- Gina
Part 1
I grew up with my two parents. My father was of one religion and my mom was from another. My father was a politician during the dictatorship, but he was against the political system so he was in jail for 12 years. My mom waited for him these 12 years, so they got married when my father got out of jail.
After that the government sent them in north Albania to do hard work. For the people who get out of jail, working in the north was enforced discipline.
My parents were very good in not making us feel bad about the situation, but we started to experience discrimination when we went to school. When I was a kid, I started asking why. My parents called me Mrs. Why.
One of my questions was about God. I knew the concept of God. When I was 5, I wrote letters to God and put them in the window and different places around the house. If he was real, he would take them. Once I didn’t find my letter. I don’t know the reason. That impressed me so much. That was the first engagement with God, saying, “Oh, he is there.”
My parents couldn’t talk to me about God, because the position they were in, it would have been very dangerous for them to give me religious ideas. The dictatorship would not allow religious ideas.
We would celebrate sometimes my mom’s religion and my father’s religion, especially in 1990 when the dictatorship was over. In that period in the area where I was living, some leaders from my dad’s religion came and started giving all the answers to the questions I had that my parents couldn’t answer me.
My parents didn’t talk in terms of religion, but in terms of God. I grew up not distinguishing one religion from another. It was just God, and for me it was the same thing.
My parents told us we could choose any practice, any religion, as long as we didn’t switch one day here and one day there. When I was 7, I decided to follow my dad’s religion (it is not a Christian religion). I was so passionate. I studied and I learned to read and I learned all these prayers in the original language of the religion.
When I was 11, my father had a car accident and he died. For me that was the worst thing in the world. For me, my father was God. It was my father and then God. I got so mad at God. I told God I would not follow my father’s religion anymore.
It’s not that I denied God; I said, “You are an unjust God. You stay where you are and I can deal with my life by myself.” I didn’t want to accept the death of my father. I didn’t go to his funeral or cry. For me it was something that never happened. I kept this way for 7 or 8 months.
After the death of my father my family moved more in the middle part of Albania. New school, new friends, new place. I became very violent with people and my family. Everybody was scared of me; I just changed completely.
In my school there were these two girls. They would talk to me about Jesus. One of the things you learn when you’re of my father’s religion is that all other religions are bad, but the your faith is the only one that’s right. I had all the arguments for any kind of religion to prove they were untrue. The girls were so nice; they were so lovely and I couldn’t believe why they would be still friends with me if I was treating them so bad.
They invited me to their church. I said, OK, I’m going to go and show these Christians the truth. I was very arrogant as a kid (laughing). I got so involved with the church and the people, with the games. The people were so nice. When I went home I told my mom. My mom said, “No, you’re not going to go there anymore.”
My family was disappointed in me because I made the choice to quit my father’s religion. Now going to another religion—Christianity—that was very bad. I was afraid of disappointing the will of my father. I gave up Christianity, but God didn’t give up with me.
At the same period, when I was 11, this teacher from Canada came to teach English in our school. He was a Christian. One day he invited me and my two friends to his house, saying he wanted to open a church in the city where we were living and he needed us to give out invitations. I told him I didn’t agree with what he was doing, but I would help him because he was my friend.
I took all the hundreds of brochures and gave them out all over the place. But I never actually read one. One night I had just one of them left and I was going home. It was a very hard time because I was starting to realize the death of my father.
That night I went into the bedroom and that was the moment where I realized my father was gone. I couldn’t breathe because I was crying so hard and in so much pain. I had this brochure. One side was the invitation for the service and the other side was comics with the story of Jesus. At the end it said, “If you want God as your father, just ask and invite him into your life.”
That was the moment there was pain in realizing I had been stupid with God, keeping Him away from my life. But at the same time there was this acceptance with God. Let’s start over in a new way now. In that moment I realized “I have lost a god-like father and found a father-like God.”
From that moment things became very hard with my family. For one year my mom told me I couldn’t go anywhere but school and home. I couldn’t go to church or do anything. I really had a hard time with my mom. But at the end of this year, I told my mom, “This is my decision, and even if you keep me close for the rest of my life in our home, this wouldn’t change me because my faith is becoming stronger.”
I really changed from black to white in my behavior, helping my sisters and helping her with the home and everything. That impressed her so much so she said I could attend computer and English classes (at the church) since she didn’t have the money to provide these classes. So I started going to church and she allowed also my sisters to come with me.
I started teaching in the church. My two friends and I were very young. At the same time we were teaching we were also learning, because you were learning the story first yourself. We were the elders of the church, me and the other two friends.
When I look back I am glad that I did that year being home because it was just me, God and the Bible. I always told people I never changed religion, I just grew up with my relationship with God. I started with my father’s religion and this helped me a lot to learn about God and discipline; that our God is a friend but he’s also God. With that religion I learned what it means to have a God. With Christ I learned how to have this God as a friend who is closer to my life and have a more intimate relationship with Him. Also, through His Spirit to have access to his Spirit. It was a gradual growth.
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