In September, the Moravian Church Albania will launch a new afternoon program in Burrel for elementary school children in grades 1 to 4. Twelve children will have the opportunity to learn, play, and develop their skills together in a safe environment from Monday to Friday. In addition to homework support, the program also includes creative activities such as painting, crafts, music, and dance. The program is complemented by sports, which promote exercise and health. Those responsible also place particular emphasis on learning together and social interaction so that the children not only acquire knowledge but also develop self-confidence, creativity, and teamwork skills. This program creates a place that opens up new opportunities for children in Burrel and offers them a safe space to develop positively.

On June 21, 2025, sisters from the Tirana Brethren community visited the Roman Catholic Church Kisha e T’Shelbuemit Rubik in northern Albania. This church was built in 1166 as part of a Benedictine monastery. In the 13th/14th century, Franciscans worked here. For centuries, the church has been the spiritual center of Catholics in Mirditë. The communists partially destroyed the church and used it as a warehouse. After 1990, it was restored. Now it is once again used for religious services. Pictures here. Sisters and children from the Bathore Brethren community, a satellite town north of Tirana, visited the Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul and the Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Tirana on the same day. Although both cathedrals are modern churches, they differ in architectural style and tradition. Both communities survived the period of communist oppression and have been thriving again since the early 1990s. Pictures here.

On June 19, 2025, several women and children from the Moravian Church in Lezhe, Albania, visited the nearest church. In the quiet hills of Kallmeti stands the Catholic Church of St. Eufemia. Euphemia was a girl from Chalcedon who was martyred in the 3rd century AD because she refused to participate in local Roman pagan rituals. The church is a simple stone building, built into the rock in 1870. Father Eltoni welcomed the group with an open heart and much love, making everyone feel welcome and blessed. His words and quiet presence reflected the warmth of a church that embraces every soul that knocks at its door. Everyone was very grateful and said that God is always good and faithful in all churches. Albania is a country where the Apostle Paul himself preached the Gospel in the first century, as he writes in Romans 15:19: “I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyria.” Pictures here.

On Sunday, April 27, 2025, a moving memorial service was held in the Moravian Church's community center in Tirana for Viola Grillo, one of the three founders and then long-time activist of this small but diversely committed church in the early 1990s. Around 70 relatives, friends and also members of the congregation gathered in the morning to celebrate the life of Vjola Grillo and to find comfort and hope together in the resurrection of Christ. Herrnhuter Missionshilfe was represented at the celebration by Bettina Nasgowitz, Bad Boll, who then visited the community group in the satellite town of Bathore and had warm and encouraging encounters there. Viola Grillo, the mother of Dena Grillo-Fortuzi, the first and so far only full-time pastor of the Moravian Church in Albania, was born in 1953. Some pictures from the memorial service here.

The autism project in Elbasan is currently supporting six children with individual therapies to improve their communication skills, motor development and social skills. Weekly individual therapies are being carried out, which are already leading to positive progress, although some areas still require additional support. The children are responding increasingly positively to social interactions and are integrating better into group activities. Despite the progress, the project faces challenges due to the outdated building in Elbasan, which is neither sufficiently safe nor comfortable enough for therapy. The lack of infrastructure is hampering the success of the project, which is why a more suitable building is urgently being sought. The next goals are therefore to improve the spatial conditions for a better therapy environment, create a child-friendly play area and expand the project to support more children.

The church lives from encounters. That is why the congregation of Bad Boll (with financial support from, among others, Herrnhuter Missionshilfe) invited a group of women from the six Moravian groups in Albania to southwestern Germany. Among them was the first Albanian woman pastor, Dena Grillo-Fortuzi, with her daughter Zaira. For some of the women, it was their first trip abroad. They write: “The days were filled with visits to Bad Boll, Königsfeld, Stuttgart and Ulm.” Pictures here.

In a recent appeal for donations by Arngeir Langås, Brødremenighedens Danske Mission, the sister organisation of Herrnhuter Missionshilfe in Denmark, shows the young Albanian pastor Dena Fortuzi at her first baptisms. Only a few weeks ago, Dena Fortuzi had been ordained and inducted as the Moravian Church's first indigenous pastor. She was assisted in the baptisms by Jørgen Bøytler (DK), the Unity Board Administrator. Baptised was church member Tereza with her two children. "I wanted my children to be baptised together with me so that we can follow Jesus Christ together," explained the mother of the children. The Moravian Church in Albania celebrated its 30th anniversary in the summer of 2023. More than 80 percent of its members are women, children and young people. From the beginning, it has been accompanied by the Moravian Church in Denmark in particular. However, Herrnhuter Missionshilfe also financed many projects and maintained contacts.