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Beauty and the Beast

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The title is not a comment on any of those pictured! Over the last couple of days we've ventured outside Gjakova and experienced both the beauty of Kosova and its beastly past. This striking museum is at the centre of the Kosovan identity. It's in the small and seemingly insignificant village of Prekaz in the north west of this new country. It was home to Adem Jashari and his extended family of almost 60 people. With the exception of a ten year old girl, Besarta Jashari, they were all slaughtered in their homes, 5-7 March 1998. This is Adem's home, preserved in its bullet-ridden, mortar-holed and dilapidated state after the attack. Adem was a commander in, and one of the founders of, the Kosovan Liberation Army. The objective of the Yugolslav army and Serbian police was to find him and wipe out his family as a warning to other KLA fighters to stop their armed insurrection. It took 5,000 armed police and army personnel for their 'successful' operati...
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James Bond, a nun's prayer and St Barbara

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I've been singing 'For your eyes only' all afternoon but have only been repaid with some rather strange looks. For those who can remember, the James Bond film (Roger Moore), For your eyes only, concluded on top of this astonishing Holy Trinity rock monastery, one of the amazing meteora of central Greece. The view from the top is stunning. Our little apartment is at the base of the nearest cliff. The Satnav told me we were 600 metres away but that it was going to take 6.3km to get there! We weren't going to do some Roger Moore type rock climbing so we drove, but at 36C it was still a challenge because you have to walk down before you climb up. I can feel a sermon coming on... The wall paintings are typically orthodox and cover every inch of the chapel's walls (no photos allowed, though one visitor showed amazing disrespect by taking photos in spite of being repeatedly asked not to do so). However, in one of the old, no longer used, monk's cells there we...
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The real deal

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Pastor Jeton is the real deal. During this sabbatical two pastors stand out, Jeton Sokoli and Michael Nhonya (see my blogpost from Tanzania, 29th June). It has been such a privilege to spend time with them and to share in conversation, prayer and ministry. I feel as though I have been in exalted company and they have both been shining examples of what courageous, God centred, Christian leadership looks like. (I think they both work too hard, though that could be my age speaking!) Here is Jeton, standing near the grave of his father - and the graves of 371 other Kosovan Albanians - explaining to the Italian team the events surrounding the largest example of Serbian ethnic cleansing of the war in Kosova. It's a story which can't help but touch your heart. Aged 15, with his mother, younger sister and two-month old baby brother, he watched as his father was taken away while he and the rest of the family were ordered out of Kosova, a five day trek over the mountains to safet...
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