guy with guitar, warming up singers while strumming his guitar
| Join me in number 10, it's an easy song
| 00.00.00.00 |
Singing | You are my strength when I am weak, you are the treasure that I seek, you are my all in all.
|
|
Loading up bags | Paula: Hand me that pole
|
|
People singing
|
|
|
Mansfield | Mansfield: OK, 25 minutes, we'll be watching for you. We'll have you ready, we want you to pull in to the right of Grumpy.
| 00.40 |
Paula talking to group | Paula: Don't be afraid of the helicopter when it lands. It's going to be load, going to be dusty, but not a problem. Just kinda duck...
|
|
Tani walking to choppper to load luggage
| Paula: We pray for safety today that you will provide us with safe travel that you'll protect us from illness. And I just thank you God for all that you do and all that you are. Amen - OK let's go tell the world about God. |
|
Mountain side with winding roads | Dominique Schwartz: The mountainous north of Albania is Europe's new frontier; a place of dark secrets, sworn virgins and blood feuds.
| 01.26 |
Greetings | But Albania is also a land of fortune where wealth is measured not in gold, but the salvation of the human soul.
|
|
| The word of god, banned here for so long, is now being proclaimed from the mountain tops, as missionaries of every faith and creed come to harvest souls for their Lord.
| 02.01 |
Mansfield interview
Super: DON MANSFIELD Project Aero Director
| Mansfield: Somehow in some places god has his hand, other places he doesn't. I don't understand what he's doing. We're just kind of on an Easter egg hunt. There's treasure out there and it's exciting to find.
|
|
Fairground | Music
|
|
| Schwartz: Tirana, the nation's capital, is a boom town. Almost anything goes, as Albanians, eager for contact with the outside world, rush to make up for lost time.
| 02.38 |
| The whole nation acts as if it's been let out of jail, and in a way, it has.
|
|
Beach | Italy is just across the water. But for almost half a century, Albania may as well have been on another planet.
| 03.13 |
Bunkers | The first thing you notice about Albania are the bunkers. You can't miss them. They're everywhere. Almost one million scattered across the countryside. They line the beaches, the roads, clutter up the fields, and the front yards of houses. They'd be almost laughable if they didn't stand testimony to the paranoia of Enver Hoxha - the communist dictator who ruled Albania for 40 years.
| 03.25 |
| Sealed off from the rest of the world, he turned this place into one giant concentration camp. The only God allowed was Hoxha himself, and those who dared believe otherwise were persecuted beyond imaginination.
|
|
Archive - Hoxha in uniform getting out of plane and saluting as he passes people
|
|
|
| When Enver Hoxha came to power after World War Two, Albamia was a predominantly Muslim nation with sizeable Orthodox and Catholic minorities.
|
|
Workers excercising en massein Tirana | Hoxha moved swiftly to quash faith in anything but his communist state.
| 04.22 |
| Doco commentary: To keep physically fit is the most important thing in a man's life.
|
|
Confiscated bibles, icons moved from church , bystanders applauding as things taken out of church; church wall knocked over
| Holy books and icons were confiscated; houses of worship destroyed, and religious leaders paraded in show trials before being jailed and executed. In 1967, not content with merely shooting the messenger, Hoxha outlawed God himself, declaring Albania the world's first atheist state. |
|
Father Zef Pllumi interview | Pllumi: During my days in jail I wished I could die. When I saw the others I was jealous because they had died and I had not. But today - no - I'd love to live even longer.
|
|
Exterior of church - horse and cart going by
|
|
|
Pllumi and congregation in church | Schwartz: Father Zef Pllumi is one of only a handful of Catholic priests who survived the Hoxha era.
| 05.38 |
| In all, he spent 26 years in prisons and labour camps, enduring repeated torture.
|
|
Pllumi | Pllumi: Above all tortures, the electric shock was for me the hardest to bear. They put old telephone wires in your ears. That was the biggest torture I have suffered.
|
|
Man playing piano | Singing
|
|
| Schwartz: Father Pllumi was released in 1990, but true freedom came two years later, when the Democrats ousted the Communists at the polls.
| 06.21 |
| Today, the rush is on to reclaim the faithful, and to indoctrinate a whole generation of Albanians who grew up in a religious void.
|
|
Bunkers, zoom in to mosque | Before Hoxha's rule, 70 per cent of Albanians were Muslim. Today, they too are busy regrouping.
|
|
| Already 300 mosques and ten Islamic primary schools have been built and one million copies of the Koran printed.
| 07.04 |
| The primary target - young people with no loyalty to any particular faith.
|
|
Edward | Edward: At one time, if your ancestors were Muslim or Catholic you had to follow suit. But now, everything is free. If I want to believe in Islam, I can. If I want to be a Catholic I can. Nothing is forced upon you.
|
|
Inside mosque | Schwartz: The Muslim world is investing heavily in Albania, but any suggestion of fundamentalism is quickly denied by Albania's Islamic leader, Hafiz Sabri Koci.
|
|
| He maintains there are excellent relations between the three established faiths.
|
|
Koci | Koci: In Albania there has never been fundamentalism and never will be. The only fundamentalism is politics.
|
|
Anastassios Yanoulatos pointing to map | Yanoulatos: Until now, we built from the foundation, 50 new churches and we reconstruct old important churches about sixty.
|
|
| Schwartz: Orthodox Archbishop, Anastassios Yanoulatos, ministers to Albania's ethnic Greek minority.
| 08.06 |
| In a country eager to avoid repeating the nightmare in nearby Bosnia, he's worried the influx of missionaries may upset Albania's fine religious balance.
|
|
Yanoulatos | Yanoulatos: Six years before, nobody thought in Sarajevo could have this tragedy. That everything is difficult and when some others take decisions for other reasons and they use the oil of religion, you don't know what type of fire comes.
|
|
Chopper landing at camp | Schwartz: Just 80 kilometres north of the capital, in Rreshen, are the newcomers the established faiths are most wary of - the evangelists.
| 08.50 |
| This is base camp for Project Aero - a summer evangelical blitz involving 500 missionaries, most of whom are young foreigners.
|
|
| Their aim, over five summers, is to take the gospel to all of Albania's 24 hundred villages - no matter what - Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim leaders say.
|
|
Mansfield | Mansfield: I have nothing but the highest respect for them, and regard, and to some degree we want to preserve the harmony that has existed in Albania, but the world has changed, and we cannot maintain the stasis that has existed. This country has been in a 50 year time warp.
| 09.26 |
| Music
|
|
Woman with ferns on back | Schwartz: If the world has changed, the north is yet to hear about it. But hear about it they will.
|
|
| Music
|
|
Flake and others in car | Schwartz: 22-year old Michael Flake from Atlanta is a Project Aero team leader.
| 10.15 |
| Flake: Oh it was terrible so we really were rejoicing and thanking the lord that the car didn't float away like Herbie the Love Bug - it was good...
|
|
| Schwartz: His group is heading to Gjegjan, a village in the heart of Catholic country.
|
|
| Neither 500 years of Islamic Ottoman rule, nor half a century of communism, should shake these people's beliefs. So how they'll respond to the evangelists, only God knows.
| 10.42 |
Project Aero arrive at village | Sometimes met with rocks, at most times welcomed with traditional Albanian hospitality, today the missionaries' luck is in.
|
|
| Curiosity seems to have prevailed.
|
|
| The evangelists, however, didn't count on the nuns from Mother Theresa's order. And neither, for that matter, did we.
|
|
| Schwartz: Excuse me, we're actually not part of the mission, we're a documentary film crew.
|
|
Group of villagers | Shwartz: The nuns are none too happy about the arrival of the missionaries. They're very protective of their flock. With no church or priest in the community, the ministering falls to them, on their twice weekly visits.
|
|
Michael Flake and teenager | Meanwhile, after a courtesy call on the mayor, Michael and his fellow evangelists are out canvassing for an audience.
| 11.44 |
| The centrepiece of their mission is the Jesus film - the story of Christ's life according to the Gospel of Luke - a film they'd like everyone here to see.
|
|
Evangelists arrive at Lleshi family's home | The Lleshi family is one of their first house calls.
|
|
| Flake: We're from Rreschen and we wanted to invite you to come to the movie tonight.
|
|
| Schwartz: Like everyone in this village, the Lleshi's are Catholic. During the Hoxha years, three family members were killed because of their faith, and the rest interned.
| 12.21 |
| Flake: Will you go and invite your girlfriend too.
|
|
| Schwartz: Life today is still a struggle, and there's no trouble interesting them in a free movie.
|
|
| Even if they're wondering what the catch is.
|
|
| Lleshi: We don't know what it is all about. Nobody does. You'd think they'd have said what it's for - yes or no?
|
|
Pllumi | Pllumi: We are not afraid of them. Until now they have been unable to take root among the Albanian people. We consider them as only a small straw flame.
|
|
Koci | Koci: It is impossible for them to succeed. They go in aircraft to the villages and distribute aid - they can lie, fool seven-year-olds with candy or a dress but religion, which is in our hearts cannot be sold or bought.
|
|
Mansfield | Mansfield: We don't pay them a dime. We don't offer them trips to America, we don't offer them anything other than the chance to be used of God, to help reach their country.
| 13.31 |
| Schwartz: And what's in it for you?
|
|
Movie screen being erected | Schwartz: At Gjegjan, that moment of joy is fast approaching.
| 13.50 |
| Flake: Now tonight, this is the fulfilment of many prayers and only time will tell what this has done to many of the Albanians and how this has affected their lives.
|
|
| Schwartz: As Michael makes the last-minute preparations for tonight's screening, the audience gets a warm-up from a recent Muslim convert - Fadil Hoxha - no relation to the late dictator.
| 14.06 |
Convert | Convert: This film has been seen by 5,500 million people in the world and has been translated into 350 languages - and we think that what you are about to see tonight will be something special for your lives.
|
|
People watching film | Schwartz: According to Project Aero, 10,000 Albanians are now involved in evangelical groups around the country.
| 14.52 |
| Tonight, they hope to plant the seeds for a few more.
|
|
| By intermission, the Lleshis had only praise for the evening's entertainment.
|
|
| Movie: Come on! Step down from the Cross! Show us your powers!
|
|
Woman in audience | Woman: I am pleased - the film is very nice. It is in Albanian. We understand everything - the suffering of Jesus Christ.
| 15.18 |
| Schwartz: But as for changing any of their beliefs?
|
|
| Woman: We won't change our religion.
|
|
| Man: As I said before, for 500 years the Muslim Turks were in Albania and still we did not change our religion.
|
|
Movie | Movie: Father forgive them they know not what they do.
|
|
| Schwartz: After 50 years of isolation and persecution, one can understand why Albania's established faiths are wary of the newcomers.
| 15.52 |
| But tonight at least, hardly seems the stuff to stir religious conflict. Indeed, everyone leaves happy. The evangelists for having spread the word and the audience for having had a free night at the movies.
|
|
| Movie: Be assured I will not change and I am with you until the end of the world.
|
|
ENDS |
|
|