Invisible servant

Echoing Philippians 2

INVISIBLE SERVANT
By Richard Welch
Authentic. 206 pages. £7.99
ISBN 1 86024 532 3

The British author provides us with a very honest account of his personal experiences when, as an ordinary Christian and church member, he responded to his conviction that he should be in Albania seeking, by his faith and his example, to add quality to Albanian lives as the people struggled to move from dictatorial atheism and lawless anarchy to democracy.

The collapse of the infamous ‘pyramid savings’ scheme, the end of the ‘People’s Socialist Republic of Albania’, and the widespread looting of army weapons dumps were setting the scene in the early 1990s when Richard set out for Albania, with the close support of The King’s Community Church, Bedworth.

Richard’s experiences in the following years illustrate well vital principles of biblical mission. The total commitment of the home church to its missionary member; readiness by him or her to earn the right to be heard by providing practical and sacrificial neighbourly care to those he or she sought to reach with the Christian message; concern to indigenise local churches the moment gifted Albanian believers appeared and to move elsewhere, while retaining fellowship — what could be more Pauline?

But there was a personal cost, spelt out in the last chapter. Richard had to learn how to ‘make himself of no reputation’ — to be an invisible servant. ‘Volunteering to do something and getting thanked for it was one thing; being expected to do something without thanks was another.’ Echoes of Philippians 2?

John Appleby,
working with a small community to bring the Christian message to a large housing estate in south-west Shrewsbury

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