As part of our European prayer season each Friday for the next 6 months we are aiming to bring a snippet to encourage prayer for a specific country. This week we kick the series off with some thoughts from our friends Daniel and Monika Reichert in Albania.

In communist time, Albania was proclaimed the first atheistic country in the world with no christian witness at all. After the fall of communism, a lot of missionaries came and found an openness among the young generation to the gospel. Churches were planted all over the country.

Today, church numbers are dropping, and people seem more interested in education and making money than in God. Yet God is calling his church again to prayer and fasting. There are a lot of prayer initiatives starting, as well as an attempt to see 24/7/365 prayer established. Even though the church is in decline, many believers sense that a new season of God visiting Albania is about to come.

Let us pray for a new openness among the Albanian people towards the gospel, and God's spirit softening and preparing believers hearts to commit themselves fully to living Christ-like lives.

At a recent worship and intercession conference in southern Albania believers gathered together  to call out to God for their country. The conference ended with a trumpet blasts and proclamation of Psalm 24 over the land. Why not join them now in praying this psalm over Albania?

God claims Earth and everything in it, God claims World and all who live on it.
He built it on Ocean foundations,
laid it out on River girders.

Who can climb Mount God?
Who can scale the holy north-face?
Only the clean-handed,
only the pure-hearted;
Men who won't cheat,
women who won't seduce.

God is at their side;
with God's help they make it.
This, Jacob, is what happens
to God-seekers, God-questers.

Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.

Who is this King-Glory?
God, armed
and battle-ready.

Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.

Who is this King-Glory?
God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
he is King-Glory. 

To join with Christians all over the world in praying for the prodigal continent of Europe visit our new website 24-7prayer.eu where you can sign up to pray, for weekly newsletters and prayer resources.

You might also like to read Ian Nicholsons article Restoring the Romance or watch our excellent European Prayer video. 

Feel free to leave your prayer for Albania in the comments box below and we'll be sure to pass them on to Daniel and Monika.