From Survival to Purpose: A Life Transformed Through Local Church Partnership
Marjus (far left) with Compel staff and a local community committee in a village near Fier, Albania
For more than a decade, Compel International staff has walked alongside local church partners in Albania, equipping them to serve communities often overlooked and underserved. In one Roma community, this long-term partnership has helped nurture deep, lasting transformation—raising up local leaders, strengthening families, and planting a growing church. The story below reflects how God works through local believers to bring dignity, purpose, and hope where it once seemed out of reach.
Understanding the Approach
In this story, you will see reference to CHE (Community Health Evangelism) a community-based ministry approach that equips local churches to walk alongside their neighbors in practical and spiritual ways. Through this model, local partners enter communities—often where there are few or no Christians—and begin building relationships. Together with community members, they address everyday challenges like health, education, and livelihoods, while also sharing biblical truth in natural, relational ways.
Over time, this leads not only to improved living conditions, but to transformed hearts, new disciples, and the formation of local churches. It is a slow, relational process rooted in trust, local ownership, and long-term commitment.
A Personal Testimony
“For the first time, someone did not see me as a ‘poor Roma boy,’ but as a person with value, dignity, and potential.”
My name is Marjus Veizi, and I come from the Roma community in a village in Albania. I grew up in a reality where poverty was normal, at times, even extreme. A reality where lack of food, lack of hope, and lack of dreams were part of everyday life. In that context, you didn’t learn how to dream, you learned how to survive. You didn’t plan for the future; you simply made it through the day.
In this reality, a ray of hope appeared: the CHE ministry came to my village, and everything began to change.
My first encounters with the CHE team felt like stepping into a completely different world. For the first time, someone did not see me as a “poor Roma boy,” but as a person with value, dignity, and potential. For the first time, I felt that my voice mattered and that my life was worth more than I had believed. CHE did not just provide material help, it gave me something much deeper: a new identity.
This new identity stood in stark contrast to how I had been raised. In my family and environment, I often heard that Roma people are “not meant for school,” that “this is our fate,” that we should collect cans just to survive, and that dreaming beyond the present day was pointless. I could not blame my parents, because this was the only reality they knew. Their priority was daily survival, not long-term vision.
But through the CHE team, I began to learn differently. Through training, biblical teaching, and the practical example of the team, I came to understand that poverty was not my fault, and that being Roma or having a different skin color was not a barrier to growth. I began to believe that God had not created me to remain at the bottom, but to rise and live for a greater purpose.
Today, when I look back, I realize how important those people were in my life. They gave me a model to follow, helped me discover God’s purpose for me, and shaped a new mindset, that through hard work and commitment, change is possible.
In my family, I had not learned about personal responsibility, initiative, or vision. In CHE, I learned that change begins within yourself, and that one transformed individual can impact an entire community. Community trainings opened my mind. Concepts like local ownership, use of local resources, and collective action helped me see problems not just as burdens, but as opportunities. One of the most formative lessons for me was “Crossing the River,” which taught me that solutions are often closer than we think.
CHE also taught me to connect faith with action. It was not just about prayer, but about real work, committees organizing the community, planning and leading community projects, for water, sidewalks, planting trees, supporting children, and mobilizing youth. For the first time, I saw how spiritual and physical needs come together.
When I dropped out of school because I could not afford a uniform, I felt deep shame and failure. But the CHE team did not abandon me. Through one simple but powerful act of support, my education, and my dignity, were restored. That moment taught me that true faith is expressed through action.
My high school years were still difficult, walking kilometers every day, often hungry, wearing worn-out shoes in the winter, but every time I attended CHE meetings, I received renewed strength and hope to continue.
Gradually, I was transformed from a boy without dreams into a young man with vision. I began to believe that my future was not predetermined by fate, that education had value, and that Roma people can be leaders and agents of change, not only for their own community, but for the whole society.
I began organizing meetings for children and youth. From a fearful teenager, I became a community leader. The results followed: young people continued their education, others left harmful habits behind, and some gave their lives to God. Change began with a renewed mindset.
Today, I hold a degree in Political Science and Diplomacy. I am a husband and a parent, and I now serve in the same community where I once lived without hope. I am part of the CHE team, something that once seemed impossible. I have become a “transmitter of hope.”
Over the past two years, serving with CHE has been one of the greatest fulfillments of my life. It is the realization of my calling, to serve my people and the country where I was raised. My focus has been on children and youth, the new generation where my heart and mission lie. What I have received, I now pass on to others.
Today, my community stands as a visible testimony of transformation. Through this ministry, a local church has been planted, and a partnering church from a nearby city is actively supporting and strengthening this work. This growing church presence reflects the fruit of long-term discipleship, community engagement, and the power of the Gospel to bring lasting change.
There is no greater joy for me than to continue serving God and people for the rest of my life. My community lives in every beat of my heart, because that is where my life was transformed, and where hope continues to grow.
“Change begins within yourself, and one transformed individual can impact an entire community.”
A Broader Picture of Transformation
Stories like this do not happen quickly. They are the result of years of faithful presence—local churches walking alongside their communities, learning, serving, and growing together.
As Compel International partners with churches around the world, especially in Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist contexts, the focus remains the same: equipping local believers to make disciples and serve their communities in ways that lead to lasting, multiplying transformation.
What begins with one life—restored in dignity and purpose—can extend to families, neighborhoods, and eventually entire communities. This is the kind of transformation that endures, because it is rooted in both the truth of the Gospel and the strength of local leadership.