To forgive: Elona’s Story
Elona Prroj and her husband Tani were pastors of a church in Albania, when in 2010, Tani was killed outside their church because his family was involved in a historic blood feud. We sat down with Elona to hear how she faced tragedy and how she learned to forgive.
In the north of Albania, we have an ancient code of law called the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini. And in this set of 500-year-old laws there is a ‘blood feud law’. Our government will deny that blood feud exists in Albania. I think they feel powerless to fight this mentality, so they deny it.
My husband’s uncle killed a person in an argument in his restaurant and after it happened, 25 men of my husband’s extended family were imprisoned in their houses, because the other family would try to take revenge on any man from Tani’s family that they found in the streets. So this was the situation: Tani was the pastor of the church at the time, and he was imprisoned in the house.
Four years later, we came to England for a couple of months. We were given a word from God from Genesis 28:15, where it says: ‘I’ll protect you wherever you go, but I will bring you back to fulfil the calling I have for you.’ So I was hoping and trusting God with the first half of the verse, but I didn’t know that God would quickly bring us to the place to fulfil the calling.
Then my husband responded to God’s call to go back to Albania. It was so strong in Tani’s heart. We returned and the situation was more difficult than when we left. Tani was praying to God that He would show the way and show His will. God reminded him of the prayer of salvation, and said: ‘This is the time, if your life is Mine, to go out and serve Me.’ So Tani went out for about 12 months, and served God in the place where we had the church. This was breaking all the taboos.
One day he went to the church, and the brother of the person his uncle killed was waiting outside. We didn’t know our killers. We had never met these people. Tani asked him ‘what do you need?’ Then this man shot Tani and sent him to be with the Lord.
The moment someone is killed, according to the law, the blood is paid. It then becomes our family’s turn to decide if we will continue to take revenge. One week before Tani went to be with the Lord, he made his brother promise that if he was killed because of the blood feud, the family would choose to forgive.
On the outside, it was the only solution for us to forgive, because this was Tani’s wish. But in my heart, it was difficult for me to particularly forgive the mum of Tani’s killer. Growing up, my husband’s killer was continuously encouraged by his mother to take revenge on Tani’s family. So I can understand the pressure he was under and somehow I feel sorry for him because he too is a victim of the mentality and the tradition of
his community.
The first time that I talked to my son about the killer of his daddy, I was afraid to even mention his name, because I was afraid that my son would be full of revenge. I said: ‘What are you going to do with the man that killed your daddy?’ He said to me: ‘Mum, I am going to forgive him because Jesus has taught us how to love our enemies.’
It was that moment I fell before God: ‘Lord, who am I? If this 10-year-old child can say “I’ll forgive the killer of my father,” I want to do the same.’
That day I took a decision to forgive. Sometimes we think that forgiveness happens in one day, but is the opposite; revenge happens in one day. And forgiveness is often a whole-life process. Every morning I wake up and I ask God for the strength and the grace to forgive.
Source: ucb.co.uk