Description of the cache:
A micro cache at an interesting place, seen from religious, cultural, historic and geographical perspective.
Description of the location:
Orthodox christians have built many churches and several of them are dedicated to the prophet Elijah. Several churches can be seen in this predominant islamic city. This nice church on a hill gives a view over the city of Korçë and is an interesting place to visit when you are in town (for a cache with a nice view over the whole region at a large cross and another church dedicated to St. Elijah go to http://coord.info/GC4E85F). You can walk up to the church from different sides (see the WP's for help) and on your way you can see the typical round shaped bunkers from the communist era.
Saint Elijah:
The prophet Elijah is known from The Old Testament when he had to pass on God's messages and guidelines to the people as well as to the leaders of the country. He proclaimed God's righteousness and encouraged the people to be in fellowship with God and live a just life. He rebuked king Ahab for leading the people into idolatry and not following God's good guidelines. He is famous for taking on 450 prophets of the idol Baal on his own by challenging them to prepare an oxen as a sacrifice for their god and to plead with their god for burning up this sacrifice with fire from the sky. He would do the same with an oxen sacrifice from his side and pleading with his God. The god Baal remains silent and after having poured out several jars of water over the altar and the sacrifice to make the task for his God even harder, his God answers with fire and burns up the sacrifice. Now it was clear which god was the real God and the people returned to their God and started following His ways again. This exciting story can be read in the book of 1 Kings chapter 18, here https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=1%20Kings%2018.
Elijah is known for many more stories like raising a dead boy back to life (1 Kings 17), rebuking King Ahab again for murdering his neighbour over a vineyard (1 Kings 21), creating a miraculous dry pathway through the river Jordan (2 Kings 2) and ascending into heaven without dying by being picked up by a heavenly chariot of fire (2 Kings 2). Both Jews and Christians believe that Elijah will come again to earth. In the Gospel of Luke the prophets Moses and Elijah are seen with Jesus during the 'transfiguration on the Mount' (Luke 9:28-36) and many believe that the prophets that are mentioned in the book of Revelation which reveals the future and end of this world, will be Moses and Elijah again (Revelation 11).
Idea of this cache:
Vader&zoon (NL) were on an Oct. 2015 trip to Albania to help out with children's ministry. We noticed there are very few caches in Albania, and none in Korçë itself (there are two outside the city) and decided to leave one ourselves (our first one!).
Please note:
Watch out for children playing nearby on the premises and make sure the cache remains undetected. Hide the cache well again. The first plastic box that could contain Travel Bugs was ripped fairly quickly. It is replaced by a micro. If something is wrong, please let us know; we have a friend in the city who helped us hide this cache.
