My team has completed our team with our ministry host, Kisha Eagles, in Tirana Albania. This month has been busy so I want to use this blog to briefly recap what I will remember most about my time here!
- Taking a twenty hour bus ride from Romania to Albania
- Being welcomed by our host with a warm meal and settling into our hostel
- Memorizing scripture daily with my SQL Raquel
- Putting encouraging sticky notes around campus for college students
- Buying flowers from children selling on the street
- Celebrating my birthday on a sabbath: morning coffee, breakfast in bed made by Liv, unexpectedly seeing my friend Violeta and her giving me flowers, Chinese food for dinner, taste testing cakes that Raquel and Kara bought from the bakery
- Hearing all of my teammates testimonies and washing each other’s feet
- Stormy day trip to a nearby city called Durres
- Meeting new friends and having a day together at a communism museum called The House of Leaves
- Watercolor painting at coffee shops
- Meeting Grace, a Christian who works at the only bookstore in Tirana that sells Christian material
- Celebrating Grace’s birthday with flowers and cake
- Meeting many kiddos who are forced to beg on the streets and to strangers in coffee shops
- Scavenger Hunt team time around the city
- Fun team times !!
- Learning about the history of communism in Albania and the strongholds that are still present in the country
- Sharing a short testimony at our host church following the theme of ‘Leaving it in God’s Hands’
- Riding a gondola up the Dajti mountain overlooking the city and worshipping
- Beauty for Ashes event: caring for the children & praying with two Muslim women who are curious about Jesus
- Having difficulty learning the language so relying heavily on google translate and basic greetings
- Albanians are very interruptible and hospitable- asking questions to strangers is a great way to have gospel conversations!
- Building relationships with people in our neighborhood: Abdul, a Muslim man who owns a small tienda that often gives us candy that now is receiving a Christian Bible because he is curious!
- Interceding at the Mosque
- Praying for warm weather and seeing the sun
- Praying for unity within the church body in Albania
- Albanians eat a lot of this food called Souvlaki
- Spending time with people from the church- Franc, Brajan, Tea, and Kejsi
- Morning dates with Kara
- Building relationship with people in our hostel who were once strangers
- Meeting our Albanian friends for coffee and Crepes on their lunch breaks
- Kara cutting my hair
- Doing a worship burn in the city center square- being undignified before the Lord!
- Listening to nearly every Francis Chan podcast
- Hanging out with new friends from YWAM to watch the movie called ‘The Case for Christ’ and doing an hour of their prayer burn
- Modified fast- abstained from sugars, bread, processed foods, etc.
- Morning quiet times with a cappuccino spent at a cafe
- Buying fruit, mostly pomegranates, from our neighborhood fruit stand and friend Aida
- Meeting college students for coffee & talking about the gospel
- Hosting youth events on Saturday evenings
- Having a final celebratory dinner at our host’s sweet home
- Meeting local missionaries that connected us to the Jonathan center, a center for children with Down Syndrome, where we got to partner with them for their Night to Shine event
My squad will be leaving for our next country, Turkey, on February 23rd! Please be in prayers for this country as it recently suffered from a devastating earthquake.
Read more here: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/liveblog/2023/2/12/turkey-syria-earthquake-live-news-death-toll-tops-29000
Be well. Love well.
Mags
