I have officially been in Albania for around two weeks! I am head over heels in love with Albania, its people, its culture, and of course the 360-degree view of all of the mountains. When I woke up on the first day I went to the top of the center building and my jaw dropped at how incredible the mountains looked. It’s almost like the town just nested inside the mountain range not wanting to take away the beauty of it all. So after our first session we got to go into town to explore a little; the town is crazy busy with lots of sounds and smells coming from everywhere. An hour later we found an ATM and got out Lek (Albania currency), which 123 L is equal to $1 US. To give you an example of how amazing the exchange is: a coke in the US would cost you around $1-2.50 but a coke in Albania would cost you around 50L-150L (that is about 41cents-$1 in the US). When you have that kind of exchange rate you feel like a king going into an Albanian store and seeing that ice cream is only 50L. After exploring some more we headed back, relaxed, ate dinner, and then tried to sleep! However I was feeling restless, not that exploring, finding new foods, and meeting new people wasn’t fun I was ready to get to work.
Before I start on the type of work we have been doing here is some back ground on our host and the compound. Our host, George, lives on a farm that helps provide for many different organizations that come from his root church in the UK. He is an amazingly strong and Godly man who even at 63 years of age works just as hard as us. We had no idea what we were going to get into that first day of work but all I can say was that my legs haven’t worked that hard in months! Here is our day to day schedule throughout the week:
Wake up at 7
Breakfast at 7:30 then morning devotional with George at 8
Work starts at 9 and we will do whatever the farm needs for that day, on one day I helped move 150 hay bales into a storage room and another day I painted/ repainted the bathrooms, outer walls, and washing sinks with Lime wash. Also the worst job came on Friday where we had to paint inside the goat pins, and getting goat poop off of chacos is NOT easy.
Lunch at 1
Free time until dinner at 6
Squad time at 7
Team time afterwards
And finally bedtime
As you can see we do have a lot of free time but we are pushed to work all morning on huge tasks. I have never worked so hard in my life and I have never felt so amazing when looking back at the hay all lined up the way it’s supposed to be and the now bright white walls that blind you in the sun. I never thought that this would be considered ministry but I think I have learned more about hard work doing the manual labor here than any of the other ministry beforehand. Before work George teaches on book of Proverbs and in it he stresses that wisdom should be wanted above all things, and that it should be treasured as if it was silver or gold. I see this in the work we have been doing, we can’t just gain wisdom just like how we can’t just do one coat of paint on a black wall. We have to work and learn to get wisdom just as we had to put more layers on the wall to make it shine. In proverbs it states, if we have wisdom and other gifts in our hands why keep it from people? Same as work, if we are capable of doing the hard work why not push ourselves to work even harder? God gives us the ability to work hard and sometimes it is not what we always want to do but we can’t hold back from getting the work done just because we don’t want to do it. God also gives us the desire for wisdom and knowledge so we need to strive and look for more ways to learn instead of just waiting for it to come.
I know God is just starting to use me here in this place but I can already see the difference in the way I work and how I have wanted to read my bible more and more. I am so excited for all the things he has planned throughout the next three months on the farm, and as he gives me strength to make it through the work, missing my family, and my heart aching to be home with my friends I will trust in him and ask for more wisdom and more work to be brought to me. It going to be a hard climb up a steep mountain but the view at the top will be incredible.
