We rolled into camp at about 11 p.m. Albanian time on Tuesday. My brain is dead. I cannot recollect how many days it took to get here through the 5 countries (Atlanta GA to Amsterdam Netherlands, Istanbul Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Albania) and various time zones we’ve traveled through. All I can say is our final source of transportation, the bus ride, quickly escalated from a 12-hour ride to a 28-hour ride. Our poor drivers were a bit lost.
It may sound a bit terrible as far as traveling goes, but honestly, I loved it. The bus ride was completely gorgeous. The Mediterranean bus ride was the best “problem” I’ve ever run into. (We were originally going to Turkey, but the civil unrest caused us to switch countries. Our 55 plane tickets to Istanbul were already purchased, resulting in purchasing bus tickets to get us to Albania.) I got to wake up to a gorgeous sunrise, peaking over the mountains in Greece, and survey hundreds of bright yellow sunflower fields from Turkey to Macedonia. Lakes and seas reflected the land in between rustic towns of red roofs and pristine white mosques. It was something I would have paid specifically to travel.
We arrived at our ministry contact completely exhausted; Praise God, we have beds! Makeshift bunk beds-but real pillows and real beds! We were told we were using tents this month and were ready to set them up in the dark on rocky terrain, so it was a nice surprise. However our three married couples get to tent in the sheep heard pen…which is hilarious by the way. A little sheep charged one of them this morning.
We’re staying at a summer camp for children. This place is amazing. Not at all what I expected out of our first missionary position. Pretty confident it’s better than any summer camp I’ve been to. Not only is it gorgeous, clean and European looking, but here’s bouncy houses, a pool, rock-climbing wall, dodge ball area, arts and crafts, soccer… the whole nine yards. We’re having fun to say the least.
I feel so blessed to be here. God is good and has gifted us so much. We made it here safe, we're all healthy, our accommodations are better than we expected. Thank you for the continuous prayers for our teams, who we connect with, etc. Love and miss everyone!
PS. I would post pictures, but the internet is much too slow to load them. Sorry!
