It’s hard to believe, but C Squad’s time in Europe is coming to an end. On Saturday, we have a long layover in Rome (hopefully with less vomit than last time). On Sunday, we’ll fly through Ethiopia and land in the beautiful, mysterious (to me) country of Zambia! That means we’ll be halfway done with our continents, and almost halfway done with the Race.
But before we get there, I want to share some important things I’ve learned this month in Albania:
1. Work hard.
This month, I wanted to make a point of working hard and working well. I can work hard in school, or at my job, but I mean working hard at just plain old hard work. Our ministry wasn’t centered around people like most other months. Rather, our job was to paint, plaster, weed, chop, organize, haul, take inventory, scrape, and rinse a summer camp back into shape. I was afraid that it wouldn’t come naturally to me to fall into the groove of working hard every day, starting and ending on time. I was afraid that I would get lazy and try to cut corners with my work. So my intention at the start of this month was to try my best to work with integrity and to be proactive about serving this camp. Even if it meant working a little past the end time or waking up a little early.
Well, it did take a little while to get used to manual labor all day. But at the end of the month now, I am so satisfied with the work we did here. We put in a lot of effort and it feels wonderful to know I did my best with the work given us.
We got a lot of work done, more than anyone was expecting. Upon our arrival, we were instructed to spend the month whitewashing the camp: that includes the pig farm, outside walls, front gate, and all interiors. We were also told to repaint all other surfaces like metals gates and grates, and to clear a path through the bushes in the back. After a few days of working, it became clear that these jobs would get done before the month was halfway through. At this point, we have completed those first tasks, and many more, such as:
Plastering cracks and holes in the walls
Shoveling tons and tons of pig and chicken poop
Installing a pipe to move that pig poop down to the river
Weeding everywhere
Cleaning the pool out
Reorganizing two warehouses
Cleaning out thousands and thousands of empty ice cream containers
Washing cars
Setting up an obstacle course
Preparing a rock wall for climbers
Castrating and vaccinating pigs
Sanding and re-staining door after door
Redoing a tiled veranda
The work ethic we started developing this month is probably the most valuable thing I’ll take with me.
2. Take care of animals.
At the start of the month, several squadmates returned to the camp with a tiny, newborn, nearly dead puppy they found by our dumpster. I wished they hadn’t. The little thing was so small, and so quiet, and clearly sick. It was sad enough that it would die, so why did we need to bring it here to watch its last hours of gasping and whimpering? People aren’t as nice to animals in poorer countries. Dogs get abandoned, especially runty, sick ones like this one, who was named Tucker within minutes of its arrival. It’s a sad pattern, but realistically, it wasn’t something we could fix in a month. I ignored Tucker because I didn’t want to get attached to the thing only to have it die on us, especially when we had so many other things to do.
I have said, quite seriously and quite often, that I would like nothing more than to spend a month on the Race taking care of animals. Well, God answered that prayer, because Tucker miraculously lives on and Tucker needs care. Three weeks after her (we have determined) arrival, she has doubled in size. She’s getting healthier and louder. Her fur is growing. Her eyes have opened. If her belly hadn’t grown to the point that it drags on the ground, she’d be able to walk.
The credit for Tucker’s survival goes entirely to a group of committed, loving squadmates that have recognized her as a life worth saving and logged sleepless nights and long days working during our breaks to keep Tucker fed and warm. I finally took the graveyard shift with her last week, waking up every few hours to give her a bottle of milk and fill another bottle with hot water to keep her warm.
We don’t know what will come of Tucker, since we really can’t travel with such a small puppy and no one else wants her. But taking care of her taught me that even if it’s inconvenient and unrealistic and apparently hopeless and even now uncertain, it’s worth it to try to save a life.
3. Eat mussels.
We’re lucky to have a rather nice bed and breakfast next door to our camp. The B&B has great internet, so we go there a lot. We schlep in with our dusty work clothes on and start talking to our people back home. There is a waiter there who speaks English. When you order some fries (which was the only thing on the menu we could understand for a while) or a soda, he responds, “Yes, please.”
But I wasn’t feeling great about going to this B&B just to order the cheapest thing on the menu and use the internet, looking like a slob. So this last Saturday, a ton of us went there to eat, really eat.
I don’t know if it was just me, but it felt right to go there not to email, but to enjoy a good meal together. The Adriatic Sea is a mere hour’s walk from here, and our waiter brought out a platter of fresh fish and asked what we wanted. Dillon and I settled on mussels, and it was probably the best meal of the month. Hot, herby cornbread was brought out first, with oil and vinegar, and then came our main course: a mountain of fresh mussels steamed with tomatoes and rosemary and lemon…
So respect the places you frequent and eat something good and dress nice once in a while. If you’re in Albania, eat seafood.
4. Pigs have big ears.
Unfortunately, my internet won’t let me put up a photo right now. You’ll have to take my word for it.
5. I have family in Albania.
When my route changed back in October, I learned that I have a distant-ish relative who lives in Albania serving with the Peace Corps. When we arrived here in Lezhe, I learned that my relative, my mom’s cousin Margaret, lives just a forty minute drive from us, in the town of Shkoder. So one Saturday, I went with current teammate Jayce and previous teammates Nicole and Kelsey to see Cousin Maggie, whom I’d never met before!
It was a wonderful day. Maggie, who’s finishing her third year teaching English at the public university in Shkoder, showed us around the city. We visited churches, walked through beautiful streets, had some fantastic pizza, and explored a castle!
It was surreal to talk about our shared family experiences despite our never having met before and despite our being across the world from “the pond in Titusville, Pennsylvania” and “Aunt Lucille and Aunt Mae.” And Maggie’s even named after my grandma, just like me!
6. Make your bed.
We were challenged at the start of the month to be disciplined by keeping our areas neat and our beds made. Now, my family and roommates may not believe this, but I actually know how to make a bed, and for about 75% of the month, I did! Okay, that might not be very impressive, but what is impressive is the shift in my attitude.
When I’m told to be disciplined and to make my bed every day, my first response is something like, “What difference does it make? It’s my bed, and I like it messy. You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not the boss of me. What are you saying? That I’m a slob? That you’re the boss of me? Because I’m not a slob and I like my stuff messy.”
But then when I shut up and just start doing it, I start feeling a little more respect. I don’t know for what, exactly. The bed, I guess. My property and others’ property. I didn’t expect it, but that single detail, of taking a little extra effort to be tidy, really helped me care about other details too in our daily work.
7. It’s possible to see the end of a double rainbow.
And if my internet allowed it, I would show you a picture.
8. God takes care of us.
I need to have all my money raised by the end of next month: that means I need only $1595 more to reach my final deadline of $15,500. Sometimes I’m nervous that the money won’t come in. But then I remember how Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that we shouldn’t waste our time worrying about having what we need because birds and flowers don’t blog or have jobs and they’re perfectly fine, and God likes people even more than he likes birds and flowers. So then I think about that for a while, and I’m not nervous anymore.
I’m also not nervous about asking other people for money anymore, so I’m going to right now: would you be open to giving to support my ministry in all these places? It’s not that I’m that great or that I know so much about being a missionary or anything. It’s that God has me here now, and God’s really great and loves the world and God knows what God is doing.
Would you be willing to be a part of my story (which is a chapter of God’s) that and give $10? $50? $100? $500? $1000? $1595?
