As a squad leader, what was only one goodbye at the end of each month last year has grown exponentially. Yesterday, after a bittersweet goodbye, my host in Tirana dropped me off at the local bus station. There, I was able to meet up with my co-leader, Kay. We traveled by bus for 3 hours from Tirana to a city in the south called Vlore. The music was awesome: Spanish, English, Albanian, French, and some sort of Baliwood. Entertaining to say the least.
The bus attendant told us at the first stop we got to in Vlore to go ahead and exit the bus. When Kay and I got out of the bus, we realized there was not much around us in terms of where we were supposed to be. I called the man that was going to pick us up and come to find out we were on the opposite side of town. Thankfully, there were some locals hanging around the place we were dropped off with our bags. One of them took the phone from me, explained where we were in town, and then he ushered Kay and I with our giant backpacks to a shaded area to stand by and wait to be picked up. They didn’t speak English, nor us Albanian, but the smiles and kindness was flawlessly translated.
We were soon picked up by a friend our team made just a couple days prior to our arrival and he reunited us with our third co-leader, Logan. We were able to leave our bags at the location Logan was staying and go into the downtown area and grab a bite to eat and do some exploring. We ended up along the coast, staring out into the Adriatic Sea. The mountains towered above the coastal town and contrasted with the smoothness of the sea.
2 weeks ago, I was in Atlanta, GA talking to God about Team Arm the Masses, the team currently in Vlore. I was simultaneously talking to Him and drawing on my laptop any words, phrases, or pictures that came to mind. Out of no where, I got a picture of a jellyfish. It was so random. There was no context for where this jellyfish came from. But stranger things have happened in my life so I went ahead and drew it.
As Logan, Kay and I were sitting along the coast yesterday afternoon, Kay suddenly screamed, “Look! A jellyfish!” Sure enough, not 5 feet from the rocks we were sitting on, was a jellyfish. I couldn’t believe it! Here we were, just hours after arriving to the city Team Arm the Masses was located in and there was a jellyfish. Come to find out, they also saw a couple jellyfish themselves while they were at a nearby beach that same time.
This “random” occurrence was just the start of a crazy adventure in Vlore…
