Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words.
-St. Francis of Assisi
This has been one of my favorite quotes ever since it was the theme at North Texas Celebration #1 (Celebration being the church camp I went to in high school, for those reading from a different state). I took the time to write it down the other day, but it hit me this week that this has been the theme of our ministry here in Albania as well.
I wrote some already about how words were not the most helpful during camp. We knew enough Albanian phrases to keep the kids safe – don’t, come, slow down, wait. We cheered for them when they succeeded, and when they had tried so hard – bravo, very good! And they knew, or picked up, some phrases in English – thank you, stop, come on!
But words, on the whole, weren’t necessary. Only smiles were.
Our last week, we didn’t have a camp, so we spent our days working on the farm. We continued our duties in the kitchen, cleaning the bathrooms, and feeding the baby goats. But we also added several new ones, cleaning and organizing all over the compound (and a few people even went beyond, visiting Lightforce’s other Albanian campus up in the mountains).
We talked amongst ourselves while we worked, of course, but it was our actions preaching the Gospel, not our words. Several of our hosts – the ladies who milked the goats and cooked our meals, the security guards, the farmers – spoke about as much English as the kids. So it was our willingness to do what was asked of us, even when it was tedious and boring, or messy and smelly (the pigs and goats may be cute but they do not have high standards of hygiene) that spoke of our love for God and our love for them.
We got the ladies some small gifts before we left, the only way we saw to say thank you to women who took care of us so much so that they kept taking our jobs in the kitchen away from us. Through Matilda, who was in charge of the kids camp, they enthusiastically thanked us. And then, they ended with “God bless you.”
I can think of no better send-off from an amazing and indeed blessed 3 weeks than that.
