Week one in Albania has been awesome! After three days of travel and time zone changes, everyone was exhausted but still way too excited to sleep as we landed in Tirana, Albania. We got all of our stuff loaded in to a van and started our hour long drive to Lightforce Ministries in Lehze. I was expecting that we would be staying somewhere without running water and sleeping on our sleeping pads but when we pulled up to Lightforce we found out that we do have drinkable running water, bunk beds, and showers! The site we are staying at is on a beautiful farm with a vegetable garden, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens. Our meals are made mostly from things that are found on the farm; eggs, pork, goat cheese (that actually tastes more like feta), cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and beans. During the day we take turns feeding the baby goats (kids) with baby bottles. They are so cute but we also end up covered in their poop so we all have separate goat outfits for this job. We are also hosting a camp for the children from the neighborhood and building relationships with the families. The camp has a lot of great confidence building activities for these kids who wouldn’t have the chance to do these kinds of things otherwise. Also, in this culture girls are traditionally more passive so it is nice for them to have a chance to try some different activities like the climbing wall, swimming, archery, and the obstacle course.
It is important for us to have this camp because it helps build trust with the surrounding neighbors. We learned about Albania’s turbulent political history which has caused some citizens to be skeptical and slow to trust others. By providing a safe and fun day camp at Lightforce we open the doors for the parents to come see what this place is about and build relationships here. It is a different from traditional “vacation bible school” because we are more focused on helping Lightforce build longterm relationships with the community to open doors for sharing the gospel. We want to create a safe environment for people to ask questions and learn more about why we are here. I really like this idea of being patient and building genuine, lasting relationships where people can feel safe to ask questions about faith when they feel comfortable.
Each day when the camp is over and the kids go home, we are sooo tired but the farm staff seems to never get tired…or at least they don’t show it. They work from sun up until sun down, I don’t know how they do it. Rachel is our English speaking host and ministry leader. Not only is she always working but she is always positive, caring, energetic, and patient. Last Sunday she took us to see the city of Lehze and then staid with us the whole day, hiking to see the castle ruins and spending some time in the Internet cafe. Even when we are feeding the baby goats she comes down to help us.
Living here in Albania is very peaceful. It seems like most things shut down when the sun goes down. We have to walk up the street if we want to get WiFi so it is easy to stay in the moment and not be on social media all the time. We have team time together every night to get to know each other better and talk about the events of the day. So all in all it has been a great week and I am very thankful for this first ministry site because it is a nice, slow introduction to giving up comfort items like air conditioning and washing machines.
