This month again we are doing Unsung Heros.  But this time my team decided to take a different approach to how we are doing it.  We are truly just letting the Lord show up.  No google, no spending hours searching for contacts.  Just hitting the street to find people who the Lord wants us to interact with.

One of these ministries that we got connected to through a friend of a friend was The Hub Coffee Shop which is at the International Protestant Assembly Church.  It is a cute little coffee shop behind the church, which they use for fellowship time and outreach to the local students in the area.


We met with Robin and Cleon who are both associate pastors at the IPA church.  They were both super passionate about having teams come to serve at the church and Hub and truly wanted us to start right away.  Their main focus when teams come is to connect with the local Arts and Music High school and do more outreach to their surrounding neighborhood.

        

We were able to hang out at the Hub a few times just to check it out and be able to serve their ministry while we could.  The first afternoon we got to spend there I jumped right in to playing cards with the group of high school students there.  They were playing an INTENSE version of Uno which was hard to catch on to at first but it was a great way to just laugh and have fun together.  After those students left another couple guys and one girl came to hang out as well.  We again started by playing Uno (the less intense version) and chatting with them.  Then wanted to teach us how to play an Alabanian card game so we moved on to learn.  I caught on quite quickly because it is a version of Rich Man, Poor Man.  It was so much fun being able to hang out with them and just truly be present in the moment showing the love of Christ to them.

One of my favorite connections we made at the Hub was with a girl named Jonna. 

Even though on our first days there she didn’t really interact with us much.  We became Facebook friends after church on Sunday and bright Monday morning I had a “Good morning” from her.  We were going to be doing some ATL anyway so we decided to meet up with her again.  We spent the afternoon exploring around Tirana with her and just loving on her.  We hung out at a coffee shop, went and played a life-size board game in the park, and just were able to encourage her.  She had told us that she doesn’t have very many Christian friends and it was refreshing to hang out with us.

So far this month has just been about meeting people in the moment and loving them fully.  If you are ever in Tirana, Albania feel free to check out The Hub and the ministry of IPA Chruch.