For whatever reason, I have always cherished celebrating birthdays and simply enjoying the knowledge that it is a special day for me. Since today was my 23rd birthday, I thought I would take all my readers through my day in Kosova.
July 10, 2014
12:00 am: Texting with my Mama using wifi to bring in my birthday. I immediately went to sleep afterwards.
7:30 am: I woke up for my quiet time. When I walked out my door, I found my door decorated and that my team-mates had decorated my door for my birthday (just like my Mama always does).
8:00 am: I had my morning quiet time. I read Ecclesiastes 12, which talks about remembering God in our youth (and I’m still consider myself young, if only at heart).
8:30 am: When I went to breakfast, I found that my team had more in store for me. They had pastries and cards for me, which was just precious! We also had Team time. During this time, my team talked about some business details and gave positive (and some constructive feedback) from the day before, in pure World Race fashion.
9:30 am: Left to go do our ministry time for the day. We first met at the church where we are serving this month, before walking to the nearby Roma Center. Roma is the politically correct term for gypsy.
10:00 am: When we were in the Roma community, we went to an impoverished family and tried to help clean a rundown house. There was rotten food everywhere, the putrid smell of filth was constantly on one’s nostrils, but the children had the most endearing smiles and eager hearts. I was not so much help with the actual cleaning, however my dancing and laughing with the little Roma children kept everyone entertained. You could say that they all stole my heart.
12:30 pm: We had packed our lunch (ham and cheese sandwiches with chips). Baqir, our team’s best friend/translator/ministry host extraordinaire, continued to teach my team Albanian. I can now say Good morning, good afternoon, good night, thank you, and how are you in Albanian. My skills are quickly improving.
1:00 pm: We walked back to our host church and waited for our next project (once again in World Race fashion “Hurry up and wait”.
2:30 pm: My team decided to go to a local café and get coffee like the locals do in Pristina. My cappuccino was only 1 euro!!!
4:00 pm: My team cut out flyers for our outreach on Saturday. While cutting the flyers, we had an impromptu praise and worship session with our friend Faruk. It was awesome!
6:00 pm: After cutting our flyers, it was then time to pass them out.
Let me tell you, walking up to strange teenagers (who are mostly Muslim) with a flyer that you can’t read and inviting them to a hang out session at a church is not the easiest thing to do. However, today I just felt so embolden by the Spirit and had no hesitation whatsoever.
7:30 pm: Once we had finished passing flyers out to the youths of Pristina, most of my team was tired and ready to head back to our home. However, Baqir, our dear friend, invited my team to his house for tea with his family. We were eager to accept Baqir hospitality.
8:20 pm: Tea at Baqir house was a delightful and insightful experience. Baqir is the only Christian in his family. The rest of his family is Muslim, who are all fasting during daylight hours for Ramadan this month.
During our tea, we chatted with Baqir’s family about what we were doing in Kosova, we prayed with his deaf sister, and I got my ears pulled (a birthday tradition in Kosova, apparently). While the tea party was unexpected, it was a fabulous way to spend my birthday evening.
10:40 pm: My team finally made it back to our apartment after a long day of ministry. They had one more surprise in store for me. I walked into the kitchen to find a birthday cake (that was not chocolate like the man told them) and candles for my 23rd birthday.
11:20 pm: I wrote this blog to share my birthday with all of you!
It was not the birthday I was expecting, but in several ways it was perfect. Here’s to my 23rd year, which I hope is unlike any other year so far.
