So I’ve been here in Albania for 1 month now! We’ve moved from the farm to the big city and I’m loving every minute of it. My team is staying in a cute little apartment in the city, living on our own, and making our own meals. The food here rocks! Everything is super fresh and extremely inexpensive! We’ve spent the last few weeks trying to learn the language and fit into the culture the best we can. I’ve learned to really love the Albanian people, they look pretty unapproachable on the outside, but once you start to talk to them they are some of the kindest people I’ve ever met. It’s funny, people here just stare at you because they can tell you’re an American and they find that so cool. They’ve only seen Americans in movies and tv shows, so to see an American in person is new to most of them. I’ve never realized how much people love America, it’s like the dream of everyone here to someday get to America, “the land of the free” they say.
Our goal here is to build relationships with people, especially young adults who speak english and teach them about God if they want to know more through a christianity explored class! We’ve met a lot of people and have 2 or 3 coffee meetings a day with different people. It’s so cool because we just go up to someone, start small talk, and ask them to get coffee with us. It’s that simple. Building relationships with people just takes a little bit of courage in the beginning, then letting God handle the rest. When we first were told what they wanted us to do, just being honest, I was not too excited. You mean I have to go up to strangers who probably don’t to speak the same language as me and ask them to get coffee with me? Are you kidding? But with the amazing teammates that I have, they were able to encourage me, that we can do this and showed me that it really isn’t that scary. I’ve discovered how much I love sitting down with someone and talking about there life, passions, and dreams.
While we are here in Tirana we will also be going into prisons and working with inmates, meeting with trafficked victims, and teaching english at the local english school, as well as running this christianity explored class with the people we meet in the city. We definitely have a lot going on right now but I’m learning to not pass anyone up because I’m too busy or just don’t feel like talking to someone right now, but finding value in every single person. I couldn’t be more excited about where God has me right now; learning to love others, love myself, and love him!
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18
