When we first get to Albania we go to our hostel with no plans and no contacts, so we found out about this place called Steven’s Center. It is a place where Christians go sometimes so we take our chances and go there. When we get there Ryan hears some English so he walks up to them and finds out that they go to a church, so we go there. After we get there we meet with the pastor who tells us about other contacts in the area and that Vlore would be a good place to go. So me and the team go to a cafe and pray about where we should go and when. I fell as though Vlore is where we should go, so we reach out to the pastor there and find living within our budget
During the time in Vlore we meet several different contacts from all over the city They are doing things like running churches, out reach into the community, and rising up the next generation of leaders. Some days were busier than others. We also had a road trip down south to meet up with additional 4 contacts. We spent the night at the beach after meeting up with all of them. After the road trip we got to enjoy the ride back and I got to try sheep stomach, it was an interesting taste, but I ate about ½ of it and some rice.
After a few more days we fells as though it is time to take the easy way back to Vlore or take our chances with going to Berat. The contact was a little slow to reply to our e-mails and if we go we would only get 3-4 hours of sleep. So we just decide to go with the hard route and hope we can meet with that church in order to make a new contact. So we get on that bus and head to Berat. With no knowledge of what is going to happen except trying to communicate to the taxi driver who speaks no English that we need to get to this hostel to put all our crap…we dont even know if they have room. so the minibus stops in Berat.
It is time to get off the bus. Ryan feels led to tell Kirsti to check her email. The crazy thing is that the minibus parked somewhere where there was wifi. like the odds are crazy that it would auto connect to a new wi-fi network so she checks it and the church actually gave her a number to call. So Ryan immediately call that number while we start to take our stuff off the bus. the pastor answers and I tell him we are in Berat even though he didn’t even know we were coming for sure. He tells me they have free accommodations for us and Ryan gives the bus driver the phone. bus driver points us to a taxi van. phone gets handed to him now.. now we get everything on and are heading towards unknown place and unknown people. lol. taxi stops. we put all our crap on the curb lol.. nothing to do but wait. van shows up with 2 friendly faces!
They get out and show us our wonderful air-condition penthouse apartment. We decide to cook a family brunch of eggs, French toast and some kind of sausage. We go out with them that night and see the church and some of the town. The next day is my b-day so we go prayer in the morning and a castle at night, then we find a wonderful place to eat. I get what I wanted for my b-day. It was a plate of mixed grilled fish, it was the best thing that I ate so far. We meet several additional contacts and then go back to Tirana. When we go back we meet a guy who runs a kids camp and who has a huge heart for the city and his work.
God has been doing some crazy things this month and now we are off to debrief for the next few days to talk about stuff and to rest up, grow as a team and make some memories. We had a goal of 11 contacts and we meet a total of 13 and we got a few leads. Normally teams get 5-6 but God had even bigger plans than we could ask him for.
