Vlorë, He said.
Vlorë, the team said.
Stay in Tirana, I said.
(Spoiler Alert: popular opinion won.)
We arrived in Tirana with the understanding that our ministry for the month would be to find “Unsung Heroes” in Albania, aka find ministry partners for future world racers. While other teams on my squad had ministry contacts to pick them up from the airport, had a place to stay for the month, and had a very specific ministry to serve here in Albania, my team would be relying on the Holy Spirit to figure out the logistics for the month. We are depending on Him to provide us with divine appointments for future ministry partners, on Him to provide accommodations, and on Him to clarify where in Albania we should travel to discover these appointments.
(That’s fine with me Lord, I ain’t trippin’.)
I’ve been praying since I decided to go on the World Race that the Holy Spirit would speak to me in ways that I’ve never known. This month would be the perfect opportunity for Him to do so, so needless to say I’m pretty excited about my time here in Albania.
We stayed in a hostel in Tirana for the first couple of days. We navigated our way to an English-speaking café for missionaries and had some conversations to see what God was doing in the city. We walked around the city and just had riveting discussions with whomever we could, including an artistic bartender, an Italian-speaking restaurant server, an Australian traveler staying at our hostel, an Irish/Canadian writing a fascinating magazine, etc. Great convos, but nothing led to future ministry partners. Most of the Albanians actually spend their summer in Southern Albania, which explains why there aren’t as many people in the city.
By way of many different “God-signs,” the team felt that the Lord was calling us to move down to southern Albania to a city called Vlorë, a beautiful city near the Adriatic Sea (examples: we discovered that the name of our room at the hostel was named “Vlorë”; our Unsung Heroes coordinator, Maria, said the Holy Spirit kept giving her the letter “V” in prayer; etc). I also felt “called” to the ocean, but that was for my own selfish reasons (oops). Cameron Googled to find churches in Vlorë, he Facebook messaged a church elder, and quickly the elder responded with much enthusiasm that he had a place for us to stay within our WR budget.
Awesome! Thanks Google, aka God!
Okay, so we were going to Vlorë, the question was WHEN we should make the 2.5-hour trek down south. We decided to pray as a team about the timing of our move. I personally felt we needed to spend some more days in Tirana to understand the city, build relationships with the people, and find the ministries that the churches in Tirana didn’t already know about…
The team felt otherwise, so we prayed.
While I was supposed to be listening to the Holy Spirit, one of my favorite Latin pop songs came on the speakers of the café. I started dancing along and then I started smiling (again, oops). Logan, our alumni squad leader asked what I was thinking about, so I told him. I said, “I’ve heard this Spanish song plenty of times, but have never heard the English words in the song, which say ‘I’m ready to do whatever, if you take me away’ and it jokingly made me think the Holy Spirit was saying we needed to go to Vlorë sooner than later.” The rest of the group then confirmed that the Lord revealed to them we were needed in Vlorë. Paul even explained the Lord told him we should go THE NEXT DAY. I told the team that I wasn’t sure if the Lord was telling ME we should go, but I trusted their ability to hear Him and was supportive of the decision to go. Logan then said to me that he was sure the Holy Spirit was speaking to me and revealed that quite possibly the Holy Spirit just speaks to me in ways that I don’t yet recognize, including Spanish pop songs.
Okay God, I hear you. You Rock. Let’s go to Vlorë!
