Well, today is the day I confess that I finally know who Paige Elizabeth Lindner is. She’s finally unveiled and I can rest assured knowing that in the Lord teaching me some of the most important lessons of my entire existence I am finally, finally myself.
It took me traveling to 6 different countries until I could proclaim to all the nations I have been to and all the ones I will find myself in in the years to come that I have met myself.
India, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand you have been good to me. You five countries have been filled with hard, painful lessons, of longings for home and the “what’s next,” of friends made and stories heard, of learning to hear His voice more clearly and to lay down my prideful/selfish intentions, of tears and laughs galore, and of coming to be.
Albania, YOU have been my favorite country so far though, here I feel like the Paige I was always meant to be and I find myself not pretending anymore to be someone I am not. I have traveled far enough that I have actually met myself. Knowing now what is important to me. Knowing now what is not worth worrying about. Knowing now who are the people I feel most connected to and would give everything for. Knowing now where I am going instead of merely just where I am.
This month we are in Tirana, Albania working with the Church of the Nazarene. As much as they tell us that we are in the poorest part of Tirana, it doesn’t feel like it one bit and we are constantly in awe of how relational the people are. There’s never the absence of a “hello” on the street corners, children run wild around in little packs getting into trouble, fashion is TOTALLY a thing again, and literally everyone and their mother, brother, uncle, friend, dog, and coworker sit outside of little eastern Europe shops sipping on coffees ALL. DAY. LONG. Just enjoying life. It’s a slow paced place with a deep hunger for friendship, truth, and meaning of life. The city wakes up at 6:15am and doesn’t sleep until about 1 or 2am.
First I’ll tell you all reading that we are partnered with another World Race team from our own S Squad this month, team Relentless, and it has been a real treat to get to watch them from afar in yearning to discover what they are all about. The days start out in full with dual team worship in the church and we all part ways after that-some head to the church’s latest production, a Kindergarten, and then there’s the other four of us, me included that stay back in the church.
Our ministry deals a lot with the poor children in and around this area of Albania. The church has a program that reaches out to families that are in severe poverty in hopes to not only revive their spirits, but to get them to be a part of the church and trust God with their lives. They do so by inviting the kids to come each day from 10am-1pm and just be positioned in the church to make space for admirable things to happen in the lives of these little vulnerable souls. The past week Sylvia, Jenna, Becca, and I have spent our mornings with about 8-15 children depending on the day reading, coloring, laughing, loving, teaching, cheek-kissing, and really just doing a few hours of life side by side with them. We watch each day at lunchtime the amount of children that come around noon JUST to get a meal for the day. The kids are all beautiful, fair-skinned, European sweethearts who CRAVE attention and want to be seen. You know this because of the deep desire they all have for you to be PROUD of the work they have on their papers, for that glance they give you that searches your own spirit for something that says “I love you for what you’ve done” and “you’re enough.”
(photo taken by the lovely Janet)
It’s hard for me leaving each class knowing that the kids probably won’t eat a substantial amount of “good for them” food the rest of the day and then the weekend hits (no classes) and you really worry. See my next post about having lunch with Sofia a few days ago. Oh and have I mentioned that lice runs ragged in the heads of street children everywhere here?
Together, the 16 of us live in a small four-bedroom side building around the corner from the church that we have named “Disney Manor” because of the Disney characters that plaster the windows in large so people cannot see into our space. We each have a mattress and about 3 feet of space we get to claim as our own. There’s a pizza parlor nearby, a coffee shop with great Wi-Fi and stellar espresso (I’ve heard) upstairs, an entire street lined with wooden chairs and quaint tables with umbrellas that sit pretty in the breezy weather, and everything suddenly feels different because I have arrived. My becoming is never really over, but I seem to find myself more at peace NOW than I have been the entire Race.
Next week we get a stab at every child’s summer favorite, Vacation Bible School: Creation edition. The whole team will be pulling themselves together to show these little Albanian bundles of energy just what God has in store. Meanwhile, you will find Kimmy and I at a coffee shop pouring over the website design projects the pastor has for her (and me, her assistant.)
Sitting here atop a little flowerpot covered place, listening to Taylor Swift (who finally put herself on Spotify,) drinking a fresh pressed juice and smelling that familiar waft of cigarette smoke in my nose I cannot help but just feel grateful. Wanting to say “I’m sorry” for not writing as much as I have been in past months, I won’t say that. I am not sorry because I have been fully alive and fully present right where I am.
The first 5 days we were here I welcomed a visit from Danski and was filled to the brim but reminded of how hard I’ll have to FIGHT for time with the Lord when I get back to America because for me there are so many distractions. All the conversations we shared and just quality time side by side reminded me too how broken humans are but the beauty/power in the choice of deciding to be together.
Danski has decided before these 11 months, at month 6, and every month in between that he wants to be with me and I want to be with him and make that decision daily as well so getting to challenge what the world says and spearhead US has been a privilege. We can look at one another, straight in the face and love the heck out of each other but always agree to disagree and know that it’s not within our ability to judge the other or expect change. You CAN call a person higher but you cannot get them to submit to something they are not or shame them into thinking they need to be different.
There’s been a sort of beautiful thing that’s been growing inside my heart in trusting God with my circumstantial decisions and really giving Him the power to direct my days. I have taken time to put aside my book when a friend needs to hear some encouraging words from me, saved the dinner I was eager to eat aside to take a little 10 year old out for souvlake, ran to the lake every day to read a chapter of my book because it’s good for me, asked the man at the café to surprise me with tea and sat praying, taught impromptu classes to the kids not welcomed into the churches program at 9:30pm with Jenna, and have just truly learned that it’ll always make for a better story if you let it commence as to how the Maker intended for it to go. And the only thing that requires is….obedience. Full and complete obedience and I tell you THAT is the reason my heart is back and positioned before He who is greater.
As always, I hope this feels like a conversation with a friend.
I love you all. God is way too gracious with a disastrous heart like mine.
Enjoy these photos from my run to the lake. Straight out of a hilly storybook.
