God works in mysterious ways.
A year ago at this time I was frantically getting my stuff together to head out to Nepal. This weekend I will do the same thing.
It was on that trip to Katmandu that our host mentioned he would be hosting a World Race team soon. I had actually begun an application for The World Race a few years prior but didn’t follow through. I told this to the leader on this trip and explained that I was already 35 and that is the cut off age for the race. He said “You better do it now then”. This was immediately met with my sarcastic response of “Yeah, sure”.
I couldn’t shake the idea. I began to look at the website, read a few blogs,prayed, sought advice from a few friends. I finally began another application.
Of course, in true Amanda fashion. I completed the application around 11pm on the night it was due only to find out that they had extended the deadline to 15 days later. I received a phone call the next day, I guess this was considered my ‘interview’ they only asked me one question and said they’d get back to me soon. The next day they called me again to tell me I had been accepted.
When I applied I was perusing the routes that would be launching in January. There were so many choices and I’ve always wanted to go almost everywhere. Almost. The route I applied for is the route I was accepted to. I chose this route specifically because it was the only one that would take me to both Colombia and back to Nepal. I really had no grand desire to visit Eastern Europe. Those middle three countries after South America and before we got to Asia were going to be a challenge for me, I knew it.
As you may know our original route included Bulgaria. We found out at the end of our first month that we would be going to Greece instead. I mean, Greece, beaches and white buildings and feta. Or days spent in a dusty field making new friends.
Next we were off to Montenegro. I had little to no prior knowledge of this new, tiny country. The photos I had seen on Google images were incredibly beautiful and our bus ride from Skopje, Macedonia proved what I had seen To be true.
Our time there was challenging, the most challenging I had seen on the race to this point. Our ministry for the month was evangelism. Just evangelism. Our guidelines were to go into the city, meet new people and tell them about Jesus. Easy enough, right?
Umm…What we came to find out is that the Montenegran people are incredibly proud of their heritage. This includes the very strong Orthodox Church, ties to Islam and their own struggle to get out from under their communist rule. Anything that is different or opposing to what they know was viewed as a major threat. Our team was often met with stern “No”s when inviting people to a woman’s event or a prayer meeting. One woman we met in a park told us she might even be worshiping the devil by the end of her life and that we wouldn’t “get her”.
We were told by our hosts that when they began the church there, they were met with death threats and their property was vandalized on several different occasions. People spread rumors that they were a cult.
Our time there was spent doing a lot of prayer walks, sitting in coffee shops hoping to connect with the staff there, and hanging out in parks playing games or with our hammocks in trees (a sight very rare apparently).
Our great success there was meeting a few people from England who were there on their own mission trip. They practice Baha’i. They explained this as a ‘oneness’; all people believe in the same God, just worship that deity in different ways, through different prophets. We were able to share our experiences with them. They had been there for almost six months and had been met with the same disdain. Unfortunately, we met them two days before we were leaving for Albania. In that short time we were able to have two of them come to a prayer meeting and we were able to visit them at one of their devotional times as well as share a meal.
While I deeply enjoyed our living situation (campers), Montenegro was a hard month for me. I plan on continuing to pray for the hearts of their people to soften to hear and accept the Gospel. Please join me in this.
To say I was ready to move on to a new country is an understatement. For that new country to be Albania? I wasn’t so sure about that. I had heard several things about how the mafia was prevalent there, human trafficking was big there (have you seen Taken?) and wasn’t too sure the people would be any different than the previous month.
My goodness, how happy I am to have a different report to share.
Updates
We’ve got a few squad members still in need of finances. Some are in danger of being sent home early. Please pray about contributing to keep them on the field so we can all finish together. You can go to their blogs to donate.
www.ryanstephens.theworldrace.org
www.alexkeeley.theworldrace.org
www.seanfalconer.theworldrace.org
www.alexisleon.theworldrace.org
www.pamelachristian.theworldrace.org
www.estherhouser.theworldrace.org
www.sallyfallanca.theworldrace.org
www.talialinde.theworldrace.org
