This is going to be quick because we hop on a bus in about an hour for Bulgaria but we wanted to give a quick recap of our month in Albania. We decided it would be best and quickest to do it with bullet points.
-22 nights in a tent which happened to be located in a poop filled sheep pasture. Very nice smell to wake up to.
-44 times. The amount Brady had to pump up his sleeping pad. There's a hole in it already.
-50 pieces. The amount of pieces of duck tape on our tent due to sheep eating it.
400 kids. Over 3 1/2 weeks of camp we were able to pour the light of Jesus into 300 kids between the ages of 4 and 14. Most of the kids live in houses without electric or water and come from broken homes of Muslim parents.
16. The second week of camp my group had 16 kids who got so close to us (despite the fact they spoke no English and we speak very little Albanian) that they cried for several hours on the last night of camp. They didn't want to leave us. They didn't want to return to their broken homes. They didn't want to go back to the slums. One young boy on particular, gave me his prize possession, a bandana with something in Italian written on it. When he gave it to me he was crying and said, "Tank youz for dis week Braddee"
Other random facts.
– 45 minute walk to get Internet.
-4 people in our group taken to the hospital for illness.
-average temperature of 36C. (Whatever that means)
-The men's shower doubled as a toilet, so we literally stood in the toilet to shower. The showers were also only cold but that was more of a blessing than anything due to how hot it is here.
So, that's the quick recap. Hope it gives you at least a glimpse into what we did this month. We are excited to awe what God has in store for us in Dobromirka, Bulgaria. Our team is partnered with another team, so there will be 14 of us total working together this month. The city we are living has a population of 800 and we don't think we will have Internet the whole month. The ministry we are working with is called Mission Possible, which is basically the biggest Christian ran company in the country. We will be working to to rescue street children and pulling gypsies out of slums but that could change. God bless!
