This morning I woke up at 7:00am.
The first thing I did upon waking up was head out to the “living room” of our home (which doubles as the church as well – the living room is the entrance or foyer) and reignited the fireplace that provides central heat to the building. After getting the smoldering ashes to reignite – heat begins to fill the room. Within the next twenty minutes or so I am prepared for the day, breakfast consumed, layered clothing on, bed made, hair contained.
It’s now approaching 7:30 and my team and I are ready to join Pastor N for our daily prayer meeting. Prayer meetings happen 5 days a week (Tuesday – Saturday). Today, Tuesday, prayer meeting is at 7:30am.
We spent time learning to pray like Pastor N and his wife P do. Prayer starts with praises to the Lord for who he is and how great he is. We typically don’t spend time bringing our petitions to God at this point, rather we take time to praise him for his greatness and bless him for who he is.
Psalm 146 is a passage that Pastor N brought to our attention today. Verse 2 says “I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.” Today he encouraged us to be sure to raise our voices in praise to Jesus for who he is; vocally and not just in our hearts. After time is spent praising, we move to a portion of prayer and petition.
After prayer meeting we geared up for English classes offered in the church. The missionary we are working with here offers classes in the church – where she works with students of all ages who are learning beginner English.
Some days we have gone with her to her English classes in another city, Drenas; one of the most difficult areas to be a Christian in Kosovo. It’s amazing to see how God is planting seeds in even the darkest areas of the country.
Sometimes during our days, we have the opportunity to go on various house visits, at times just for visiting and other times for delivering food supplies. We have met an array of people through this ministry. The church we are staying at also coordinates a thrift store out of the church basement.
Each day has proven to be quite different than the day before and I am learning lots every day.
Albanian is the language that is spoken in Kosovo – so some of the words we learned last month carry over to this month.
We have had the chance to hang out with the youth of the church – playing games, going out to coffee shops, and building friendships.
My day isn’t over yet and later on we will be joining one of the young adults to play soccer, something I may regret agreeing to later – I’ll save that for another blog though.
Please keep the questions and comments coming (:
