Since I arrived in Gjakova, I’ve been feeling this incredible need to do ministry as I’ve defined it – you know: food banks, building houses, praying over ppl, playing with little kids – you get the idea. The thing is tho, none of that happened this month…my expectations totally deflated to something that seemed less desirable in my eyes.
Prayer
I mean, who wants to sit all day and pray for a city you haven’t grown to know? It’s hard – and I tried to justify my excuses for not wanting to pray by simply saying, “We don’t do that in America,” (as if to say that it’s ok I don’t enjoy praying because America is always right). Wrong!
What I’ve come to learn is that prayer has power beyond any physical act of of ministry that you could possibly do…I mean, it’s a direct connection to our Father – and He hears our prayers. If you don’t believe me, I have a story for you.
The first full day of being in Gjakova, the only request from our host/contact family was to pray with them daily. I thought, “Sure, why not?! I know how to pray. This will be easy…what else you got for me?” As if challenging them to load our plates high so we could feel and look more holy…let me tell you now, a person may think their ways are right, but God weighs the heart (Proverbs 21:2). And unfortunately, mine was filled with pride.
So in order to transform my prideful heart to a humble heart, God redefined what “ministry” looked like to me. He didn’t give our team a plate full of things to do like I desperately wanted. Instead our month was wide open and filled with prayer every morning. What?! This is definitely NOT ministry – I’m supposed to be helping the poor, sharing the Good News with the lost, binding up the brokenhearted…why am I not doing that Father? You mean to tell me all You want from us in this country is to pray? Pray…really?
So I settled in for a long month of praying for a country I knew nothing about. Little did I know, God would be using this month to teach me about its incredible power!
Let me preface this next part of the story with a little weather lesson – Gjakova is in its summer season. It is supposed to include very hot, humid, and sunny days. But that is definitely not what we’ve experienced since we’ve been here. Instead we’ve had cool, cloudy, rainy days…which I love! The funny thing is, it’s NOT their rainy season and our host family said they’ve never had a summer like this before…interesting.
Okay, back to the story now.
So we are in our second week of ministry at this point, and I am dreading the mornings to come because that means we have to pray. Let me define what praying with Albanians means: we begin with a few songs (in Albanian), then read some Scripture and talk about it (in broken English/Albanian), then we pray for Kosova to know their Creator. But not like the praying you have grown up with. No, this kind of praying fills the room with loud voices – everyone speaking praises to our God, thanking Him for his goodness, and asking Him to break the chains of the Muslim religion that have bound the Gjakovian people. We do this in Albanian and English…all together, every voice heard aloud in the room – and all I can think is, this room literally sounds like gibberish. Prayer-time usually sums up to about 1.5 – 2 hours every morning.
At this point, we had prayed like this for a total of 12 days and I was feeling like it all was pointless. Nothing was happening, nothing was changing, no one was coming to the church, we weren’t making evident progress…and the rain had put a damper on my spirit. Feeling defeated and disappointed with this month of ministry – I just wanted to go home…quit and move on. That’s when God revealed something truly incredible to me.
That morning, we began prayer the usual way and my heart was heavy with anger and disappointment. I entered the prayer-room hardly engaged, yet trying to put my best foot forward. I sit in my seat and we begin soon thereafter. And I just start praying that God would change my attitude, that my heart would find joy here, that He would reveal Himself to me in a very obvious way. As I’m earnestly praying this, a Bible reference practically hits me in the face…I instantly open my eyes and turn to the passage that I’ve been given as if my life depended on it! My eyes scan the page for the exact verses and begin to read, “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray towards this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people for an inheritance.” – 1 Kings 8:35-36. Did you notice that bit about the rain? Because that’s what immediately shot out at me: rain…and in fact it was raining at that moment, like every day since we began praying for this country.
All I could do was sit there in complete awe – this whole time that we’ve been praying for this city, rain has dropped from the sky like skittles from a rainbow…everything was full of color. Deep, rich soil, bright colored flowers, luscious trees…everywhere we looked it was beautiful! And I was just now noticing the fruits of our prayers…the land of Gjakova was being restored right before our eyes. So the prayers that we had been praying all along truly were making an impact – and now there was proof of Gods promise towards his people: rain falling to the ground in a non-rainy season only to show us He does hear our prayers. Saweet!
So this prayer thing…not so bad after all I guess. In fact, I’ve grown to love that time of the day! God totally redefined what “ministry” really is for me this month – prayer is a ministry, a gift, and a blessing, regardless of how I first viewed it. There is power in prayer – I wholeheartedly believe that now.
