Our entire squad of 50 people spent last month in Lezhe, Albania serving at LightForce International. LightForce is an organization that is committed to bringing the good news of Christ to the poor and helping those in need. Their major areas of involvement are Albania, Kenya, Uganda, and India. LightForce projects include: school and health centre renovation, children’s adventure camps, school sponsorship, construction of health centres & staff housing, education, HIV/Aids, provision of drugs and medical equipment, feeding programmes, women empowerment, micro-farm and assistance for children with special needs.
In Lezhe, Albania, LightForce has a youth camp facility with dorms, a cafeteria, sports fields, a playground, a swimming pool, meeting rooms, a rock wall, archery fields, sheep and pigs (for eating not petting). They host a variety of youth camps during the summer with anywhere from 1,100 to 1,800 people passing through. We had the opportunity to serve alongside the staff at LightForce and put on three youth camps while we were there. Our squad split up into different serving teams for the duration of the camps. The teams included: security, sports/activities, lifeguarding, kitchen, grounds keeping, and pig farming.
My serving team for the camps was the kitchen team. I served with 18 of my squad mates on the kitchen team. We prepped for meals, set up the dining room, served during the meal, cleaned up after the meals, swept and mopped the floors, and did the dishes by hand for 130 people. Prepping for the meals included, cutting a bucket full of onions, tomatoes or cucumbers, washing each piece of lettuce by hand, or peeling and hand-cutting French fries for 130 people (which took several hours).
At first, I had a bad attitude about being on the kitchen team. I really wanted to be on the sports/activities team and ended up in the kitchen. After that first day, I decided to seek The Lord and ask Him what He was wanting to teach me through this. I realized that I didn’t have a true servants heart. A true servant doesn’t just serve in the ways they enjoy (like being on the sports team); they serve in any area they are needed with joy and love. I was reading in 1 Corinthians 3:9, which says, “For we are God’s fellow workers.” We are God’s servant and His co-worker. Everything we do should be for The Lord. So I started to work on dying to my flesh and truly serving others with a joyful heart. I learned that I should strive to choose joy and a positive attitude in all types of situations. I think this is a process that I will have to work at for a while. After I decided to choose to be joyful on the kitchen team, I really started to enjoy and appreciate it. I was able to get to know some of my squad mates that I didn’t know very well, I was able to interact with the campers while I was serving them and I was able the love on the kitchen ladies, Flora and Doushe.
In between youth camps, we did some maintenance to the facility. Our squad white washed the walls, weeded and maintained the fields and gardens, and turned a truck container into a “house” for the animals during the winter and to give birth in. Darren and I were placed on a white washing team and assigned to the pigs stalls for 4 days in a row.
Overall, it was a great month. We learned so much about Jesus and ourselves. We had intentional conversations with our squad mates, we loved on and showed Jesus to the staff and campers and we were able to help an organization that does great work for the Kingdom of God.
Our team in now in Chisinau, Moldova. You can be praying for our teams health (as we have a cold going around). You can also pray for Darren and I as we are about $3,300 away from our next financial deadline October 1st. We need to make this deadline in order to stay of the field. If you have any fundraising ideas you can email me through our blog or if you feel led to donate you can click on the “support me” tab.
