I am so thankful for those of you clicked on this link expecting a long post, and ready (with a mug full of coffee in hand, of course) to read all the words. But lucky for you, this post is just going to be a quick update of what ministry has looked like this month, along with some snapshots of what both ministry and Pogradec looked like.
Like most months on the Race, this month has flown by, but this month has been one of the most life-giving, sweet months of my Race thus far. While many months on the Race involve outreach and other various programs for nonbelievers, this month was spent predominately pouring into believers at the Bible school and through community groups fascilitated by the church we attended. Most days, our schedule followed a pattern of practical ministry before lunch and community ministry after lunch. Before lunch, we worked on practical tasks in and around the Bible school like weeding, washing windows, helping in the kitchen, cutting rose bushes, etc. I would take the first hour of the morning to teach ESL classes to the staff and interns, which I LOVED. We spent the first half hour going over vocab, sentence structure, and focusing on adjectives and adverbs. We laughed a lot, played a lot of games, and it was incredible to watch their comprehension grow over the 2.5 weeks we got to be together. In the second part of class, we would take read through a passage in the Bible and try to have a diccussion about it. About half way through the month, I got serious about lesson plans and preparing questions about the passage. In the end, all of my students and I memorized one of our favorite passages and recited them to the class! I realized at one point that working in the conversation rooms back in Vietnam was what gave me the idea to do conversation practice, and I had this feeling that God gave me that month in part to prepare me for this month. What eminence!
After practical ministry, we would head off in different groups to do community ministry. The church we attended in Pogradec was small (about 50 people) but it was SOLID. The church puts on meetings for women and youth throughout the week, and has a churchplant in a neighboring village (Piskapat) that does the same. The women’s meetings were definitely my favorite meetings. The women in the meetings were so full of God and so in tune with the Spirit, and they leave so much room for the Spirit to move and work. Regardless of what meeting we were at, the intern or staff member running the meeting that day would ask if anyone got any impressions, so like words/pictures/visions from the Holy Spirit. It was SUPER neat, and not at all scary or overwhelming like thinking about the Holy Spirit felt when I came on the Race. This church body follows the Spirit in such a Biblical, obedient way and He is moving mightily among them.
One of my favorite memories of the month was being able to start and end our time in Albania with a hike to the Pogradec monument. There’s a statue on a hill right outside the city that overlooks the city center and provides a view that clearly stretches into Macedonia. We made the trek on Friday morning of our first full week in Pogradec, we worshiped together as a team, and took some time to ask God for the BIG things that were on our hearts, be it wisdom for plans once we get Stateside, deeper understanding of spiritual gifts, further healing, etc. Throughout the month, we kept praying for those things and stepping into vulnerability with each other as to what that process was looking like for each of us. We went up to the monument again on our second-to-last day in Pogradec and were able to worship together a second time and take time to reflect on the huge things that God did in our lives and the lives of those around us throughout this past month. What a joyful celebration of the faithfulness of our Father!
Pogradec lies on the huge lake that separates Albania and Macedonia. God blessed us SO MUCH by allowing us to be in a place where we could take morning walks and runs out by the water, as well as take our last off day and go swimming with the interns.
The interns invited us to play soccer one afternoon. We decided later it was more a game of 3 (interns) vs 3 (interns) with 5 additional human-sized obstacles per team (aka us), but we had a blast and were so thankful for the time spent laughing and (trying) to do the sports things.
During our second weekend in Albania, Daniel (one of the CFN staff members and one of our best friends) brought us to his home village. Daniel invited us to go “hiking,” which meant scaling a mountain that had no discernible path, but it was awesome to be able to accomplish such a huge feat as a team, blisters and all.
Daniel and his father also graciously showed us around their land and allowed us to eat as many cherries as we could. What a sweet (ba-dum-chh) gift!
The church plant in Piskapat was about 30 minutes away from Pogradec, and was absolutely gorgeous. Thank you God for the body of believers you have planted throughout beautiful Albania!
On our second trip to the Pogradec monument, Daniel decided to join us. I love worshiping with these incredible people!
“Meat Cones” (gyros) quickly became a go-to favorite when we weren’t eating with the other interns. We would take them down to the lake and eat together. This was such a sweet month to grow as a team, and being able to spend the month with Michelle (one of the new raised-up Squad Leaders) was a treat!
There are no words to explain the ways in which we were blessed by this incredible group of believers at the Christ for the Nations Bible School. We have loved celebrating with them, working with them, and just doing life with them throughout this past month. They will be dearly missed, and even if we don’t see them again in this life, we are excited to party it up in heaven with them one day.
If I haven’t stressed enough already, allow me to say it one more time… I LOVE THESE LADIES! Wow, to think that God has blessed me with these friends and sisters makes my heart sing. What an incredible group of servant-hearted, sincere, passionate, radiant women!
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I’ll be posting an update about Month 7 (oh my gosh, wut?!) soon, so stay tuned!
