Saying goodbye to Asia was bitter-sweet. So many great memories, people, places and God-moments. There will forever be a special place in my heart for south-east Asia. I have to be honest though, most of Asia’s food is not really my thing so I was really looking forward to the food of eastern Europe for a long time now!
Let me back up though and tell about travel day. After saying goodbye to our squad leaders on Thursday night, we wake up on Friday at 3am, after 3 hours of sleep, to get on our rides to the airport. We flew out of Bangkok to New Dheli, India and had a short layover of about 2 hours there and then an 8 hour flight to Rome, Italy and had a 12 hour layover there. While in Rome, we went and saw the Colosseum, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. We also made a stop for pizza, pasta and wine. We had to check off as many things of the list of things to do in Italy as we could in the short amount of time we were there. So by the time we came back to the airport, we had been up for about 24 hours on 3 hours of sleep. We go back to the airport and I try get another 3 hours of really bad sleep on the cold floor of the airport using my backpack as a pillow and my friends flannel as a blanket. I was freezing the whole time so it wasn’t exactly restful but I had to get what I could take. We wake up at 5am, super groggy and freezing to get our flight to Tirana, Albania.
So after 2 days of travel we are in Albania! Right when we land and get out, there are mountains all around us and palm trees… I knew this place was going to be awesome. We get our bags and wait for the team leaders to get their SIM cards and we head to our hosts house in Luthnje. Her name is Flora and her daughter is Alba, they are so awesome! They are so welcoming and friendly. It didn’t take long before we were settled in and Flora made us an amazing lunch. She made us bean soup, goat cheese and super good bread!! There was a cucumber and tomato salad, fresh cherries and a grain of some sort, not really sure what it was but it was delicious! Oh man, I was loving it. I hadn’t had bread like that in what felt like forever. I loved Asia, I really did but man, I was pretty tired of the food. I really can’t tell you how good this meal was.
After almost 3 days of being awake, going on 6 hours of really bad sleep, we all crashed last night at about 7 or so and slept for 12-15 hours. That was so good.
So yeah, Albania is going to be incredible. We met the pastor we are going to be working with and he seems like such a cool guy. His vision for his church and how intentional he is about building relationships and showing Jesus’ love through actions in so inspiring. What an incredible opportunity it is to be here, staying at Flora’s, working with this church, spreading Jesus everywhere we go!
Thanks for reading! Be blessed in Jesus’ name
-Jonathan
