A week ago, my team and I moved to our final ministry on the race! It is hard to wrap my head around this fact, that the nine months is ending in just a month and a half. I go back to my first month in Colombia and think of how new everything was. The constant change, the language barrier, new sounds, smells, new friends, and new leaders for this season of life. I can think back on each country and tell you the defining moments, the hard and easy, the happy and sad. But, I am still on the race and I am still serving so I will save the reflection of the race for a later post.
WHERE:
We are located in Tirana, Albania. Our church International Protestant Assembly is located right across from the Iranian Embassy, on the trendiest coffee shop street in Tirana.
WHAT:
** each day three of the girls from our team will be a part of following and two of us will also cook for the prayer school here at the church for lunch and dinner as a part of our ministry.
Mondays & Tuesdays: We Evangelize from 10 – 11 am, then we have outreach from 1 – 4 pm.
The morning evangelism looks like making friends on the street, praying with people in the Roma church service (Roma people are the natives to Albania, they are impoverished and homeless and looked down upon in society), and worshipping in a nearby park as a team.
In the afternoons we will go out and make more friends and talk with students from the nearby high schools and the university, and some days we have practical works in the afternoon where we help at the church with any manual labor.
Monday nights a missionary couple from the church have our team over to their apartment to watch movies, play games, and get to relax in a family setting. (I really like this)
Tuesday nights we attend a prayer service at the church.
Wednesdays & Fridays: From 10 – 11 am we evangelize. In the afternoon from 1 – 4 pm we run an International Café at the church. In the back of the church there is a fully equipped coffee shop. When we go out to evangelize or for outreach to make friends we invite these people to come on Wednesdays and Thursdays to drink coffee and practice their English. We play games like monopoly, Uno, clue, play music, and we have a relaxed setting to become friends and form relationships and hopefully lead to sharing the gospel.
On Friday nights we will begin forming a youth program with the current youth at the church. The plan is to leave them with a basis for which they can follow once we leave so they can continue meeting, growing, and learning about Christ.
Thursday & Saturdays: Off days and adventure days.
Sundays: We attend the morning church service and in the afternoon couples and families from the church have our team over for lunch and to get to know us and us them.
WHY:
Our goal while we are serving with the church is to inspire a curiosity for Christ among the youth. We are trying to reach our age group here in Tirana. We are to make friends with the local high school and university students, go out for coffee or have them come to the church and build relationships. The idea is that we are living missionally in the community with our days and time serving the church and the community here.
So far it has been incredible. My team has really enjoyed our time here and we feel it is a good ministry for us to get ready for reentry into America. For a broad idea, our lives are moving back into a natural rhythm and we are living life here in Tirana with our purpose to help grow the youth at the church. The pastor at IPA along with a team of four other people are interested in pushing each of us to grow in our walk with Christ as we are here. There is the couple who has us over for family nights on Mondays, Pastor Berry who leads the church, Venetta who oversees pastoral care and her heart is to meet with us one on one to help foster and disciple our growth in our walk with the Lord, and Elvis who works for YWAM. He is our translator and teaches us how to evangelize, he always is with us for ministry.
