It’s hard to believe that month one is already coming to a close. With our first travel day leaving us feeling as if we’d been stuck in a jar and shaken vigorously, this month has been one of quickly getting our bearings. Like being woken up from a dead sleep and jumping immediately into action.
To be honest, it didn’t look so graceful.
Being a semi-seasoned traveller, I decided to dive headfirst into the culinary culture. The first week here had me drowning in macchiatos and stuffing myself with all the salty meat (the only kind here) and bread (there is always a lot of bread) I could find.
The second week was marked by gas, indigestion, and the feeling of homesickness in both my heart and my stomach. That’s about when we discovered the four most magical words in all of Kosovo (this may be an exaggeration): sallate me mish pule. As it turns out, pretty much every restaurant serves some sort of a chicken salad.
All that protein-y, fiber-y, fresh(ish) goodness.
About a week and 500 chicken salads later, I found the meditations of my heart resting on food from home. Beans. Cheese. Avocado. At any given moment, I would have willingly sold an appendage for a proper burrito. Luckily it didn’t take very long for something beautiful to happen.
My teammate and I walked into the grocery store and stumbled upon a can of beans. No words were exchanged; just an expression of elation and an excited embrace. Anyone who saw us could tell that we were celebrating something huge. And we were.
They really are the magical fruit.
All of this longing for and celebration over the familiar got me thinking about one of the major principles of travel and one of the major things that the Lord has been working on me this month: identity without context. Without your family and friends, you pretty much lose all of your surrounding context for how you’ve constructed your identity. The shows you watch, the teams you follow and talk about with your friends every Sunday, the inside jokes, the culture of your town, the culture of your church, and even the way you dress all lose all of their cues. With these things gone, you’re left with one big question: Who are you?
I think it’s a question we’re all asked every day, but it’s drowned out by the surrounding world answering for us. So when your surrounding world is in a language that you can’t understand, the question often remains unanswered and persistent.
To be honest, I’m personally still working it out. I was surprised at how difficult it is to come up with a response and am hoping that the next 10 months might help to shape an answer before returning home to have my familiar context answer for me.
This past month was also marked with many tests. Testing in the idea of ministry (which I wrote about in the blog on the Missionary Position), testing in processing heartbreaking situations (as seen in the previous blog), testing in patience (with morning prayer now exceeding 2 hours), and testing in relationship (throwing six essential-strangers into a country to act as missionaries together is basically “The Real World” plus some Jesus. Same drama, but we’ll pray about it, too). Hopefully all of these tests were passed this month, but more importantly, it built a solid foundation for the next 10 months to come.Pastor Nike, our host, has told us how sad he is to see us leave and continues to emphatically thank us each day we are here. So I guess that means that we must be on the right track with this whole ministry thing, too.
Tomorrow morning, at the butt-crack of dawn, we will catch a bus through the mountains of Albania and into Month 2 of the Race. After a couple of days of debrief and processing, the entire squad (all 48 of us) will be running a camp in the city of Lezhe where many of the campers come from the Roma (Gypsy) community and are looked down upon by the rest of their society. For many of the kids, it will be the first time they’ve heard about their tremendous worth and love in Christ. For many of us, it will be the first time at a camp with a rock wall. There is excitement and anticipation all around.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. This journey has had a great start! I appreciate every message and every update from you all as well 🙂 It makes home not seem so far away. Wifi will likely be very limited next month, so e-mail is probably the best bet for communication ( [email protected] ) if you’re looking to reach me. I will do the best I can to keep in touch as well! On to month 2!
Love,
