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Where were you? Gjilan, Kosovo How did you get there? 14-hour flight from Osaka, Japanto Istanbul, Turkey. After a short layover, took a 2-hour flight to Tirana, Albania. Lived as a homeless community for a few hours In a park in Tirana before taking a 5-hour bus ride to Gjilan, Kosovo. What did you do there? We helped with a small church plant in a predominantly Muslim city. We put on kids camps and youth groups throughout the week. Accommodations? The girls on my team lived with one of the women from the church in her upstairs apartment next door to the center. The boys lived in the center, and slept on the floor. Currency? Euro. $1 US = 0.74 € Anything you miss from America? Just feeling like I’m missing home while there are so many changes happening… What was the best moment? While I loved putting on the kids camps, probably my favorite day was our day-trip to Skopje, Macedonia. Absolutely beautiful country! What was the hardest moment? The first Tuesday we were there my childhood cat passed away. He was very old, and his health had been declining for a while, so it was expected, but still really hard to be away. He would have been 17 years old in June. Top 3 foods? We cooked a lot of our own food this month, but I would be doing Kosovo an injustice to not mention their 1€ pizzas (or 10€ largest freaking pizzas ever) or 1€ Kebab sandwiches. And I can’t forget to list my teammate Sharion’s cheesy lasagne as #1. Oh, and does macchiato count as a food? Bottom 3 foods? Since we made almost all the food we ate, I feel like I can’t fill this section out. There were a couple rolled meat and cheese sandwich type things I wasn’t too fond of, and one time we bought some sketchy bologna meat that wasn’t my favorite… Language(s) spoken/learned? Albanian, though I only learned a handful of words, and can count from 2 to 7 (can never remember 1, lol) Biggest time you saw God show up? We had weekly “church” gatherings of 5-10 people at our contact’s house. At one of these meetings, the local believers were going around, sharing their story of how they came to accept Christ. I realized something about their stories. They each were led to Christ by someone else in the room. Yes, their church is small, but seeing the faith they have to step out and bring their friends to Christ, who then bring other friends to Christ, and all live in such an intimate community, reminded me of the first Church in Acts. Another small church that met in people’s homes who lived the great commission day in and day out to reach those around them in a powerful spiritual multiplication model… Something that hit me so hard that I believe is lacking in many churches in America. Anything else? Kosovo has such an interesting history, just officially gaining independence 6 years ago (we got to celebrate while we were there) there are still some tensions with Serbia, as they refse to recognize their independence. There is some identity issues regarding nationality and ties to religion, as being Muslim is Albanian, and Christian is Serb. The sign of the cross also has a very negative connotation due to its use by the Serbs for the destruction and murder of Kosovar people. |
