The Wonderful Albanian Hospitality!

Turkish Coffee

After spending a 9 days in the small town of Poliçan I was a little reluctant to get back to the fast paced, big city of Tirana. During the time I spent in the village I was able to join with the team there in their outreach and ministry work. We had a busy schedule of visiting families and individuals in order to build relationships with them. The Albanian hospitality is amazing, the culture is strongly rooted in their traditions and they do it well. When you enter a home they greet you, then once you sit they greet you again. After you've sat they offer a drink of juice and a candy. Then you bless each other before you drink. Sometimes they offer you Turkish coffee, which is quite good! Then they also have cakes and sweets that they have prepared for your visit. One family had prepared so much for our visit. The families love to show pictures of weddings and the kids as babies. The Albanians are so interested in our lives and families as well. 

Children of one of ladies in the church

I was able to help the team with the meetings they had throughout the week. A womens group meets every Wednesday, so we were able to visit with some ladies in the morning and invite them to the meeting. Later in the week we chatted with some teenage girls in the street, they were very interested in my life and wanted to talk about boys and make up! Such enthusiasm!! We held a prayer meeting on Friday and then did a prayer walk on Saturday morning around the town and then up on a hill overlooking the whole town. 

Melissa

I was also able to bless the team by helping them bake for the meetings and prepare for them. But also they were hosting a meeting for all the women in Albania who work for their organization so I helped them bake goodies for the retreat. So hopefully that was a help! Its something I love to do so I will always volunteer!! 


I am slowly learning more words and understanding more Shqip, but it is slow. Some of the people I visited with were impressed by how much I could understand, but understanding and being able to speak it is completely different! 

Me, Nicole, and Helio at the Castle

One day the leader of the team in Poliçan and his wife invited me to go to Berat which is the next biggest town to visit the castle ruins there. The castle dates back to the 13th century and was inhabited by Illyrians. The castle is still the home of many citizens, when the castle was originally inhabited it was by Christians so there are many churches and only one mosque. Some of the paintings inside the churches were remarkable and ornate. It was a fun day and we were able to learn a little history in the process of enjoying the views! 

Me with the ruin

Inside of one of the churches

View of the mountains in the background

Now I am back in the big city, hopefully I can meet with some friends this week and get into swing of things here. I am still working in the office at AEP we are preparing for a week long conference at the end of the month so I am gathering supplies and organizing details for that. Hopefully I can get into the school this week and help out there. My birthday is on Sunday, so along with Easter I will be celebrating my birthday! 

Please be in prayer for the me as I work here. Pray that my eyes will be open to needs here and that my heart will be willing to serve. Also that opportunities arise for me to be useful. Pray for the country of Albania, elections are coming up at the beginning of May, pray that there is no chaos involved with it and that the new leadership is the right one for the cities. 

Thank you for reading!! Can't wait to tell you more!

Travel to Polican

 This past week has been eventful and exciting!

I have been staying with a family in Tirana, and they are wonderful! Matt and Cindy have been in Albania for about 8 years. Cindy has been teaching me essential techniques for on field cooking when items that are available in the U.S. aren't available on field, such as tortillas, certain mixes, bottled things like spaghetti, dressings and such, and much more! I have also been studying and reading in my spare time.

Homemade tortillas!

I also had a chance to meet and talk with many missionary families and single girls who are working in Tirana. It is so neat to hear the unique stories about their ministries and how they came to work in Albania. A few of the girls are teachers at the missionary kids school called GDQ and the school is in need of teachers (so if you know of anyone who needs a job or wants to teach in another country.. heres a chance!!). 

Lynnette and I (team member from Canada)

On Friday I traveled with the AEP staff to a regional meeting in Lushnje and met with the missionaries in the area and from there I traveled to Poliçan to stay with a team of Operation Mobilization missionaries who are working here to revamp a church that was once thriving but since missionaries and local pastors left the church a number of years ago the numbers had died down to only a few dedicated believers. The team is made up of a young married couple and two single girls, their nationalities are Brazilian, Scottish, Canadian and Ecuadorian. They are a great team and I am enjoying working with them so far! Poliçan is a small town that is surrounded by mountains. The city grew around a large arms factory that was built here in the 1960's by the communist government, there is also a number of tunnels that are built into the sides of mountains that were used as food storage and would be used in case of an attack on Albania. Since the fall of Communism the city has declined because there is no longer a need for the factory and many jobs were lost. But the people today are happy and content in their little town. When we walk in the streets they greet us with smiling faces, handshakes and often kisses! 

Ammunition and guns factory

A lot of the work the OM team is doing right now in Poliçan is relationship building in order to strengthen the church. So much of the work is visiting with families or individuals in the town and simply talking with them and making friendships, there is also a womens group, a youth girls group and they are trying to get a solid mens group going. So I will tag along with them as they make visits and meet with people in town. Yesterday at the morning service there were about 8 people in attendance, and that is a large group compared to the normal group they told me!! 

I've also been on a few walks with Lynnette because her teammates don't enjoy walking as much as she does, so we've been going out and enjoying the weather and the views! I'm looking forward to opportunities this week to practice my Shqip, learn about the culture, meet new people, and encourage the OM team here and the work they are doing. 

Lynnette making peanut butter

I am lucky to be staying with the two single girls on the OM team, Lynnette and Liliana. They have opened their home to me and I feel very welcome! They are great girls and they have great wisdom to impart! Upon my arrival they offered me some food and I remember them saying they had just ran out of peanut butter and wouldn't be able to get any for awhile because they don't sell it in local stores. So a day later I heard Lynnette talk about how much she loved peanut butter so I said "You should try to make your own!" and that she did. She had never thought about making her own, so we went to the store and bought some roasted peanuts and made peanut butter! She was so excited!!

Random fact: In an Albanian home you always take off your shoes when you enter and they have a number of slippers for you to wear in their house. I have worn more slippers these past couple weeks than I ever have before! I never wear slippers at home!! 

I am becoming a little more confident with the little bit of language I have learned and I am learning a bit more each day! 

Thanks for reading this blog and thank you for your continued prayers. This week I'm praying for Poliçan and for the OM team here. Pray with me that the residents of Poliçan will be open to the church and that the team can make good contacts and that doors will be opened to revive the local church.

Weddings and Coffee Galore

I've been in Albania for 5 full days now and I have already gone to a wedding, been to a church service, enjoyed  ice cream, drank coffee in a cafe, worked in the AEP office, and changed my internal time clock... well I may still be working on that one!

Working at the AEP office has been nice, AEP stands for Albanian Encouragement Project and it is basically the central station for all the missions and missionaries in Albania. It works as a mailbox and command center for everyone working here. They do things like help get paper work through the system, in order to get licenses, visas, etc. A lot of the work is just networking and getting things done for all the ministries that happen in Albania, so I will get to meet a lot of missionaries and hear what they are doing all across the country. Which will in turn open up opportunities for me to go help and work in those places. In the office so far I've been helping with the organization of the library that they have available, they don't have a lot of extra time to do that sort of thing so I took care of it. Along with that we do daily Bible readings and prayer. I've also been contacting some people concerning a conference that is to be held in about a month. So I know it doesn't seem like much but I'm also adjusting to the time zone and new culture!

On Thursday I was lucky enough to go to a language lesson, so I've got some beginner Shqipe under my belt. Shqipe is the word for the Albanian language, its pronounced Sh-cheap, it kind of runs together but thats the gist of how its pronounced. I'm also getting more acquainted with the city and finding my way around, it'll definitely be a while before I can do that fully on my own! The streets aren't quite as intimidating to cross now, still intimidating but not as scary, Haha.

The wedding was fun, traditional Albanian weddings are usually 3 days of celebrating with lots of typical dancing. The actual wedding happens in a courthouse because of the heavy communist rule for many years there were no churches so the weddings happened in the courts and then were celebrated with each the bride's and groom's family. But this wedding was a little different because they are Albanian Christians so the wedding was very similar to an American wedding, but it had some Albanian culture in it as well. There was typical dancing and food.

 Here is some of the dancing. Its a pretty neat, I didn't quite have the guts to get out and try it, but it looked really fun!

  

 All in all, I am slowly adjusting to the new culture. I've realized Albania is a very event and relationship oriented culture, and I know that is something I will enjoy deeply. They really care about one another and spending time with each other.

I'm not sure what this week will look like, tomorrow night I'm going to have dinner with some ladies my age. Some are Albanian and some are American missionaries. So it should be fun!!
Thanks for listening! Cant wait to share more!!