...Letters from Joy...: Albania!

I was supposed to send this last night but I fell asleep before I hit send! I guess all that eating got to me! (lol) Ok, so here it is:

Man! So many good things have happened the past five days! I am so behind! I have so much to share with you! Everything has been so busy! I came back from Albania and everything got crazy. I have had meetings, classes, coffee house, and lots of homework. We've also been preparing for today: Thanksgiving! I still cannot believe that I have 23 days left!

To start with, I want to share with you about my great trip to Albania with my friend, Esther. We left at 5am on Sunday and arrived in the capital, Tirana, around 9am. It was sunny, 10 degrees warmer than Prishtina, and covered in palm trees. It was so refreshing! We had no plans, no strategy, and didn't know where anything was. It was kind of exciting! We had asked a friend if she knew where a cheap hotel might be and she suggested a specific street that she thought had some cheap places. To make a long story short, it took us a while to find it. Almost everyone here gives very vague directions. But eventually we found the street and check out three hotels. I picked a place that was nice, had a good price, and offered breakfast. A little while later I found out that this was Esther's very first time staying in a hotel. We walked around the city for a little while and decided to take a bus to Durrës, a near by city with a beach. This is another long story, but let's just say that it look Esther and I a while to find the "bus station" (that wasn't a bus station), which took us to Durrës forty minutes later. We then arrived at an actual bus station but then had no idea where we were. We must have ended up in a bad part of town because I kind of felt like I was in the ghetto. (lol) I don't think I've been in a city as dirty and sketchy since I've been here. I just kept laughing about it! Somehow I found it funny! We were under the impression that it was going to be this nice, tourist place and it....definitely didn't end up being that! (lol) We had to get on a local bus to the beach, which we also thought was going to be a "nice" place. Well, put simply, it didn't quite fit our expectations. There was debris and mosquitoes everywhere. It also had a bad odor. Esther asked me if beaches normally smelled that way and I chuckled and said "no." It then dawned on me that this was Esther's first time ever going to a beach. I then felt terrible for all the funny remarks I had made. But later we were both laughing :) We didn't stay long in Durrës. We headed back to Tirana, had dinner, and went to bed.

I woke up early the next morning and prayed that God would do some behind the scenes work and provide a good conversation. Right when I prayed that it hit that I have basically shared everything I could have. I have shared the whole Story multiple times, even from different angles. I felt like I didn't have anything left to offer.

We got ready and walked all over the city, seeing unique trademarks. One of the things we really wanted to do was take a ski lift up the mountain. This would be another first for Esther. We walked and walked toward the mountain but felt like we weren't getting anywhere. We finally stopped and asked someone and found out that we were still a 45 minute walk away. There was a taxi man right there who heard us and offered to drive us up there. I hesitated to take his offer because he looked a "iffy" to me. He was older, had a slit in his lip, and a uni-brow goin' on. He must have seen my hesitation in my facial expression. We finally just decided to go with him. He didn't speak any English, so Esther had to translate everything. Right when we got in the car he looked in the rear view mirror at me and said, "I know you're a believer and you judged me by my appearance. I've had a lot of people judge me by my appearance." I felt terrible and embarrassed, especially since Esther was the one "telling me" (since she had to translate). I took me a few minutes to finally apologize. I told him that as a young female in a foreign country I tend to suspicious toward all men. As we headed up the hill he told us he was a believer and even turned Michael W. Smith on his CD player! I almost felt like I was in a dream -- an Albanian who not only knew who Micahel W. Smith was but liked him! When we got to the top of the hill, to our disappointment, we found out the ski lift was closed. Our taxi driver felt really bad for us. I felt bad for the Esther because this would have been another first for her. There was an old church we really wanted to see and he offered to drive us there. On our way back down, I asked him how he came to know the Lord. I was genuinely curious. I can count the number of Albanian believers I've met here in the last six months on both hands. This was rare situation. He told us that he used to be addicted to heavy metal and would listen to it for four hours at a time. He picked up a track on the street one day from an "M" and read it. He became interested and eventually got a hold of a Book. He read it all the way through. He then felt very torn between what he read and his current life. Over time, he knew in his heart of hearts that the Book was completely and totally true. He wanted to find a congregation to attend and had a friend tell him that he knew of another "M" in the city. He found where he lived, which then lead him to the congregation. He is still attending there 20 years later. It dawned on me, while he was talking, that he was giving something to Esther that I could never give -- sharing the truth in her native language and also as a fellow Albanian. I felt like I was the one who was honored. I thought, "I could be anywhere in the world right now. But in this little taxi cab, in this very moment, in Eastern Europe, I get to witness my best friend hearing the Story in a very special way." He continued to share the struggles he has and is facing in his faith. He even asked Esther if she was a believer and she answered "no." He then asked her why and she didn't respond. He later apologized for maybe getting too personal. She told him she wasn't offended. When we got out of the taxi, I told Esther, "I think God brought that man to us." And she responded with, "Yes, I think He did." God works in ways you would have never expected.

Happy Thanksgiving!!! I thank the Lord today for those two days and for bringing me here.