I was looking through an old blog today and found an amazing entry. I thought I would share it here. And for the record, I have now been working in Albania for 9 years and this trip is my eighth. Enjoy!
If you ever have been to my office, you know that I have a wall wholly dedicated to pictures from my 5 Albania trips. Today, while working, one of the pictures caught my eye. It was a picture from my second trip (the one with Wil and his parents) of a group of people in a village called Surstan. I have visited this village every time I have been to Albania, and I have grown to know and love the people.
The thing that caught my eye about this picture was a face I had never before noticed in the crowd. I looked closer and realized something amazing. The face I was staring at was one of a person who, today, is a regular Sunday school teacher at Irfan's church. I have gotten to know her over the past 2 years or so. She is a teacher in another village, called Gjenavlage, and I have made a point to visit her and her students on every trip that I can.
I thought I had just met this lady within the past couple of years, but I guess I had met her even before that, on my second trip at the age of 18 (5 years ago), on a bright sunny day in the village of Surstan with Wil and his folks.
As I thought about this, my eyes and my mind drifted to other pictures in the collage. I saw one of Lindita's family before they moved to America. I remember when Wil showed her the pictures of our visit with her family, she asked "Who is that?"... pointing at her little brother Endri who had changed so much in the years she hadn't seen him that she didn't even recognize his face. I thought about how blessed I was to be there in the family's Albanian home when they received the papers that said they would be allowed to move to America. It was quite and experience and a great celebration.
Then I saw one of a bus we rented on my first trip to take people to be baptized in the Adriatic Sea. It was my first time to a beach on a sea or ocean. Is it so hard to believe that the first time I went to the ocean was after I had already flown for hours over one? This was such an amazing experience for me, not just the baptizing, but the whole first trip. I remember the long ride back to the airport to go home, I thought "Wow, I really don't know when I will ever see this place again... or if I ever will..." God knew better.
Well, needless to say I look back now and I am so amazed at the person God has made me. The first time I went to Albania, I was a young clueless teenagaer. Today, I have become a confident minister, I have grown to call these people family and they call me the same, I have a best friend who lives there, and I have my own ministry to the country which people are calling every day to be a part of. I am a blessed person to be able to do what I love every single day.
The last picture I looked at was the one that inspired me to write this. It was one taken of me on my most recent trip last October. I was standing in the church with a young man named Endri, who is Vera's nephew. He has been a pal of mine since day one. When he was little he used to go out to the villages with us every day and hang out at the mission house at night. I looked at that picture of him, now taller than me, and I glanced back over at another picture taken on my first trip. It was one of Endri and I standing in front of the mission house as we were loading up to leave for the airport to catch our flight home. He asked if we could take a picture together.
At that time, Endri only stood about as high as my chest. In the picture, he is wearing a blue and yellow torn up baseball cap that I had brought for myself but ended up giving to him because he liked it so much. He was wearing it all crooked and sideways like a little boy would if he thought he was trying to look really cool.
In comparing these 2 pictures I realized that this isn't just my hobby or some sort of past time, or even something meant to impress others. This is my life. I dreamed as a little girl at the ages of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and all the ages in between of going to Albania, preaching the gospel, and doing what I could to help the people who I knew were amazing before I even met them.
Today I am writing a blog, not about a minister who is changing a nation, but about a little girl who is SO lucky to be living her dream every single moment of every single day. I can only hope, pray and work to know that Endri, the little boy in my picture, lives to see his dreams come to pass in a country where people do not even have hope enough to believe in dreams. As we all know, God is faithful, and I believe that Endri and all people who dare to dream, will be blessed enough to live it out to the glory of God for all of their days.
Thank you to all of you who have had a heart for Albania and my vision there. Thank you for your prayers, donations, love and encouragement over the years. I have been there for 6 years (now 9) and I look forward to at least 60 more.
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