Hello everyone! I think it’s about time I share about all the experiences I’ve had in Albania! This month has once again been a completely new experience! The culture has been so fun to adjust to, we’ve made friends with many locals and have loved trying to speak Albanian – although we’re not great at it! This is my first month on the race being in a city – so that was a big adjustment. Our host has been wonderful, but since he was not expecting to have us (due to changing countries 3 days before arriving), ministry has been slow this month. We were all challenged with the task to learn how to steward our time well and truly take on the mindset of “life is ministry, ministry is life.”
Team Selah makes it to Albania!
We have spent many days prayer walking over the city and street evangelizing, and through that we have made many local connections. We’ve been able to invite people out for coffee and get to know them better, and encourage new friends to lean on Jesus or step out in their faith if they already know Jesus.
We also googled connections. We worked with a community center, with a youth group, and with a few different churches. Our host had us share testimonies every Sunday and lead worship for his church. I was able to share a cool testimony of something that happened back in Honduras (maybe I’ll do a throwback blog at some point and share that special story!) and encourage the church to trust the Lord in the moments where He gives and in the moments where He takes away.
Our team with our host and his family at church!
Chanel sharing the story of Jonah at a home church
playing games with all the kids!
We also had the opportunity earlier in the month to pass our shoeboxes to children in the surrounding villages! This was a dream come true for me. As a kid I remember filling up little shoe boxes with all sorts of goodies and wishing I could hand deliver them to kids around the world. That dream was fulfilled when we got to go to schools, churches, and a youth center to give shoeboxes to kids from 3 years old all the way to high schoolers.
It was really special getting to see the kids open their gifts
More shoe boxes for kids!
Some of my favorite parts of this month have been spending time with our new friend, Mali. He started off as our translator but now he’s our friend! It is always fun with him and we always end up on an adventure!
Walking down the beach doing street evangelism with Mali!
I have two great stories to share from times with Mali. The first is when we were doing street evangelism and prayer walking throughout the city. As we started our day, many of us felt a need to pray for the men of the city to be bold in their faith and for more role models.
As we walked we saw two kids playing basketball, and we thought it’d be fun to see if we could join. As we got to know these two kids, 2 more people showed up to play. They said they heard english, and they wanted to come be a part of it.
As we got to know these 2 men, we learned that one of them, Kristo, had recently given his life to Christ and was really on fire for the Lord. Our friend Mali, who is 14, started asking Kristo questions about God and was really leaning in to what he had to say. It was an incredible moment, seeing our prayers from the morning just come to life as Kristo poured out his heart and answered some really hard questions about God.
I couldn’t help but thank God for how He is moving throughout this country. That was such an answer to prayer, and ever since then we have seen Mali step out in his own faith more which leads me to my next story!
The other night I was walking with Mali and Lindsey, from my team, and as the 3 of us walked through the city we saw a woman on the sidewalk who looked completely devastated. She had her head in her hands and as we stopped to ask if she was okay, she said no. She only spoke Albanian, and so Mali was really helping the conversation. Then he asked us if we could pray for her! Seriously, I know this sounds like a simple thing, but it was so COOL to hear Mali suggest that we pray for her! We ended up praying and at the end she was a new person – hugging and kissing and thanking us for stopping to check on her. She walked away smiling and said she was gonna try to come to church and see us on Sunday.
But the best part of that story for me was seeing how much Mali has grown in just the month we have spent with him. The Lord uses you in ways you don’t expect. As we spent this month looking for ministry and creating our own evangelism opportunities, God used conversations with our translator to really minister to him!
He’s the coolest.
Mali is also our team photographer 🙂
Anyways, we’ve also been able to meet with community center kids and share about why we’re traveling and talk about America with them, we’ve done volleyball tournaments with the youth group at a church, and we’ve gotten to go on walks and have coffee with locals. That’s what ministry has been this past month and a half. Life is ministry, ministry is life, amirite?
Volleyball tournament with another church!
More kids events!
This month has been amazing making ministry. It is definitely one of my favorite countries I have been to so far, and will be one of the harder goodbyes as well. I love the community we have made here. We just got back from Turkey, and will be in Albania for about 1 more week. Then, we will be heading to Romania! Two full days on a bus as we cross through Montenegro and Serbia 😛 I’m excited for the next adventure but will surely miss our Albanian community. This is the longest we have stayed in any country on the race so far – and it really feels like home here!
Okay that’s all for now. As always, thank you, seriously, for your prayers. I am so grateful to be lifted up by so many people back home, and if you have anything you want me to be praying for please shoot me a message! Miss you all! <3
Team Selah spends Christmas in Albania!!!
