he’s albanian…albanian…that’s for sure…
there and back again…
…and in no time fast…the trip over the pond just flat out flew by…the fact we didn’t get off until friday morning didn’t help much either (read last post for details)…but despite the brevity, i think the trip was a great success…if nothing else it was a success in the lives of those of us who had the chance to go…i don’t think there was one out of us 18 who hasn’t come back changed in some form or another…whether that change was inward or outward may depend on if that particular person had the wonderful privilege of having their luggage lost…i personally did on the way home and will remember next time not to pack every piece of clothing that i own so that i won’t be poor, blind and naked should my bags end up missing indefinitely next time…
i wasn’t as fortunate as my poor buddy troy and several other of our guys who lost their luggage on the way there and on the way back…those who lost it on the way there had to wear the same clothes they travelled in for 3 whole days…boy that was exciting for them…and exciting for us to smell…before i left, i told my mom to specifically pray that my luggage didn’t get lost…i’m gonna have to remember to do that on every trip i go on from here on out…the airport in tirana, albania was probably smaller than the airport here in ol’ new philly…yeah no joke…was it any wonder we all didn’t get our luggage? but it was crazy to see things like that happen throughout the trip…it made it more obvious that God was really going to do a work in and through our lives…because it seemed satan was trying so hard to counteract it…
the primary purpose of the trip was that of an investigative nature…to go and search out that particular field…and see if God would have us to give 10 months there to help start a fledgling church…the secondary purposes were to be an encouragement to our missionary there (jeff bartell) and his family and to act as “guinea pigs” of sorts to find out where and what type of people are most receptive to the gospel and attending church…the church that jeff started is in the capital city of tirana and they have around 150-200 ppl in attendance (90% of them are engineers i might add…apparently engineers are more receptive to the gospel because they believe in facts and truth…pretty neat stuff)…so anyways, within the past year they’ve commissioned a man to head up a new church in the neighboring town of durres…it’s right on the adriatic sea (across from italy)…we were split up into the homes of the people from the church…this really made the trip…actually having to take in the culture is a must, i think, for any cross-cultural missions trip…americans tend to take their culture with them…in this case we were forced to take on theirs…and believe me it was a good thing…i got paired up w/ my bud derrick and we had the privilege of staying w/ that new pastor (sazan) and his family in durres…everyone else on the trip stayed w/ families in tirana (about 45 minutes by car)…sazan didn’t speak much english so his wife laura would translate for us while at home…the only english she knew she learned in high school which she graduated from 4 years ago…so she was a little out of practice…but we all helped each other understand each other…everyone who went agrees that our english really went to crap on the trip as you have to dumb everything you say down to fairly simple words for them to understand…but we came out of it learning quite a few albanian words so it all kind of equals out i guess…
we arrived in tirana at midnight on sat. april 3rd after a full 2 days of flying and layovers in toronto and vienna…which i must add that vienna is an incredible city…however the airport could use a little work…there were hardly any places to sit near our gate…apparently europeans don’t need to sit down when they’re on an 11 hour layover…americans sure as heck do though…we did get to venture out into the city for some siteseeing though which i was very excited about…cam, chad and i scurried around trying to experience as much of the city as we could…we sampled some cheese, listened to a polka band in the marketplace, gawked at the funny looking cars, and tasted some mighty fine wienerschnitzel…it wouldn’t have been a day in austria without a lil bit of that…
so anyways, we got into tirana at around midnight only to find out that around six of our guys had lost their luggage…we didn’t end up leaving the airport until close to 1 am and what a trip home that was…derrick and i in a beat-up mercedes with two guys who didn’t speak a lick of english in a third-world country with driving patterns that you’re hard pressed to find in new york city…by the time we finally reached the city of durres it was around 2 am…and all we really cared about at that point was a warm shower and a soft bed…but while on the main road in the city a van sped up beside us with the word “policia” sketched on the side…the man in the front motioned us to get over…i counted about 8 guys in the van as they pulled over behind us…yeah this didn’t look good…we were in albania for barely an hour and already we’re in trouble with the cops…possibly corrupt cops…no, this did not look good…
will ryan finally make it to his host family’s home? will he make it out of albania alive? tune in tomorrow for part 2 of “he’s albanian…albanian…that’s for sure”…
same xanga page…
same xanga channel…
######Note: This post is from a very old Xanga blog of mine. A very, very old blog. In fact, it’s practically a museum. Be sure not to touch any old references or links. You won’t break them, they are most certainly already broken.