he’s albanian…albanian…that’s for sure…(part 2)
so it turns out the cops were only wondering why were out so late…it was 2 am after all…we were virtually the only the car on the streets…so they had a valid reason for pulling us over…but geesh…at least get some lights and sirens…make it a lil more official…it felt more like a mob hit than a standard police pull-over…that wouldn’t be our only run-in w/ the “policia” but they did seem to be pretty harmless despite all the talk of corruption (we got pulled over one other time but our driver went out to talk w/ the cop and for whatever reason he let us go…wish that would work here in the states…geesh)…
so what a start to our albanian adventure…long layovers, lost luggage, police run-in’s…the trip had only just begun!…however, the rest of the trip went pretty swimmingly…too swimmingly, in fact…the next five days seemed to just whiz right by…the extra two days we missed cuz of the cancelled flight would have been very nice tagged on to that week but alas, we just had to get home to our normal (in my case mundane) lives…i’ll go ahead and give you a slight capsulization of the rest of the trip but i’ll rely on the pictures i will (hopefully) post soon to fill in some of the gaps for you guys…but i know if you guys are anything like me…i’m not just a visual guy i’m an “experimental” guy…there’s no way i’m gonna really grasp something someone is telling me unless i experience it for myself…yeah stories are kool…pictures help…but man i just have to be there…and i know that’s the case w/ this trip…you just had to be there…meet these amazing people and see the things we saw w/ our eyes…no xanga entry or 35mm camera would ever do it justice…nevertheless…i forge on with my entry…so here yah go…
day one… sunday…april 4th, 2004…we started out our day with our family eating breakfast…what an interesting treat that was…for the most part it was pretty good…different from my normal routine of granola bars and carnation instant breakfast…but still good…their bread there is quite good…however, the steamed milk and insanely dry cheese i could have done without…but they had a wide assortment of crazy juices there too…the red orange was to die for…we were all scheming ways we could get some of this stuff back in the states…
derrick and i then proceeded to church services at the new church plant there in durres w/ our family (sazan, his wife laura, and their incredibly cute daughter, adela, who turns 3 this summer)…the rest of our group went to jeff’s church in tirana but we had the privilege to go to the new church…cam and sam were the only others from our group who came out from their homes in tirana to durres for church…they both were the featured speakers that morning…the service started with an intro by sazan (all in albanian so we were totally lost) and then some worship led by sazan and another albanian named donald (he came w/ cam and sam to translate for them…he’s actually from tirana)…there were a grand total of about 15 people at the church that sunday…most of which were all in their early twenties and single…thus the reason they’re wanting singles to come and live there for 10 months…because that is the demographic of people who are widely open to the gospel at this time…after church we went to a neat little pizza joint on the other side of the city…the menu was actually in italian so we still didn’t really know what we were ordering…but the pizza was still very good…soon after that we made our way into tirana for the evening services being held at jeff’s church…
once a month jeff’s church holds services entirely in english so we were fortunate enough to have our trip land on that sunday…we started it off with some worship and special music…christin and i sang “enough”, “your love is life to me”, and “your love oh lord” and i played along with guitar…then sheena and ray came up and helped us lead the church in a few worship songs…they know a good bit of songs in english so we tried to do some that they knew…it was definitely a kool experience for me getting to lead that night…after that sambo got up and taught on solomon’s chap. 1…we ended that evening with dinner up in the fellowship hall/daycare center above the church (jeff’s home is up there as well)…
derrick and i then took off w/ sazan back to our home in durres…we had to catch these taxi van type things which were quite an experience in themselves…but those rides in and out of tirana w/ sazan proved to be some of the most memorable times of the trip for derrick and i…travelling along w/ this guy…not being able to speak a word to each other but still being able to feel God’s love in it all was very amazing…God truly can transcend language and culture…and he sure proved that to me…in a van crammed w/ a bunch of smelly albanians of all places…
tune in tomorrow for part 3 in this series as ryan heads into the week and some exciting cold-turkey evangelism experiences…don’t miss it!
p.s.- christin and i are speaking in front of our whole church body tonite representing the group of us who went to albania…so pray for us if you think about it…telling about my trip on xanga is definitely a more comfortable experience for me than standing and talking in front of around 1,000 people…
######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.