he’s albanian…albanian…that’s for sure…(part 7)
day 6…
friday…april 9th, 2004…AAHHHHHHHH!!! i had been asleep for approx. 30 minutes or so and a jackhammer just started going to town right on the street below our room…apparently they do all their construction on the downtown streets in the middle of the night to avoid the rush hour traffic (which is basically all the time over there)…but a jackhammer?? i mean come on…if i lived over there w/ all the lawlessness going on and everything i would have been reaching for my sawed-off around that point…so needless to say i didn’t get much sleep that night…
“woke up” around 2:45 am and got ready to head out to the airport…our flight left around 5:30 am or so i believe…so we took our final drive through the city to the airport…the church had packed us breakfasts and what do yah know…they packed some of that infamous red orange juice in with it…so sweet to the lips it was…we said our goodbyes to jeff…waited in the lines to PAY to exit the country…that’s right…they make you pay to get in and pay to get out…and even though they accepted every currency known to man (except maybe wampum)…you had better hope you have the exact amount cuz they dont’ give change…
we had like a 4 hour layover in vienna…so cam/chad/derrick and i played some euchre and then i played even more with some others later…fun fun…but i was ready to sleep…we had a 9 hour flight to d.c….i took advantage of that and slept a few hours…but the plane was pretty new and was fitted with flat panel screens in the back of the headrests…so you can play games…choose what movies you’d like to watch n all that…so i pretty much watched every movie they had to offer…timeline was pretty good (the book was way better)…i had already seen cheaper by the dozen but watched part of it again…and then i mistakingly watched something’s gotta give…pretty much an all around horrible movie…i love jack nicholson…but i’m realizing the guy only has one part he ever plays…it’s just now he’s old and he’s still playing that part…it’s time to move on or die dude…one of the two…
well that caps my trip just nicely doesn’t it? besides the lengthy delay we had in d.c. (7 anguishing hours) and finding out alot of our luggage was lost yet again…we returned home victorious over the many setbacks that could have easily defeated us…over all the trip was amazing…shortened, yet still amazing…it was great to be home but we definitely all left part of our hearts there in albania…now it was just a matter of figuring out how much of our hearts we left there and deciding whether God was moving us to go back there again…this time for nearly a year…
so now…where does that leave me in all this? well i’m still not sure…the crazy thing is…it’s been 3 weeks today since we got back…and i still haven’t totally unpacked all my things…alot of it is still sitting on the floor in my room…even crazier than that is that it really symbolizes my thoughts and feelings on the trip…i still haven’t packed them away yet…it’s like i acquiesced back into my normal life and kind of left things unsettled…unpacked and uncertain to where to put them all…
for now i’m waiting until the california trip in june…and i just keep praying that God will show me where i’m to be…where i would best glorify him…maybe it’s here…i don’t know…i need to learn to be kool with whatever end he may lead me to…obviously california and albania are polar opposites but i believe that they will both teach me the same thing in the end…total dependency on God…and that’s really what i’m longing for…
so…thanks for listening guys…thanks for bearing through the long entries n whatnot…i appreciate all the support and prayers and i hope maybe you got something out of it too…maybe it will inspire someone to go on a short-term missions trip…man i would encourage everyone who can to go on one…there’s just nothing like going out and living in another culture for a few weeks…and who knows…you may even feel God call you to live there for a few years…
the end…
he’s albanian…albanian…that’s for sure…and he’s dancing like he’s never danced before…(undoubtedly because the epic has now concluded)…
######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.