Coming Back, Full-Circle

Two days of English camp have come and gone. The week has been significantly different than the previous four weeks in pace and tasks, and in many ways it’s like I’m back at the beginning, arriving here for the first time. The team from the States is eight people, including Danika and myself. We spend mornings planning for classes and activities. Then camp lasts from 2 p.m. to about 8 p.m. We do English classes, games, crafts, and a closing rally with worship, some drama, and a message. Yesterday our team learned a powerful drama about Satan’s attempts to control our lives and performed it during the evening rally. It matched well with the message about how we “miss the mark” of God’s plan for us due to sin. Several of these teens have been exposed to the gospel, but very few are Christians. David, our short-term team leader, spoke for a long time with one of the older teen boys called Mosi, who says he believes in God and really wants to know the truth. It’s so exciting to see God working in teens’ hearts! We are hoping and praying to continue seeing the Holy Spirit move in them this week.

Advanced English class

It rained yesterday morning and night and cooled things off quite a bit. This is the third time I’ve seen rain here, which is highly unusual for this time of year when it’s normally very hot. However, it made for a very pleasant day outside with the youth yesterday. We are extremely thankful for any relief from the heated summer afternoons.

I have another good story about miscommunication for you! This happened Monday night just after returning to my apartment. Redi and Enida came upstairs for a couple minutes before I went to bed. They asked if I had eaten dinner yet, and I told them about my dinner with the mission team. I told them (in Albanian, of course) that we ate soup, meat, and yogurt. They laughed a little and didn’t quite seem to understand what I had said:

“Sopa (soup), mish (meat), & zot.”

It didn’t sound totally right when I said it, either. Zot. I thought, Is that right? Then it hit me – “Zot” in Albanian means “God.” The word I had meant to say was “kos” for “yogurt.” So instead of saying, “I ate yogurt,” I had said, “I ate God.” Yes, it sounds pretty sacrilegious to me, as I’m sure it does to you, but it was an honest mistake which put us all into peals of laughter for two good, full minutes.

I mentioned that this week has been significantly different than the last ones, and next week is going to bring yet more change, as the short-term team leaves and as two new Global Partners missionaries arrive to start their term: Nicole and Katie. They will move in to the apartment with us. Additionally, one of the short-termers will stay for an extra couple weeks, so there will be five of us North American girls for the rest of my stay in Albania. I’m probably going to hear a lot more English from here on out J We are very excited as the team keeps growing because the harvest is plenty, and the laborers are few.

Tonight I am going to speak very briefly during the rally, but I have had very little time to prepare! The Holy Spirit has been re-teaching me this week about the topic I’m talking about, which is highly needed, and I have way too many thoughts crashing around in my brain. If you remember today, please pray that I don’t let myself get in the way of what God wants to say tonight to these youth, because this week I certainly have been getting in the way with my pride, attitude, weariness, and resistance to change. He’s bringing me around full-circle so-to-speak, reminding me of my own weaknesses and need to be reliant upon Him. Yet isn’t in crazy to think that in our weaknesses He does not condemn?! Thank God for grace in Jesus! These are the scriptures giving me a great deal of comfort just now:

²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. (Romans 8:26)

³³Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

³⁸I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:33-34, 38)