Six Weeks in Albania

We spent six weeks in Albania which means we had officially crossed the threshold into the 10/40 window.

Our time in Albania was spent in the capital city of Tirana. We partnered with, and were hosted by, Kisha Eagle Church in Tirana. Our Albanian hosts planted the church we worked with nearly 12 years ago there. We were extremely fortunate to have them as our hosts and they gave us great insight into Albanian culture and the history of the church in their country.

In many ways the Albania church is still very young. This is because of the relatively recent fall of communism there. Albania was the first country to try and declare atheism as its national religion, but today would be deemed as a primarily Muslim nation.

Our time in Tirana was marked by a variety of different activities with our primary focus being college outreach and street evangelism. There are multiple universities in Tirana and therefore many college students we had the pleasure of getting to talk to.

As our hosts described it, Albania is a “coffee culture”. From 7am until 11pm you’d find a steady stream of people in and out of coffee shops. From old couples, to friends, to businessmen, to college students, to young parents, you name it- all sitting in cafes talking over a cup of coffee. You couldn’t walk 50 feet in any direction without finding a cafe.

Naturally this meant we also had the pleasure of building relationships with people and sharing many conversations with them over coffee. From our corner fruit stand lady, to people we met around town, these conversations hold many of favorite memories from Albania.

People are much more interruptible in this part of the world and they hold relationship in high regard. The topic of conversations we shared with people always went in a million different directions: from school, to work, to culture, to peoples dreams and aspirations, to religion and beyond. People were very open which allowed us to gain insight into different perspectives and different peoples lives. Because of this, building relationships opened the door to countless gospel conversations. As we got to know about our new friends lives, they also inquired about ours!

Think about it, if you discovered the best cup of coffee in the entire world, you’d probably tell people about it so that they could get themselves a cup too. Similarly as I get to know people and they ask about my life and my story, I’m going to share about the driving factor behind my decisions and the reason I chose to leave my country to volunteer around the world this year (which is Jesus).

During our time we also partnered with other local missionaries in worship and intercession. Additionally, we partnered with a Christian organization named the Johnathan Center, which supports and empowers individuals with disabilities. Their organization’s mission statement is “We discover the colors of life hidden behind an extra chromosome”. We helped with weekly activities (like basketball, craft classes, etc) and served with them for the Albanian Night to Shine Event (through the Tim Tebow Foundation).

Our time in Albania was slightly shorter than our times in other countries, however we made the most of our time and were able to build relationships with, invest quality time into relationships with a variety of different people, and connect them to the local church body. It was incredible to see God move in Albania.  Often it wasn’t in the extravagant, but in the mundane and simple moments and conversations we saw God move. The God of the Bible is a relational God and it’s beautiful to see how He still moves relationally today.

Updates on Turkey to come,

Mikahla