8 Stories from the Field

 

It’s been awhile since I updated you so here are a few stories since I left America. We’ve covered ground in Romania, Albania and now Kosovo. As our time in Kosovo is ending I want to update you more on our current ministry in my next blog but enjoy these snippets until then. I hope you find them encouraging and that they stir your Spirit.

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Dragoneshti, Romania

2/1/2022

I take a sip of water and re-adjust myself in the middle seat next to Raul and Aaron. I hand Raul his coffee while he drives and answers appx. 100 phone calls. Aaron and I take turns attempting to sight-read the screenshots of 3 Romanian hymns we were sent and asked to learn only a small stretch of time before we arrive at a funeral.

I keep telling myself this has to be a normal occurrence to keep my wandering mind focused on these hymns.

We download a piano app to get the key and try to memorize what we can.

Upon arrival, Karlie, Barret, Meg, Aaron, Jo, Nathan, Britton & I step out of the car into the cold and follow the men in front of us to the backyard of a small village home where we walk in to see a group of mourners and an open casket on display. 

We fumble through the awkwardness of a random group of Americans singing Romanian hymns at a strangers funeral and are addressed by the widow, who begins to weep as she speaks:

“She is saying that all her husband wanted was for another christian to attend his funeral” Raul translates.

She thanks us and tells us we were an answer to his dying prayer.

We walk out to see their funeral procession accompanied by people walking and three women on a flatbed truck wailing over the body.

My heart ached with both sadness for the loss but joy that God answered that prayer through us. 

“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.”

Ecclesiastes 7:2

I was reminded of all the funerals I had attended over my lifetime. More than the average 27 year old it feels. But I was reminded specifically of the most recent – Jenn’s Dad’s. A celebration of life and a platform that highlighted all that God did and wants to do. I wish I could write a novel on how this sparked my faith. But it’s reminding me the importance of celebrating life so fully, specifically life with Christ. A push for my faith and for my understanding of what it means to live and die by The Word. What does a small prayer, a mighty heart and a deep faith do for you? Or what can it do for others?

Crown Him when you bury
And crown Him when you marry
And crown Him when your faith finds a spark

 

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 Lushnje, Albania

3/27/2022

 

Sick, tired and a little annoyed I walk behind Andrew and Corban, attempting to shift my attitude. Remembering I GET to be here, I don’t HAVE to be.  It feels like a mantra. I pull them aside and ask them to pray over me to focus , after all this isn’t about me or my preference or my comfort. But honesty is important – being unbuttoned in front of people is important. We’re human.

We continue on to a main portion of the city where we meet up with our translators Izjo & Xhulja. We are informed that the member of the church we are going to visit had lost her husband to suicide within the last year and had relatively recently attempted to take her own life. She was struggling to make ends meet because of how grossly underpaid most Albanians are. Her ability to seek government help was looking grim and she was surviving on the churches food donations most of the time. Pastor Erion sent us to encourage her.

I had experienced many difficult house visits feeling wildly unqualified or unworthy of trying to offer any kind of love to these individuals and this was no exception. There is a confidence in knowing that Holy Spirit will move as I have seen it time and time again, the key is always to just go and earnestly seek the people in front of you.

We arrive, and are greeted with cheek kisses, excitement and hugs. We step inside to a house that reflects everything we have been told – a mom that works as long and hard as she can and is still fighting to keep things afloat. A sick son and an elderly family member asleep on the couch. 

My attitude, huh? My privilege that I get to have a moment to be emotional and choose to enter into another human’s house and situation. Humility never felt like such a slap.

We start to talk, we listen, we encourage, we share, we weep. We impart as much as love as we can. It’s a mutual exchange and understanding that if we could take her burden completely we would. The situation felt impossible, yet still so hopeful. A fighting mom. A fighting woman. Through the tears and stories, glimpses of a road to healing emerged. Glimmers of hope were there, but a somber realization that most of the time their only food is bread. True manna – but it doesn’t feel as glamorous as when the Israelites were given provision when you see it from the outside.

But I know our God makes a way when there is none. So did she. Or she was trying to. We never even got her name and I don’t remember if we gave ours. There’s a feeling of carelessness in that but also something simple, sweet and beautiful. To know and to be known not by your name but by your relationship in the body of Christ. I pray she finds a deeper strength than she has ever known to continue fighting and that people will fight FOR and alongside her.

 

There is a time to dance on sorrow
And a time to kiss her cheek
There is a time to mourn in silence
But justice aches to hear you speak

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 Tirana, Albania

3/29/2022

Linds and I hop off the bus from Lushnje to Tirana with the familiar rush of a foreign bus station. No clear directions, just drivers shouting city names and buses with little signs on the front windows lined up in a giant parking lot. It’s always a little embarrassing when you emerge with big packs on your back and are looking around for some sign of what to do next. Luckily most drivers genuinely want to help you and maybe help out their taxi driving friends as well. 

After roughly 20 countries you get a feel for how taxi drivers operate. It’s my least favorite thing to try to barter prices anywhere – so I choose the “ignore” method and let someone else tackle the issue of taxi transportation unless I’m feeling wacky and confident. Linds is a boss at this so we compliment one another in this regard. 

We’re immediately spotted by a taxi driver who has a faint Irish accent with his English. He’s kind but is trying to work a business deal through relationship. Linds is calm and collected and I’m a little annoyed ( a lot) I want to be anywhere but near this man trying to get us to take his taxi. I pull out my phone and I start looking up price expectations to get to my next bus terminal and Linds’ need to get to the airport. Just as I’m ready to tell him to find someone else, Linds accepts the deal and we’re hopping in the cab. 

He’s a gentle man, willing to have good conversation. We jump right into religion and beliefs and the world today. We ended up sharing the gospel and getting an actual good deal Considering the sky rocketing gas prices. A lesson in humility to see the person in front of me, even if people in their profession tend to be after money. How silly of me to forget the reason I’m here and how to be a decent friend to a stranger. Lord forgive my of my misunderstanding and nerves in moments like this. He would have been missed if it were up to me, thank God for the community around us to cover our shortcomings.

Crown Him for His promises
Cut through the blindness
Of children that have barely understood

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 Elbasan, Albania

4/1/2022

We stand outside a blue wooden gate with dogs barking in the back. A kind old lady greets us with gentle face kisses, hand shakes and a warm smile. Both teams pile into her little living room where a traditional Albanian lunch of pie has been prepared for us and we listen to the translated stories she is excited to tell. 

Bali is her name, and she was a widow as well as a hurting mom who had lost her son a few years prior. He was the worship leader at the church we were at and she loved to listen to him play. We cried with her as her hurts were brought up with the stories but she was constantly clinging to the Lord for comfort. She was excited to have visitors and felt that we were bringing more of the Spirit into her home that had felt a little empty lately. 

We sang some songs with her and ended with a snippet of her and her sons favorite song. Psalm 42:1 “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God…” 

We prayed and embraced one another With encouraged and deepened spirits. She thanked us with great emotion for being there, but we felt the familiar feeling of being the ones blessed in actuality by the encounter. Life in God’s kingdom, as they say, often feels flipped upside down. 

There is a time for healing and pain
A time for drought and a time for rain
There is a time for everything
Until we crown the risen King…Until we crown the risen King

4/5/2022

Dinner came to a close as 9pm approached. Half the team went back and that left Aaron, Jacken & I + Aaron’s guitar to roam around the town as we waited for a group of girls to finish up their ministry to walk them home. 

With excitement, the three of us look at each other like three little kids on the hunt for some ice cream….so that we did. We walked into shops, asked if we could play a couple worship songs and then would invite them to the church service the following morning. We giggled, ate ice cream, watched bored workers smile with joy and be moved by the Spirit as we entered in to share a little love through song.

It was pure hearted, pure intended and a boost of morale for all. Three tired leaders looking for a little late night fun with God. What a sweet memory to hold onto.

Crown Him for He’s faithful
And crown Him for He’s worthy
And crown Him for He is good

4/3/2022

I flipped through my Bible and journal combing over notes, sitting in the back of church, praying for a word from God. I had spent a few days preparing a message for the morning church service for New Heights, the church two of our teams were helping with. I hadn’t been in the city long enough to get an eye on what an effective message would be so I felt a little naked and unprepared. The perfect place for an act of faith!

As I flipped through the pages the lyrics of John Lucas’ “Time” filtered through my brain and I turned to Ecclesiastes 3 “For everything there is a season, A time for every activity under heaven...” from which the song was modeled after. I trusted that God wanted to use whatever part of my testimony this would bring to mind and I hopped on stage.

I shared about my time on the mission field and the joy that came from my time in 2019 with T squad. I shared about how in 2020 I found out my mom had breast cancer over a text in India and was pulled from the field due to covid not long after. I shared about how the Lord tore down a lot of what I thought I built during those couple of years during my time in Alaska working at the processing plant and how God used that time to build foundations, bring healing to my mom and teach me some lessons about God’s grace, His provision, His love and My worth in the process. It felt clunky but had a nice flow of God’s constant weaving of life And His goodness. 

Jacken, Aaron and I got to close out the sermon in a sweet worship that left you longing to sit at God’s metaphorical feet for hours. But every song and service must end and so we departed. 

Before my early departure from the teams in Elbesan, a Women’s event called Beauty for Ashes happened where a group of women at the church got to explore what it meant to have “worth” and what they believed about their own worth. I wasn’t able to be there but a few of the girls caught me one evening to inform me that Ryna, one of the women in attendance, shared some of her story. She had shared that her time working at a fish processing plant in Albania lent to a plummet in her self worth and felt exhausted and exacerbated with the long hours. It felt unclean and unworthy to be there. When the Lord led me to share about my time in Alaska, she was sitting in the audience and felt the Lord speaking directly to the redemption of that time in her life as she had never met another Christian in that environment. 

A reminder that we never know what one part of our testimony or the willingness to listen to the Spirit to guide our mouths can do for another persons story of redemption and love.

The beauty that has come
And the beauty yet to come
And the beauty that is yours and that is mine
And that death produces life
And that we are made alive
By the King who paints beauty with time

 

4/4/2022

It’s close to midnight, the air is cold and the potholes on the dirt road on the way home are still filled with water from the rain. In the distance I see one of the racers running, backpack on, his orange jacket reflecting and his umbrella bobbing up and down with his sprints. I’m chasing the shadow as we make a break to the house after a windy walk home.

I feel the air hitting my face and my smile widening.

Behind me I hear the laughter of Aaron and Hannah also running as we play around like little kids, street lamps few and far between. 

These are the little in between moments you feel close to the verse in Matthew 18: ”Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.“

And I don’t know the end, or tomorrow’s story
But I have found the one who gives me rest
And I will make my bed in His promises
For He holds true when nothing’s left

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 Rugove, Kosovo 

4/9/2022

Linds and I finally hop out of the last bus of our travel day from Tirana, Albania to Peja, Kosovo. Our estimated time was nearly tripled in travel and our estimated costs were quite off as well. It was nighttime and the promise of the mountains around us were hidden behind bright, unexpected, city lights of a little town in the foothills of the Rugove area. We wait for our taxi to the debrief location and incorrectly identify a car as our ride. Through some awkward exchanges and a usual “let me call my son who speaks English” moment, we find our ride and head up into the mountains. 

With blackness surrounding us, our views are veiled, and our hunger and sleepiness start to take over. We can see the faint outlines of the canyon around us and wait in anticipation for the following morning light to reveal the beauty around us. 

The veil of the night allowed us to focus what little energy we had left on our driver, who immediately jumped into real deal questions with us about who we are and what we believe. This car ride marked the transition of this race for me to the unreached people we talk about. This man had only ever heard of Jesus’ name in a history documentary about religion but never had heard the gospel. We got to share the beginning of the story of the gospel as we wove through the canyon and up to our little retreat.  It felt like a little seed planted, soon to be watered by the coming squad a few days later. 

God knew exactly what He was doing with our travel plans that day and that our eyes needed some focus on the man in front of us and not His creation around us. He knows His sheep and sweetly meets us where we are at.

My heart has known the winters
And my feet have known the snow
But mine eyes have seen the glory
Of a seed begin to grow

Lyrics all come from John Lucas’ “Time”