Soaking it Up

 How did this happen? 

We keep asking each other. 

You plan, you prepare, you pray.  I don't know why we are amazed when God does what we have been asking him. 

Everyday we can't believe we live here. We can't believe it when the American teams land here and come stay in our home in Pogradec. We can't believe when a camp finishes well and the team goes home with full hearts. 

We just keep doing the next thing and then we look at each other and recognize that hopes and prayers have been realized. 

Last Thursday, Cory drove to Tirana to pick up Team 2. 

They are doing a day camp in Pogradec. This is for kids who's parents don't want them going away overnight and its a huge draw because its right in their neighborhood. 

So that means that last Saturday night we had 28 extra Americans in Pogradec! 

There were literally people out on the street just watching our house. They cannot figure out what is going on. 

Little boys just watch all day long. They smile and giggle when we wave at them. I guess we are very amusing.

I mean, I have to admit some things are amusing. At one point I saw a dog running across the street that had some kind of tumor under its belly. It was one of the grossest things I have ever seen. I screamed. They all lost it. 

Those boys were invited to the camp this week as well. 

Why are you all here? 
Why so many people? 
American? 
Family? 

The last camp went incredibly we well. We were SO encouraged by the team. 

This was one of the "roughest" camps in the sense that there weren't really showers, the food was pretty basic, and there wasn't coffee until Thursday. 

But they all just plowed through, loving the kids, playing the games, asking them questions. 

I wanted him to come live with us...but he had parents

The age gap was 13-15. These brothers couldn't have been older than 10 and 12. They technically shouldn't have been there but that's not a coincidence. 

There are many stories and it is hard to hear and share them all. 

One girl named Marietta was very adamant that she believed in Jesus but that she did not believe God created the world. Essentially, she did not believe in the truth of the Bible. Lissy (my sister) explained to her that everything cannot come out of nothing. And it hit her. She understood. She kept saying "Thank you, thank you, I understand now." 

Another boy named Sedioni gave his life to Christ after having the gospel very clearly shared with him by a guy on the team (Charles). Charles said that as he was sharing with him, he kept thinking of 2 Corinthians 5:20 "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."  Sedioni recognized his need for a Savior and prayed with Charles that Jesus would take his sins. 

Another boy named Daniel asked a guy from our team (Morgan) why he had chosen the path he had for his life. Morgan shared the gospel with him and prayed with him to accept Christ. 

These are brief and we know that only Christ truly knows the hearts of these kids but these things are true: 

1. Each and every kid heard the gospel, some of them for the first time. 
2. Each and every kid knows people and has built relationships with people from the local
    church in Korca. 
3. Each and every kid was shown the love of Christ. 
4. Each and every kid had a seed planted and we will continue to water it and pray that it
    grows. 

There is a hunger here that is very evident. There is a hunger for love. A hunger for truth. 

And there are few places for this hunger to be satisfied. There is a lack of distraction, of confusion and of contradiction. 

When they hear the truth, they soak it in and eat it up. 

There is so much to be done and we are so thankful for the teams that come and help us build bridges and make connections. 

The second camp began yesterday and they are currently learning some English. 

Please pray for this team and for the students here. 

Thank you for your love, prayer and encouragement. 

Rainy Camp Kick Off!

Our first camp started yesterday! 

The weekend with our first team was wonderful and Shiloh is VERY happy because she is getting played with so so much. I'm not going to know what to do when they all leave! She has recently started crawling as well. Maybe I will need to buy a leash? 

Some of team at our Orientation 

Dinner on our balcony. I tried to feed them some real food before they left for camp. 

The camp site is awesome and they all arrived yesterday around noon. 

The Americans with rolling suitcases, the Albanians with plastic bags. 

And when I say camp, I actually mean camp. 

There are tents. 

There are makeshift bathrooms. There are 2 toilets. Yes two. For 100 people. This is as opposed to last week when there were just holes. I personally believe everyone should have to do that at one point in their life. 

There are mosquitoes. 

There is bread and Nutella for breakfast (although some of the boys have no problem with that, I gained 6 lbs. last year...) 

This particular camp is kids ages 13-15. Some of them look 15 and some of them look 7. They are all so sweet and looked SO happy to be there! 

This sweet boy took about 60 selfies on my phone 

Unfortunately, it POURED last night. Thunder and lightening right above their heads. The team has been awesome! Not complaining. Just jumping in and making the best of it. 

Cory left this morning with 15 extra mattresses because a ton of them got soaked.

While we are not a CAMP MINISTRY, these camps are a huge part of our summer. 

Why does JV do camps? Why do we do camps? 

20 years ago when JV began, the first JV missionaries realized that they could get into the public high schools in Eastern Europe through the means of English. This was shortly after communism fell and everyone wanted to learn. 

The public schools allowed Christians to come into their classes, and say WHATEVER they wanted as long as they spoke English. 

From that the first English Summer camp was developed. It was advertised as a Christian camp in a completely Atheist country. 

English was a draw. 

English was a need. 

Atheists went to camp. They wanted to learn English. 

They heard about Jesus for the first time in their life. They heard the gospel.

They were saved. 

Since then, JV has done 1000 camps across Central and Eastern Europe. 

All of these camps are THROUGH local churches in these countries. 

This means that every student that gets saved at these camps is immediately plugged into a local church.

And that is our passion. The local church. 

We want to see Albanian's equipped, trained and discipled through the body of Christ. 

But that BEGINS with unbelievers. 

Ambra is on the right and she got saved through an
Evangelistic Festival through the Korca Church
When she was 13. She is a leader at camp this week. 

And in this particular instance, the ministry begins with YOUTH. 

Why? 

They have nothing to do during the summer. 

Their parents need to work and want them to be occupied. 

Under communism they had camps during the summer that they could ship their kids to. When communism ended they didn't know what do do with them. 

They want their kids to learn English. 

So they send their kids. Knowing that this camp is through the church. 

Atheists. Muslims. Greek Orthodox. Catholics. 

They all come. Christ saves them. 

And they become the church of that country. 

They get grow up, get married, and raise Christian families. 

These camps are used to DRAW. They are used to PROCLAIM. They are used to IGNITE. 

I wrote about a story from camp last year a while ago HERE. 

The ministry throughout the rest of the year is through the church. Bible studies, Sunday mornings, life on life. 

The camps just bring more people in.

 A week of hearing the gospel, sitting in small groups, and living with believers is IMPACTFUL. It is a "kick off" in some ways. 

AND they come because of the AMERICANS. 

WE apparently, are VERY interesting. 

I am still stared at even though I walk down the same street every day. 

It would be like if a tribal warrior with a loincloth, spear, black face paint and bone pierced nose walked into the produce section of the grocery store in America. 

At least thats how I feel. 

SO, that is WHY we bring summer teams from America. 

They prepare the English Lessons. They run the games. They build relationships. 

Camp Dance

They make fools of themselves. They stay up all night. They eat funnel cake for dinner. 

The Dining Area 

They are a light. They answer questions. They share the gospel over and over again. 

They have a platform because they are different, they are the SAME AGE and because they are AMERICANS that believe in Jesus. 

We also believe that part of our ministry, is to these Americans that come on the teams. 

Many of them are high school/early college students. Many of them are experiencing missions for the first time. 

We want this to IMPACT THEM as well. 

We want them to be pushed and stretched and questioned as well. 

We want them to be burdened for the nations. 

We want them to go home changed and passionate about the local church and about being a part of the Great Commission. 

And the beauty of this particular mission trip, is that they are building relationships themselves. They leave with friends. They have shared the gospel. They have shared their testimony. They have shared a piece of themselves by the end of the week. 

Praying for Camp Sunday night 

SO please pray for these camps this summer. 

Pray for the dear Albanian youth who have never heard the name Jesus. 

Pray for the American teams to gain a heart for the local church and for unbelievers. 
Pray for the gospel to be clearly proclaimed and for the small group time to dig deep. 
Pray for the weather!

And please pray that the toilets work.

Today I Bought Beef

I bought meat for the first time today at the meat shop. 

The man had no gloves on. He licked his bloody fingers to open the plastic bag that he dropped my ground beef into. 

I turned around so I wouldn't gag. 

I asked for beef but he was saying no, no no. 

I was confused until finally an old man who was waiting, looked at me and yelled (because you understand foreign languages better when the voice is raised) "Lope babi vici, yo lope, po vici." Intense enunciation. 

That I understood.

Basically translating-beef is the father of veal. We don't have beef, we have veal. 

I think. Who knows? Maybe we are eating goat for dinner tonight. 

Shopping here is very different. There is a shop for everything. A meat shop. A bakery. A cheese shop. An outdoor market for produce. 

I could never understand why people shop every day. Do they just like to go to the market every day? Do they get bored and need an outing? Do they not know how to plan ahead??

It has finally occurred to me that we go shopping every day here because you can only take home what you can carry. 

And I apparently cannot carry very much. 

You walk to each shop. If you buy 8 apples, some peaches, a kilo of beef, a container of yogurt, a couple peppers and maybe a loaf of bread you begin to have bag marks on your arm. If you throw in some eggs you can get even less because they are swinging around, determined to bump into the apples. 

So, I am beginning to learn the art of shopping everyday. 

Here is the Pazar where you can get everything other than food

However, the beauty of this is that you begin to build relationships. We want to focus on slowly building what little of a relationship we can have, until we know Albanian. It will take time before we can share the gospel with these people, but the daily reality of simple friendship is not a waste in this culture. 

We learn more Albanian every day. Today I learned how to say "girl and boy" instead of "girl and dog." There are like 4 synonyms for every word and they have 40 different endings. I am exaggerating. But only a little. 

We were learning colors the other day. Red, green, black and yellow. Instead of learning 4 Albanian words, we have to learn FOURTEEN. There is a feminine, masculine, feminine plural, and masculine plural form. And that should equal 16. Except one of the colors doesn't change when its plural. Why? Just because. 

Great. 

More things I feel I need to share...

*If you play volleyball or basketball, you will be tall. Yes you read that right. 

*If you smoke 3x a day, you will get rid of bloody noses. A kid's doctor told him that. 

*If you walk around with bare feet inside, you will get sick. 

*If you cut babies hair and eyelashes, they will grow back thicker and more beautiful. 

*I was asked if my teeth were real. She pointed at her teeth and said "authentic??" Um...yes my teeth are authentic. 

*Four or five days means 8 or 9. 

*Sometimes at the border, when there is a long line of cars waiting to get through, ALL THE POLICE go on a coffee break for at least a half hour. 

Here we are, just waiting at the border for 2 hours

*Most of the bathrooms have Turkish foot baths. At least I thought they were foot baths. They are actually for something entirely different. I will leave it to your imagination...

*Policemen do not have radar guns. They have foot long sticks with red circles at the end. If they feel you are going to fast, they straighten their arm with the stick and you are to pull over. 

*Albanians do not have a word for frown. I don't think it is a negative thing to frown. They always frown when they speak and seem angry even when they are not. 

Everyday we tell each other how badly we want to learn Albanian. We cannot wait to build true, deep friendships with these people. We cannot wait to share Christ with them. 

Everyday we are more motivated, more determined and more conscious of the Albanian around us. 

There are kids in our home almost ever day. We can say simple words and laugh and play games and pass Shiloh off to them, but we look forward to the day where we can study the Bible with them, answer their questions, and point them to the truth. 

This is Redon, our adopted son. On days he does not come over, we get worried about him. 

We are constantly reminding ourselves that every day counts. Every word counts. Every relationship matters. We must be patient while working very very hard. 

On Friday our first team comes. We cannot wait for them to get here! We have 5 teams coming this summer to do English camps through the church. 

Please pray for-
 *Our strength as we will have many people living in our home 
 *For the hearts of the students that will attend the camps
 *That the gospel would be powerfully proclaimed

Looking forward to sharing how the Lord works during these summer camps! 

10,000 Reasons

10,000 Reasons. 

The words bringing vivid memories. 

We sang it as a congregation at our wedding. We were both happily dripping in the 110 degree Fresno heat and looking out at a mass of people fanning themselves but all singing joyfully. The dearest people in our lives, all worshipping together. Tears. 

Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes. 

Cory played the piano and led this song at my Grandpa's funeral. Everyone shared memories of how my Grandpa loved the Word of God, loved his family and loved to tell stories. He is already worshipping in Heaven. Tears. 

The end draws near and my times has come, still my soul will sing your praise unending...

When Cory was leading worship at 2 churches, we got to sing it almost every week because that meant the church was only singing it every other week. We were preparing to move to Albania. I was pregnant with Baby Shiloh. Tears. 

This last Sunday, we sang it in Albanian (or at least tried to) at the church in Korce. Hearing songs in other languages always makes me think of heaven. There will be thousands of languages all worshipping One Lord. And when I think of the story of this church...tears. 

20 years ago, around the time communism fell, Ian and Caralee Loring moved to Korca which is a "larger city" in southern Albania.

Albania was the first "Atheist" declared nation in the world under communism. There was no religion at all. No religious books. No religious names.

There they found the only underground "church" in Albania. 4 old men. 

These 4 old men had remained believers throughout the 50 years of lock down. 

Ian and Carlee began to plant a church. They began with the hungry youth. They had never heard any kind of spiritual truth in their life. They were drawn to the gospel, to the light of Jesus. 

Now, 20 years later, that tiny church plant has become a congregation of 300+. The largest Evangelical church in Albania.  Through the church they have established a clinic, a retirement home, a safe house for abused women and more. 

They worked effortlessly to reach the more impoverished villages around them.

They put on outreach festivals and VBS camps. 

About 15 years ago, at one of those outreach festivals in a little village outside of Korca, a 13 year old boy went, because he was Muslim (this is Muslim in name, not in practice), to throw rocks at the Christian workers. 

He threw rocks and asked taunting questions. To prove them wrong. 

The more he tried to prove them wrong, the more he heard the gospel truth. 

Christ saved him. 

Eventually he became a part of the church in Korca. He was discipled, trained, and equipped. He grew up and began to lead outreaches in other villages and to disciple and work with youth in the church. 

Today he is planting a church in Pogradec. That boy was Erion. We are in Pogradec to work with Erion and his wife Melodie. 

Currently, there is a youth meeting in Pogradec with about 30 students. They come with us to church in Korce on Sunday. 

We are so excited to see what the Lord will do with these students and how these boys and girls will grow into a church, the same way they did in Korce. 

So when we sing 10,000 Reasons...

I think of our wedding and God's faithfulness to bring Cory and I together. 

I think of my Grandpa's funeral and a life lived for Christ. 

I think of how the Lord gave us the love and support we needed to move across the world. 

And I think of one couple. 

Of 4 old men. 

Of a boy throwing rocks. 

And of Heaven. Where thousands of tongues will all sing to Jesus. 

Lost in Greece and the Last Week

IKEA is 4 hours away in Greece. 

We drove there and back on Thursday. It was a VERY full day but so fun. Really, IKEA is almost as fun as Disneyland. And the food is way cheaper. We are very close to moving into our home and we can’t wait!

It almost felt like we were in America, but not quite. Because, you don’t hear any English. The employees speak only some. This can make it difficult to ask questions for obvious reasons. 

Also, apparently Greeks LOVE babies. They looked at Shiloh like they had never seen a baby before. At one point Cory was in line getting food and cashier started talking to Shiloh in Greek. Shiloh started smiling and babbling and then the cashier called the other employees over. Lots of Greek faces talking at Shiloh. The whole line got involved. Instead of being upset at the hold up, they all just smiled and talked at her. 

On the way back we got VERY lost. The GPS took us in an extremely round about way. 

I think I accidentally pushed that we DID NOT want to take the toll road. So instead, we found ourselves on all these random back roads in the middle of tiny Greek villages. 

Our GPS went out. 

No one spoke English. 

We attempted to ask for directions and the conversation went something like this…

Us-“Do you speak English?” Very hopeful. 

Them-“A little.” With a nod and a shrug. 

Us-“Where is the freeway?” 

Them-Eyebrows raise. 

Us-“The HIGHway? The FREEWAY?” Extreme enunciation. 

Them-Eyebrows raised higher. 

Us-“We need to get to ALBANIA. Do you know how we get there?” Our volume begins to rise. 

Them-“Albanya??? Ahhhhh….” They begin speaking Greek. 

Us-“Where? We NEED TO GET TO THE MOTOR WAY?” Is that what they call it? Now we are yelling. Unintentionally. 

Cory-Very loudly…”ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM,” ask he makes a hand motion of what he thinks looks like cars going very fast.

Them-Smile. Laugh. “I don't understand.” 

Us-Drive away. Get chased by one eyed barking dogs. 

The GPS kicks back in. 

“Turn left in 500 meters.” GPS man with a British accent. 

Miss left turn. Meters and kilometers come up WAY faster than feet and miles. 

Reverse. 

Turn left. Go up a hill. It dead ends. 

We see the freeway. The high way. The toll road. The motor way. Whatever its called.

There is a very high wall blocking the free way. 

Yes we are at the free way. But we are not at an on ramp. 

Go back. Ask for directions again.  

Them-“No English.” 

Us-“Albania?” 

Them-“Bulgaria?” 

No but thanks. 

We FINALLY found the free way and made it to the border. 

We were nervous about the border. There's all these papers, stamps, forms ect. that you need.  It's like when you leave the hospital with your new baby. You feel like, "Am I allowed to do this by myself???" Crossing the border is like that. Who let us do this by ourselves? 

Apparently, sometimes they tax you when you get a lot of stuff because they think you are going to sell it. It is a very high tax and we were concerned that we were going to have to pay. It’s difficult to explain yourself as well, because they speak little English. 

You can also get stuck at the border for HOURS. The lines can be long, or there can be a problem holding it up. 

We made it through the Greek side (You have to go through two checkpoints. One on the country you are coming from, and one on the country you are going to). And braced ourselves for the Albanian border. 

Here is Shiloh Belle hanging in between the borders "No mans land" 

First they stamp your passports, then they check your car (make sure it wasn’t stolen) and look in your trunk. 

Fortunately, right as they were about to check our car Shiloh decided that 8 hours in the car was ENOUGH and she began to SCREAM. Like you could probably hear her a mile away. 

I had barely opened the trunk when the the police motioned for me to shut it and nodded his head,”Ok, ok.” 

He didn’t want Shiloh to burst his ear drums. 

We drove off. And that was it. We made it through with no problems, thanks to Shiloh! 

Also from the last week...

* SHENDOSH-means healthy. Or fat. It is the same word. Therefore...healthy=fat. 

**There are MEN ONLY coffee shops. I just found this out. No wonder I was being stared at. 

***Ramadan is going on right now. I thought that was a Jewish holiday? Apparently its Muslim. They are banging drums VERY loudly outside periodically through the day and night. 

This is blurry, but here are some donkeys outside of our bank house

****Shiloh is in some kind of cranky, teething, sick funk. She's crazy. But she always calms down when we read to her. Hopefully this phase is almost over. 

*****We are very thankful and feel so blessed. Thank you for your constant words of encouragement and prayers.