Hi, friends!!! I’m back from my (unintentional 😅) Christmas break from the blog! Since my last blog I spent about a week in a half at debrief in Chiang Mai. Then we hit the road and traveled for three whole days by bus and plane to Tiranë, Albania. Since then my team has just been settling in to our two new apartments.
Today is day 132 of 264 days on the race! But who’s counting? 🙃 I made it half way through this mission, and I’ve already seen God do so much in and through me and those I’m working with. I can’t wait to see how His faithfulness continues in Albania and into Guatemala!
Christmas in Chiang Mai
We left Fountain of Hope (the children’s home we stayed at in Chiang Dao) and drove the hour and a half to Chiang Mai on Christmas Eve. It was super fun to get there and see everybody from the other teams again. We celebrated with a little candlelight Christmas Eve service as a squad using our phone flashlights as the candles (we “passed the flame” between our phones 😂), and our squad leader Lee read us the Christmas story. That was awesome.
It seems I got all my homesickness out of the way at Thanksgiving because I wasn’t really homesick over Christmas. It helped that I had WiFi at the base and could call my family, which I did most nights.
My squad did a white elephant gift exchange, which was pretty funny. A few people got these ridiculous handbags. I got a tiny little notebook with a tiny little pencil, which is nice because it doesn’t take up much space with packing. We also did a team secret Santa gift exchange later in the week. I got blueberry socks, which are awesome. I also bought shoes with Christmas money from my family back home. They’re super colorful and fun.
On Christmas night, we had a nice dinner. There were assigned seats, and I got put with a bunch of my best friends, so Carter, Jackson, and Gabi. Afterwards we took a couple pictures.
The next week was devoted to debrief, which consisted of resting, attending sessions on topics such as the gospel, evangelism, being the bride of Christ, and contentedness. The sessions were super good.
We had some chill time, so I spent some of that time watching It’s a Wonderful Life, so that was awesome. We also had a squad outing to Sticky Falls, which is just a waterfall you can walk up. Fun times! I had to climb this tree. 😁
Choosing Contentedness
Our coach Chris did the session on contentedness and gratitude, and it was really impactful. It really stuck with me that I can choose to be content or not to be content, and it really has nothing to do with the circumstances or people around me.
I had the opportunity to put it into practice the next morning before the sun even rose. Sixteen of us chose to go on a hike up Doi Suthep to see the sunrise. Half of our group left at the intended time around 4:30 AM. The other half of us were stuck waiting for a ride that never actually showed up. We finally ended up seeing one of those red truck taxis dropping someone else off, so we flagged them down and haggled a price so we could get our ride to the trailhead.
So we start hiking this mountain in the pitch dark with a few headlamps and phone flashlights for light. The guys had already hiked it several times before, but let’s just say they didn’t exactly prepare us for how long or steep it would be. So we just kept going up and it just kept getting steeper. To be fair, the entire time we were in Malaysia, we got zero exercise, and in Thailand we might have gone on a 20 minute walk in a day, so we’re not exactly the most in shape. So we were huffing and puffing up this mountain, and I just wanted to complain. And then I remembered Chris’s session from the night before. So I thought to myself, I feel terrible, but I can choose to be content because I am hiking up a mountain to see a beautiful sunrise in Thailand. And honestly not even just that. I can be content exclusively because I know God, and that means I have something to be grateful for.
So my little group finally made to the top. We got there just a couple minutes before the sun came up over the mountains, so it was super awesome that God allowed us to make it in time for that. We sat down and took some photos and just took in God’s beautiful creation and recovered from the steep hike.
There was still a temple a little further up, so we got up again to keep going so we could see it. I made it a few steps before I realized what was about to happen. And then I threw up in the bushes. It was kind of really funny. And then I felt a lot better. I wasn’t sick or anything, it was just over exertion.
So that was another opportunity to complain, but I was already committed to choosing contentedness, so I stuck with it.
we never did make it up to the temple. 😂
New Years Eve
In Chiang Mai they release floating lanterns into the sky at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and we got to see them from the roof of the building we were staying in. It was so beautiful and peaceful watching them drift up into the sky. I think I could have watched them for hours. I probably watched them quietly for about 45 minutes. It was perfect. I really appreciated sharing a quiet moment with friends to start the new year and before we hit the road and then headed our separate ways for Albania.
Travel Day
Getting from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Tiranë, Albania happens to be quite a task. We left the debrief base at around 7:00 AM on New Year’s Day. We started off with maybe a 12 hour bus ride to Bangkok. I got a few pretty sky photos.
We spent the night in the Bangkok airport before hitting the skies and flying to Istanbul, Turkey, where we had a 2-3 hour layover. Then we finished our flights with a 1.5 hour flight to Bucharest, Romania.
The final leg of our trip was maybe a 14 hour bus ride to Tiranë, which was actually a really great bus ride because it was just our squad on the bus and we had lots of room. We drove through Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and WE SAW SNOW!!! It was really beautiful.
Settling In…Again
Y’all, I’m being so for real right now: I am getting tired of moving every month or two. I was laughing at myself at debrief for calling the missions center where we stayed for the week “home.” My definition has apparently expanded to wherever I’m sleeping that night. 😅 I’m now half way through the race, so it makes sense to be hitting a little bit of a rough patch. I just need to keep pressing in, and I know I will continue to see God’s preservation of me. If I continue to honor my “yes” to Him, then He will, too. And God is awesome, so He’s worth it.
But anyway, we arrived at the two neighboring apartments where the ten of us will be staying for the next two months on the afternoon of Friday the 3rd. Ministry didn’t actually start until this Wednesday, so we had plenty of time to just settle in, get over jet lag, and get to know the neighborhood a little bit. Our host, Erion, treated us to gyros for dinner on the first night. They’ve become kind of a staple for if we want to grab dinner because they’re just so good!
I’ll share more about what our ministry looks like here in the next blog. Which should be next week… I’m looking forward to getting back into a groove, and I plan to take you guys with me. 🙃
Prayer Requests
- Pray for the church in Albania to be empowered and growing. Erion said Albania is around 0.5% evangelical Christian. That’s not a lot.
- Pray for boldness for my team as we’re learning to share the gospel with strangers.
- Pray for unity and humility in my team.
- Pray for me to have peace and comfort from God as I’m in yet another season of transition from one home and culture to another.
