These past weeks in Albania have been so taxing, but at the same time, incredibly rewarding. I have loved getting to know everyone on this trip, and learning and working with them. Living with them though, that’s a different matter. Some of our routines have been set since day one by the leaders, but most of the routines we have now have been made through learning from our mistakes. We’ve had to meet every other day to keep each other accountable and make sure we are all doing our part. Through this I’ve learned a lot about community and the real difficulties, but also the real joy in it. We have so many adventures, activities, and chores throughout the day that I couldn’t tell you about all of them in this short blog, but I’ll highlight some of my favorites.

The first thing we do in the day, after our 6am workout, is devotional time to focus on God in whatever way we connect with him best. We have also just recently started a bible study in the afternoon. Just a few days ago we read Matthew 7 and we talked about it as a group. We specifically talked a lot about Matthew 7:3-5 where it talks about how we need to deal with the log in our eye before we help our friend with the speck in their eye. This really hit home for me, and a lot of others, because we are constantly reminding each other about things that everyone else should be doing. There’s a lot I still need to work on in this community though, and while keeping others accountable is good, I could be keeping myself accountable as well. Taking that time out of the day to focus on God with a community is incredibly powerful. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” Matthew 18:20.

After our devotional time in the morning, we have classes on life and faith. They are all self-paced, and we get to make our own goals, which I think is really cool. One of the opportunities we have in our class time is to choose a big problem in the world and try to find a solution with a group. I decided to join the group focused on lack of discipleship because it can be really easy as a Christian to be passive in this faith when we don’t have a good Christian community around us. I’m really excited for this project, because we get to actually try to solve this problem in real life. My group is working on a website that would have discipleship resources specific to different people groups.

In the afternoons we do ministry work, which has mostly been with youth at the church we are staying at. Most days some of the kids from the youth group will come over in the afternoons and we’ll get to play with them, worship with them, and sometimes talk with them. There has been some trouble with the language barrier, but they know some English. I’ve also been able to see how important actions are. We are able to communicate even when we don’t speak the same language and I’ve been able to start making some friends with them.

Through this whole experience, I’ve already learned so much about way more than I thought I would. I’ve learned about community, faith, and Albanian culture to name a few. I’m so excited for this opportunity to learn all of this in this community, and I am so grateful for everyone who has supported me and prayed for me on this journey. I was so excited about having these three months that I actually talked to one of the leaders about staying longer. I prayed about it, and talked to some other people about it, and finally decided that I wanted to commit. So I am now going to be coming back on this trip for the spring semester after going home for the holidays. I do need to raise some more money for that, so if you are willing I would be incredibly grateful if you would be willing to support me financially to continue this trip. I have learned and experienced so much and stepped out of my comfort zone in so many ways, and you have helped make that happen, thank you all so much!

If you want to help support me on this trip, this is the link to my fundraising page: Micah's fundraising page