Albania RECAP!

February 28th, 2023
(Sit tight guys, this one’s long!)

Ok! So here’s what Albania looked like for me, but first a lil introduction to my new team!
We are called (our team name) 1-800-A.S.K-a-farmer! Our team name has so much meaning behind it but here’s a quick explanation, some of the words spoken over us when we were formed was “sowing seeds”, the parable of the sower and Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” So we decided that we wanted to honor those words well and here we are!
We are an all girls team of 5! My TL is Abigail Gawinski, someone so deeply rooted in the word and the Lord, our beauty 4 ashes coordinator, Victoria, a really sweet person who’s not afraid to ask the hard questions & has a heart for God’s people, Morgan, our worship coordinator who has such a quiet wisdom, understanding & discernment, and Jillisa, our life of the party, always full of joy:) All in all, these women are incredibly wise and smart and it’s a privilege to get to know them deeper:) So onto Albania!
It was honestly one of my favorite places to be so far! It’s a very little country next to the Ionian sea, greece, north Macedonia & Kosovo. We were on a bus from Romania for about 20 hours ish and we (my team) were dropped off in a little city called Elbasan in Albania. At 10:00 pm at night. At a gas station. Where we met our ministry hosts! They are the vercani’s, a couple named Bani & Zamira. They brought us to some decent food (after 20 hours on a bus) and then dropped us off at our new home! A cute lil apartment above a supermarket (that came in super handy!)
We got to meet up with them the next few days and really learn about who they were, what their ministry was & little of Albania’s history. Albania was under the ottoman empire’s rule from around the 1500’s until the early 1900’s. In the 1600’s the ottomans converted Albania to a Muslim country. It was only in 1912 that Albania became it’s own country. Then in 1946 after WW2 Albania was under communist rule up until 1992. Throughout our time there in Albania we could still see how those scars from Albania’s history affects them now. More than half of the population of Albania consider themselves Muslim. Most of the people that we would talk to didn’t even really know what that meant, it was just something that they were told they were since ottoman rule & familial ties.
The church that the vercani’s founded and run is called new heights Elbasan. Its been established for 20+ years and their goal is to reach the people by focusing on the younger generation. So that’s where we came in! They usually hold English classes every weekday evening and we got to join in on those, teach a few and present the gospel story to all the students. We got to connect really well with the kids, the English teachers and our hosts. It was a really sweet time of connecting and building up the body in Albania!
We got to fall in love with the town, it’s history, culture and the people.
We also had the opportunity to visit greece for a few days with the vercanis on a family trip! It was so beautiful & a really cool experience!
So when we had our last 2 weeks come up and we heard that it was an ATL weeks we decided to head back to Elbasan! We really felt God calling us there to a new ministry! It was called project social by the organization A2B (aid 2 the Balkans) where we were welcomed in with such grace, warmth, love & kindness, they even had a housing opportunity for us where we could stay at their house of opportunity for orphan boys from ages 18-25. We got to help them serve in so many of their various ministry projects that they do! We did kids ministry, English classes, crafts, kindergarten, playing dominoes with the elderly, dancing with the elderly, feeding programs for all ages, we got to visit a baby orphanage on valentine’s day that they are partnered with and so much more! It was an amazing experience where we worked out tail ends off but were filled so much! Then we packed up, left Elbasan & headed to Tirana (the capital) with no clear destination in mind. We got off the bus in tirana and found out that no more buses were running that night so we got to stay with a lady that Victoria met on the bus. She opened her home to us for the night and it was a crazy one. Full of light mishaps, spiritual warfare, ups & downs, worship, scripture reading and good food. By the time we walked out of that house the next morning we were all ready. We then got on a bus to a lil mountain town called Kruje, where we got to stay in a little family run castle hotel for a couple days with a beautiful view. We did just so happen to stay at the same little hotel that a previous WR team had stayed at last year at that exact time as well (crazy right!?) We got some good time to rest with each other! Then we packed up again, headed to Tirana for the last night in Albania and got on a bus to Istanbul,Turkey (or as it’s formaly know as Turkiye).
So that’s Albania! It was a crazy cool month and a half there!
I’m currently in Istanbul, Turkey writing all this and reflecting on how awesome that time was, How God worked and looking forward expectantly to the future that He holds here in the official 1040 window.
Please keep us in your prayers as we (p squad) are now in the heart of Muslim culture and are seeking to share God with these people. Please pray for a peace that surpasses all understanding and a strength and wisdom from the Lord while we face the uncertainty of sharing our faith in a country that doesn’t believe in the name of Jesus. Pray for the lost people who worship a god that doesn’t listen. Please pray that God uses us to further His kingdom.

Love you all,
Jordan Dexter:)