Seems I’ve begun the last few posts apologising for the lack of recent postage – however none of the breaks have been as long as this one!
So much has happened obviously since that last post. I will try to summarise some of it, and then maybe summarise my experience overall. I think I’m going to struggle a bit though, because I’ve found that no matter how many people ask me “so how was Albania?” I still don’t really know what to say.
Anyway. When I last left you we had just had Christmas in Albania. Things really started winding up for us after that. We had another couple of bible studies to do. Tony and I went to Lushnje to lead the last one on Purpose – which went amazingly well. It was quite disorganised, and for various reasons we hadn’t been able to actually go over the study until we were in the van on the way there. However we were sort of struggling to see where the study was going, and didn’t really understand much, so I was kinda worried. We got there though and started leading it, and it was going alright, but just sort of average. We didn’t have our usual translator, who is really good, and the guy we had was good, just not the same. So we were sort of struggling through, there were a couple of younger guys in one corner sort of giggling away, obviously not paying much attention. Then getting towards the end, I just felt like I knew where we were heading. It seemed like Tony and I sorta clicked, as he started sharing some stuff from his life – we were talking about a familiar concept in Navs, of how our faith can impact our everyday lives – how serving God can occur anywhere, anytime. Anyway, it just seemed to be making sense, and obviously some of the people there were starting to get interested. Just as Tony was about to ask the guys to stop disrupting the group, one of the girls there did it instead, according to our translator telling them in no uncertain terms that she wanted to learn more, and that they were distracting her. So that was kinda cool. Well the cool thing was how God spoke to her. She came up to us afterwards and thanked us profusely; it was just obvious that something had clicked for her. It was awesome to see how God can work, how we felt to unorganised and ill-prepared, and yet it was the most clear example I saw while there of someone really having a revelation or something opening up that really impacted them. So yeah, definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip for me – just to see how God can work in peoples lives – in spite of our inadequacies – our un-preparedness and lack of direction.
To be honest I’m struggling a little to remember everything else that went on. We had a time of worship and prayer with the Patos church every morning from about the 27th until we left, which was great. ShaRon, Tony and I also got to share a devotion each at these.
We managed to get a bit of shopping done before we left, souvenirs and gifts to bring back home etc. It also rained quite a lot during this week, so that made things slighty more difficult, but it was amazing how good the weather was while we were there overall!
On the 29th most of us headed up to Tirana and the airport, where Emily, Christine, Tony and I left for Viena. We’d said goodbye to most of the people that morning at the church, which was kinda sad. It was quite weird how much I missed them all after we left, seeing as we hadn’t really know them for long. After eating our last Sufflaqe at the airport we departed.
We split at Vienna, with Tony heading back to NZ via Singapore, while E, C, and I flew via Munich to Paris.
Paris
Paris was great. Pretty much everything I expected it to be, the place just has an atmosphere, a feeling, its just Paris. We arrived at night, to be met by E’s host dad, who very kindly took us to our lodgings. We were so amazing blessed to have the use of an apartment in Nanterre during our time there. It belonged to relatives of the Cotters, who are missionaries there. It was empty though for most of our stay, and it was brilliant to be able to come back to our own we place each night.
I’d bore you to tears I’m sure if I recounted everything we did in detail, so suffice it to say we visited Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, Musee Grevin, French shops, the Arc de Triomphe, La Defense, numerous Metro stations, French bakeries, a French movie (on the Champs Elysse,) and a movie about the history of Paris. Other highlights included me climbing the Eiffel Tower on the most amazing of days – awesome views, and visiting Musee D’Orsay, where we got to see real original paintings by the likes of Renior, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet etc etc. That was very cool. We also went out to a delightful (never mind the slightly surly waiter (but that’s another story)) French restaurant, where we had a great (if slightly expensive) 3 course meal. We drank coffees in numerous cafes around the city, and welcomed in the New Year standing by the Eiffel Tower, which was lit up quite spectacularly (although slightly disappointed at the lack of big fireworks!)
(I apologise for the spelling errors, particularly in the French words – please correct me Emily)
So yeah, a pretty excellent time
We then unfortunately had to depart, but this was balanced I spose by meeting up with the others in Frankfurt, from where we flew to Singapore.
Singapore was another experience altogether. It’s a funny wee place – its to Asian, and yet so western. Pretty much everyone can speak English, and all the signs etc are in English. However it still manages to maintain its Eastern culture. We visited Little India, and China Town, and a few food courts around the place. They have excellent food courts with heaps of different shops and foods to try, all at really god prices. We also went shopping – with plenty of selection in the electronic goods area. I was kinda keen to get a new pair of shoes, seeing as they were much less expensive than in NZ, however finding size 12 shoes in Singaporean shops proved too difficult for me!
We then flew Singapore Airlines (13kg overweight) back to Christchurch – minus ShaRon, who flew AirNZ to Auckland. Hate to say this ShaRon, but Singapore Airlines were great; far and away the best I have experienced. Mainly due to the personal entertainment system (including GameBoy games!) the nicer food, and I think slightly more leg room.
And that’s about that!
Overall impressions? Still not really sure. It was an amazing experience. For someone who had never left the country before – everything was new, and a lot of it eye opening and mind expanding. Getting out of my comfort zone caused me to think about a lot of different things, or perhaps to think differently about the same things would be more accurate. God was so faithful throughout the whole time - really everything went so smoothly, so few problems, and when things did go wrong they worked out so well (think about Christine and I missing our very first flights!). He also taught me heaps, which I think I now am going to have to record so I don’t forget it all. Most of it about myself probably, as I was saying, the different context, or being out of ones comfort zone made me realise a lot about myself in particular. Another highlight was getting to know the rest of the team pretty well. It was an amazing bunch of people, I think quite diverse and different, but we got along really well I thought. I know I learnt so much by learning more about them, and seeing different perspectives on things. I also loved to chance to do some reading. I read heaps of books while I was over there, which was great, ranging from novels, to autobiographies to a book on spiritual disciplines, and many more.
So hopefully that about wraps it up from me. If I think of anything else to add I might, and I should also try and get T, E and S to post with a bit of a summary from them if I can. Thanks to everyone to took the time to follow what we were up to. Thanks especially to those who prayed for us – it is so so much appreciated, and I know it helped.
Mirupafshim, au revior and zoti ju bekofte!
Adam
