First, four men from Romania came our way. Sean’s college friend Chad, who’s been a missionary to Romania for 6 years, brought along his pastor and two other church leaders – to fulfil his old promise to visit Sean and to build some bridges between the two churches. Here in Korçe, they visited an asylum, donated some clothes to an orphanage, replaced me at the English class, at the Bible study taught us to serve God with what He’s given us, stayed at our house and phoned their wives day and night.
Soon afterwards we welcomed another five visitors – this time a team of youth leaders from Lithuania. Together with the church teenagers they showed a drama at the Easter service, hung out with the youth indoors and outdoors, cleaned an old lady’s house and helped yet another family with supplies to rebuild their burnt down bathroom, and encouraged our church members sharing their testimonies.
Last but not least, Sean and I decided to pay a return visit to the Romanians. Thus we packed our bags and flew over to spend a few days in Târgovişte (where Vlad the Impaler, the prototype of Drakula, had his stronghold). We shared at the Sunday morning and night church services, visited our friends and found some time to relax as well.What fun, joy and privilege it is to share our faith with believers from other countries! It was a timely reminder that we are not alone in our fight for the Kingdom. We were refreshed by the visit of the serving Lithuanians and inspired by the dedicated Romanians. I believe the teams didn’t leave Albania empty-handed either. Everybody has gained something, everybody has grown a bit.
