To Love Him and Make His Love Known

Buckle in because this is going to be a long post. I have so much to tell y’all, I don’t even know where to start. So much has happened and it is all so exciting. I guess the best place to start, as always, is the beginning so let me tell you what I have been doing for the last month so you have some context for everything else I am about to tell you.

In my last blog, I told you we would be doing relational evangelism as well as being discipled by our hosts. What I didn’t know when I told you those things is how life-changing they would be for me and the people around me. In our five and a half weeks in Durrës, we went through three classes, each twelve weeks long. One class focused on how to engage Muslims with the gospel, one focused on building up our foundation in what we believe as Christians and the third taught us how to evangelize. In-between our time in the classroom we went out into the city and talked to people. Our goal was to make friends and share the love of Jesus with them and look for one person who was interested in the gospel. Just one person who would receive the love Jesus has for them.

Within the first week, we had made several connections. A girl at the book store, a clothing designer working at her family’s traditional clothing store, a family who owns a small grocery store, a girl at a candy shop, and some girls who work at a shoe shop. Now that we had friends we spent our time getting coffee with them and building relationships. As we get to know them and they get to know us we can share about how Jesus loves us and how he loves them too. Not all of our connections were interested in being our friends after finding out we were Christians, but we continued to share with the people who would listen. This brings me to my first testimony.

Anahbelle and I had previously met a waiter at this coffee shop and thought he could potentially be a connection. When we walked by we noticed he wasn’t at the shop that day so we stopped to decide what to do. Should we go try the coffee shop across the street? It was tree/garden themed and Anahbelle and I share a love of plants. Or should we just get tea at this shop? “Dear Lord, where should we go? We know we are biased and want to go to the garden shop, but maybe you want us here. What should we do?” We listened for a moment, decided we were too biased to clearly hear what God was saying, and went to the coffee shop with the trees, because that just sounds cool, right? Immediately when we walk into the shop we are hit in the face with the smell of cigarette smoke and the man across the room is staring at me a little longer than he should.

“OK, God. We are going back to the other shop.” To avoid any more cigarette smoke we sit upwind from everyone else. After an hour of catching up on journal entries and chatting we noticed a cat up on the table of a girl about our age. “Go pet that cat” Anahbelle says, and in my own time, I obey. I gained the cat’s trust and began to pet its head, then swiftly lost his trust by petting his tail and almost lost my fingers. This got the attention of the girl, however, and it started up a conversation. Thirty minutes quickly passed sitting at her table and talking about whatever came to mind before we eventually had to leave. She became a fast friend and we were able to meet with her a few more times and talk to her about how Jesus loves her. This was one of the first steps in becoming more bold. God has been building me up in boldness and courage through my team, my hosts, and experiences like this one.

Along with relational evangelism, we also got to practice street evangelism. Now, anyone who knows me could probably tell you that going up and talking to random strangers about, well, anything, is just not my cup of tea. Sometimes I barely want to go up and talk to people I have met before. But, I am here on the race to be stretched and boy did this stretch me. Every Friday for two hours we would split off into pairs and hit the streets to tell people about Jesus with the new evangelistic tools that we had just learned. This started as a part of my week that I dreaded. I did not want to go through awkward conversations and be vulnerable with strangers. But for God to give me more experiences to see Him move and hear His voice, I first must be obedient. For me, this type of obedience meant abiding in Christ and His love for me and facing my fears.

Fear is sneaky. We often let it run our lives and we don’t even realize it. He walks around telling us we aren’t loved, we are alone, and we aren’t capable. Fear convinces us other people are more qualified, more brave, less broken, or just built different. He makes us stop to think “What if…” What if I fail? What if it’s awkward? What if people judge me? What if what I have to say isn’t important? What if other people say it better? What if I get rejected? The list could go on forever and I used to believe a lot of those lies. Some days I still do. But that is exactly what they are, lies. The truth is, my identity is in Christ. The truth is, I am loved and chosen by the God who created the universe. I can love and care for people without caring who is judging me because, you know what, they aren’t actually the judge, God is. Before I could truly be bold I had to truly believe how much Jesus loves me. I needed to discover what it means to abide in Jesus and trust Him with every step of my day. Once I understood this even just a little more than I did at the beginning of the month, I was able to step into more boldness and hear God’s voice more clearly. This brings me to my second testimony.

On the last day of Silence Breaker’s (This is the course we took to learn about how to evangelize. I would highly recommend going through it. It is free online and it is so helpful) Anahbelle and I were paired up again. To be quite honest, neither of us was feeling it that day. We were tired. We had been doing this every week for the past 5 weeks and it was getting a little old and we felt like we just didn’t know who to talk to. After approaching several people and being told they either don’t speak English or are too busy we felt even less like talking to people. So, we prayed. “God, where do we go? What do we do? We don’t feel like being here and you are the only one who can help us. Send us someone who speaks English” An idea entered my mind to go to the beach. I figured there might be people sitting out there just enjoying their day and we could go talk to them.

As we start walking to the beach a man passes us, looks back at us, then does a double take, makes eye contact with me, and says “Hello”. We are sort of caught off guard and stutter “hello” back. Not sure how to proceed we make some awkward small talk and decide to share the gospel with him. We go through the whole thing, laying it out on a piece of paper in a diagram we learned. After clarifying a couple of things we asked what was stopping him from believing in Jesus. To our shock, he says nothing is stopping him. I thought to myself “We’ve never made it this far. What do we do now?” I looked at Anahbelle in hopes she would take over the conversation but she looked back at me with the same look. Despite our brief freak-out, one of us eventually asked him if we could pray with him. He wasn’t ready to pray with us yet, but we sent him off with the drawing of the gospel and prayed after he had walked away that God would send someone to disciple him. Praise God! We got to tell someone that Jesus loves them and it actually made an impact!

Once the shock wore off we remembered our original mission. The people at the beach. On the way Anahbelle and I prayed that it would be clear who we should speak to and for them to speak English. When we arrived there were only two people on the beach and they were two older ladies who looked like they were friends sitting on the beach enjoying conversation and the afternoon sun. We approached them and to our surprise, they spoke English. So, for the second time that day, we shared the gospel and explained how much Jesus loves them. One of the ladies said she has a Bible at home and she prays and goes to church. This opened up the conversation to talk about how God can speak to us personally and she asked what He says to Anahbelle and me. So then, we got to share how God told us to come to the beach and pointed out how no one else was there. God loved those women so much that He sent me and Anahbelle to that beach to tell them He loves them. Her smile grew so big after hearing our story. We left her with the paper of the gospel and prayed for the two women and as we walked along the sidewalk, Anahbelle saw through the fence the two women talking about the paper we gave them. I don’t know if they accepted Jesus, but we certainly spread love and joy to them.

After these two experiences, I was so excited and giddy that I didn’t even know what to do with myself. I immediately wanted to tell people about what God had just done. My takeaway from that experience is, one, I do hear from God, and, two, I can share the gospel. Jesus’s strength shines brighter through my weakness. All I have to do is humble myself and follow Him. He takes care of the rest. We tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. I think as humans we like to have control and take charge of things so when we share the gospel we want to be in charge of that too. The problem with us being in control is God is all-knowing and we are not. I could never have arranged for me to come all the way to Albania, from Colorado with a girl from New York to share the gospel on the beach with Rosa and Star with no one else around. And that… brings me to my third testimony.

One day my team was out practicing what we had learned in Silence Breakers, which was asking people the question “If you were to die today where would you spend eternity?”. We had been out for close to forty minutes and hadn’t had much success. It was near time to return home for the second part of the lesson and we figured we might as well try talking to one or two more people. There were these clothing stores near where we were and we decided to go into one and see if someone in there spoke English. When we entered, the store was empty except for the girl working there. This seemed like a good opportunity, so we asked if we could ask a question and she enthusiastically answered yes. She told us she believed in reincarnation, but wasn’t very set on what she believed. We briefly shared with her that we believe in heaven and how we know we will be in heaven because of Jesus. That day we didn’t have time to share much more but we said we would come back.

A few days later Libby and I returned with a coffee for her. She was so grateful for our generosity that she let us each pick out one ring to keep. Then we got to tell her the full gospel. As we shared, even when we had to pause for her to attend to a customer, she was engaged with what we were saying. There were a few questions from her like what sin meant and who Jesus is and we did our best to avoid “Christianese” like “born-again” or “accept Jesus into your heart”. At the end when we had said everything we asked what she thought. She told us she really liked what we shared. After thinking for a moment she then proposed “So, it’s like being reborn?” She understood! How cool! Yes, it is exactly like being reborn. We left her with the paper and she told us she was excited to take it home so she could share it with her sister. Right before we left we prayed for her and her upcoming exams then said we could come back to visit her.

A few days later, maybe a week at most, we went back to see her. It was the day after Valentine’s Day and we wanted to bring her an Albanian Bible. So we wrapped it up in a bow and as Libby and I were about to leave the apartment Libby felt like we should take her one of the flowers that had been gifted to us the day before from our teammate. She picked out a pink tulip and then we were on our way. Upon entering the shop we held up our gifts and gave them to her. Her face lit up and she said “How did you know pink tulips are my favorite?!” Just as shocked as she was, we told her we didn’t know, but Jesus did and He loves her so He told us to bring her that tulip. She proceeded to show us her phone screen saver, which was pink tulips! “Well, now I have to believe in Jesus.” She says. WHAT?!?!? She believes in Jesus?!?!? PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We talked to her and asked her how she was doing and she said that after we prayed for her exams she got her results and received a 9/10! As we continued talking to her she then proceeded to tell us that it had to be God who
brought us to her because Durrës is a big city and there are so many shops so how would we have found her without God? (Amen! So true!) And she said she is so glad we came to her and she loves the peace and joy that we brought to her!

PRAISE!

THE!
LORD!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every time I think about this testimony I get uncontrollably excited. I feel like I want to sing and dance and jump and shout and just worship God. At the beginning of our time, we had prayed that we would see one person come to Jesus, and God came through. On the last day of ministry, through the act of obedience in bringing her a Bible and a tulip, God used us to bring her into the Kingdom of Heaven. God is so faithful and so good. I am so lucky to be living this life and I feel so special and so humbled to be used to build the Church. This month has shown me my true purpose for my life, which is to love Jesus and make His love known. I have heard this phrase for longer than I can remember. It is the mission statement for my church. But I have not understood it or seen it lived out so much as I have in the last month. I have a whole new perspective on what that phrase really means. And I am not even done with my testimonies.

Testimony #4. My team has wrapped up our time in Durrës and just finished our weekend debrief in Tirana to send off our squad leaders. (The alumni world racers who joined us raised up new leaders from our squad to lead us for the rest of the race). We are now in a new city for two weeks of ATL (Ask The Lord). This means that we were not given a set ministry, schedule, or city for these two weeks. We simply prayed, listened, and obeyed God to know where and what to do. So, let me tell you how that happened.

A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago. My teammate was praying and as she listened she heard a word from God. Now, she wasn’t allowed to share it yet, but she did want confirmation from some of us so she asked us to pray. I asked God to show me something and I told her I saw an eagle flying over the mountains, another teammate said it’s a place. Nothing else really came of it and to be honest, I kinda forgot about the interaction. Two weeks passed and for team time we took half an hour to intentionally pray about where God wants us for our time of ATL. I start looking on Google Maps at cities around Albania. I felt drawn towards the North of Tirana so I started looking there and one city in particular stood out to me. I don’t know why, but it seemed right. To have unbiased confirmation I kept the information to myself.

Previously we had asked our host if she had any connections for us in Albania. She told us she would look, but hadn’t mentioned where. Well, the day after we prayed about ATL I was talking with our host and she said she was looking at connections in a couple of cities. One in the west and one up north in a city called Shkodër. That was the city I had felt drawn to! Fast forward to that night, we all shared what we had heard from the Lord, and for the first time, Anahbelle got to tell us what she had heard those few weeks ago. As she was praying she heard the word Shalla. She thought it was just gibberish, but decided to look it up on Google to see if anything would come up. Turns out there is a people group called shalla who live in the mountains in Northern Albania. As cool as it would be to go live in the mountains, that really didn’t seem like a possibility so she started to look for the closest cities and that city ended up being Shkodër! So, we knew what city to go to.

Our host so graciously got us in contact with a ministry here and we arrived yesterday. We are staying in a dorm room on the top floor of the church and will be helping with children’s and youth ministry along with some evangelism and anything else we feel the Lord is calling us to do (more on that in my next blog). We had been wondering how the Shalla people would fit into this since we are not in the mountains, so we asked the host here. Right now, that area of the mountains where those people live is covered in snow, so we can’t get there. But. In the winter, when it is snowy like that the Shalla people come down from the mountain to live here, in Shkodër! So, we will get to work with them while we are here as well as other people from this city.

God is just so good and he has been proving it to me more than I ever could have dreamed of or known to ask for. My faith has been built up so incredibly and profoundly in the last month. I can’t wait to see what God does next.

Thank you to everyone who read to the end! Please be praying for my team as we minister to the people in this new city. There is a lot of hurt and trauma in the families who live here so please pray for us to be Jesus’s love to our hosts as well as the kids and anyone we encounter. Pray for discernment as we listen to the voice of God and pray for open hearts in the people we share the gospel with. Your prayers are so powerful, so thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the prayer warriors I have praying for me and my team! These testimonies are not only mine, but yours as well. You have been praying for these things to happen and God hears you!