Dundee Presbyterian - My Group

Thursday was a pretty quiet day after our busy day in Bilisht. The roofers were wrapping up the framing and the playground is close to being done. The sun was shining but it was cool and windy - great for the roofers. Personally I had a fairly quiet day as I worked on my bible study preparation, grocery shopped, and prepared meals. I'm sure glad I don't prepare food for 28 people all the time! It's never ending.


As you know, I joined a group of 18 from Dundee Presbyterian Church but I've never told you much about them. Dundee is located in Omaha, Nebraska and the church was established in 1901. Currently their congregation has about 1,000 members. Dundee started bringing groups to Erseke in 2000. That first trip consisted of college students and adults and they came to build the playground at House of Hope. At that time there was no playground in Erseke and Mark's vision was to build one and use it as a form of outreach to the community. In 2002 a Dundee team came for the purpose of doing outreach youth ministry in a nearby village and they have continued to send a team every other year . In 2000 when Dundee first started coming to Albania, Jeff Chapman was their youth pastor - many of you know Jeff as he grew up at Trinity with Mark Stoscher, hence the tie to Alongside Ministries and Mark's work here. Jeff has since left Dundee and now pastors a church in Sacramento, but Dundee continues to be very supportive of Alongside Ministries and Mark & Ruthie's ministry.

Our group is led by a couple who have led the past four trips (ironically the husband is a State Farm Insurance Agent - small world isn't it?). This year's team is the largest and up until now the team has always consisted of adults. Their team this year consists of a family of six whose children are aged 10, 13, 15, and 17; three couples; and seven of us who are "single" travelers. Of those seven, one is a 21-year old young man (who is now hobbling around on crutches after his slip on the roof), and six women including myself - one is the young adult, Jen Hicks, who was a bible student this past winter at Mark's bible school (her parents are one of the couples). One of the "single" ladies is not from Dundee but from an intercity Omaha church who has gotten to know the team since February when they started their team meetings. It's a pretty diversified group with ages ranging from 10 years old to 71 years old. We all have different talents and strengths and it's really awesome how God has chosen to use each one of us. The two youngest members love the interaction with the camp kids so they are there most days just playing alongside the kids. Our 71 year old member, Maxine, is truly amazing - she even climbed the rock wall and completed the ropes course! Maxine adds an interesting aspect to the trip as she is black and people of color just aren't seen much in Albania. She has a beautiful bright inviting smile as her face welcomes everyone who looks at her. While we were in Duress at the beginning of the trip, children would stare at her with their mouths open and as Maxine smiled and motioned for them to approach her they would stroke her skin and touch her short spiked hair. The first day in Durres Maxine and I were walking down the beach together talking and I noticed adults and children alike were staring at us. In Erseke people stare also and if we were at camp more she'd be getting a lot of attention. Maxine has been treated with respect, but that is not normally the case with anyone of color. The gypsies (called Roma here) are very discriminated against. There are only a few families in Erseke but they are treated badly and the children end up dropping out of school because they are so teased and taunted. There is one Roma family with two girls aged 15 and 16 who are good friends of the Stoschers. They had dropped out of school due to the way they were treated and as of four years ago they couldn't even read. Mark & Ruthie hired a retired teacher to home school the girls at the Stoscher's home and now the two ladies are quickly catching up to their peers.

Each evening our team gathers for devotionals based on the "I am" statements of Christ as found in the book of John. A different pair of members pre-prepared each devotional and the wife of our leader couple combined these devotionals with very insightful information about all the names of God as found in the Hebrew Scriptures. (Did you know God had 23+ names, and that each name described one of his attributes?) She put this together in a book form which we received at the beginning of the trip and each day we study that day's devotional, read scripture, and answer the written questions prior to our meeting. All four children participate also and it's unbelievable how faithful, bible-read, and insightful they are. They all pray in a beautiful articulate manner which certainly humbles me and they add a youthful energy and vision to our group which everyone really enjoys.