The Team's Last Day

Friday was Dundee's last full day in Erseke. The roof crew finished the roof framing which they felt really great about - it's always such a good feeling when you are able to complete what you set out to do. The roof was really steep (see picture below) and I'm so glad it wasn't me that had to work on it. The roofers did an outstanding job, often when it was quite hot, and now it's ready for the next stage which I'm guessing will be completed by another work crew. It didn't look like the playground was going to get finished but the roofers got done early and added some extra muscle and manpower to the job - and wella, the playground got finished as far as our crew could go (the picture below isn't a good one of the team but it does show you the playground).

This morning there were many hugs and tears as the team, along with Ruthie, her oldest daughter Abby, Ruthie's parents, and her niece, Ashley, left on the bus to head back to Durres. The team flies out of Tirana early Sunday morning and Ruthie & family are heading to Pasadena, CA where her parents are retiring at Westminister Gardens - a retirement community for missionaries. Ruthie, Abby, and Ashley will spend a week helping grandma and grandpa get unpacked and settled and then all five of them fly to Wisconsin for a family wedding. Everyone headed out about 10:30 a.m. on the bus joined by the Boston/France team and will spend the night in Durres (same city we stayed at in the beginning of our trip). Mark went with them and on Sunday evening a high school team from Hollywood Presbyterian flies in. That team, and Mark, will spend the night in Durres and will take the drive to Erseke, arriving sometime late Monday afternoon.

After the bus drove away the house seemed strangely quiet. The energy was gone and it was eerily quiet as the Stoscher's three youngest children - Becca, 12; James 9; and Stephen, 7 - and I re-entered the house and realized we were by ourselves. The children felt sad as they didn't know when they would see their grandparents again, and they had to say good-bye to their mother, sister, and cousin. Ruthie will be gone for two weeks, Abby will be gone for four weeks as she flies to Austria after the family wedding to spend two weeks at a Torchbearer's School (Mark's winter bible school is a Torchbearer's School), and Ashley will return to her home in Pakistan. To help take the kid's minds off of saying good-bye the boys and I played a game of Disney Monopoly and Becca cuddled with their new kitten. A little later I made lunch, we picked clover grass for their 72 pet tortoises, and then we walked downtown for an ice cream treat. The rest of the day promises to be fairly quiet as I wash the bed linens and prepare the house for Hollywood Presbyterian.

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.

Bilisht Carnival

After numerous hairpin turns down the mountains to leave Erseke (and quite a few queasy stomachs later) we drove through the large city of Korce, northeast of Erseke, and headed east to the village of Bilisht. It is called a village, and in my mind that denotes a community smaller than a town, but in this case "the village" had a population of 12,000 but has more of a village attitude than some smaller towns. We didn't see much of Bilisht has we headed right for the Evangelical Church of Bilisht. The beautiful large church was accessible by a dirt road (later we learned the building was only three years old) and is part of the evangelical group of churchs in Korce, Erseke (Mark's church), and one other town. We were met by the Albanian pastor and his wife, learned a little about the church, and then divided into groups of three for the purpose of walking through the town and handing out small flyers announcing our carnival which was later in the day. Each group had a teenage Albanian guide so my group of three women was guided by 17-year old Gersa who spoke fairly good English. Each group was assigned a section within walking distance - some just walked the streets where they found many children to give the flyers to, but our group set out for an area of homes on a dirt road not far from the church. Our task was to knock on doors, hand out the flyers, and invite the residents to the carnival. I was very impressed with the size of the homes and the beautiful vegetable and flower gardens in front of most of the homes. Each home was enclosed with a stone wall and gate. The experience was really unique and one that touched my heart deeply.

Imagine this, three foreigners who don't speak your language, knock on your door with a teenage Albanian young lady. Each of us greet the resident with a hand shake and a "Miredita" (Good day). In Albanian Gersa explains who we are and that we are throwing a carnival at the church. Every resident was open and friendly, so different than how we often greet strangers who appear at our front doors. After a short conversation in Albanian we were often invited in for a visit - and we don't even speak their language! A visit in Albanian is a "come on in, sit a while, let me serve you coffee, chocolate, biscuits, wine, and more food than you can eat. I'll serve you and watch you eat while we talk" type of visit. One family was eating lunch and they invited us in to join them! How often do we treat our guests this way? We had to refuse each invitation which in Albania is rude but we had our guide explain we needed to pass out the flyers and get back to the church for lunch. Hopefully that helped but I'm guessing we were still seen as rude. Once we refused their kind offer to visit, they'd disappear into their home and come out with a glass container of candy and offer us one. We'd often comment on their beautiful flowers, grape vines, and garden and before we knew it they were clipping flowers off their plants and handing them to us. I collected quite a few absolutely beautiful yellow, pink, and orange roses. One knock-on -the door resulted in a difficult conversation - remember everything said is being translated back and forth and although Gersa was doing her best there were many English words she didn't know which made translating challenging for her. The Albanian lady we were talking to explained that her 10-year son, Aleks, has a disease in his legs and they don't have the medicine he needs in Albania. At one point we got the impression she was asking us to either take him to America for medicine or to bring him medicine, we weren't sure. He had an operation in Greece on one leg but the other was bad. She then turned to me and asked if I had children. When I said "po" (yes), she asked me if they were healthy. I said "po" and she asked me to think of Aleks as my child. On my gosh, put a knife in my heart but I immediately assured her that I would pray for Aleks like he was my child. The other two ladies also told her they would both pray for Aleks. During our talk Aleks came riding up on a bike but when he got off we could see that his legs were bent strangely from the knees down and he walked with difficulty. One of the ladies in my group was a pediatric nurse and she thought it might be a form of arthritis.

That difficult conversation ended our handing out flyers, and with our hands full of candies and flowers we headed back to the church for a lunch of Byrek (layers of phyllo dough filled with herbed feta cheese) and watermelon. Afterwards we heard the pastor's very heartfelt testimony of how he came to Christ after communism fell in the early nineties and then we set up for the carnival. We decorated the large hall with balloons and set up games like bowling (with empty soda bottles), bean bag toss, fishing for prizes, ring toss, coin toss, face painting, balloon animals, and musical chairs. The carnival was to start at 5:00 but children started lining up outside the church at 4:15. Earlier Gersa had asked us three ladies if we'd like to go to her neighborhood and see her house but we had told her we couldn't as we had to be back at church for lunch. We told her that we might have time in the afternoon, and sure enough, she came to the church at 4:15 and asked if we could come, so we did. Her home, which was a 10 minute walk down paved roads, was the second story of a two-story building. We removed our shoes, customary before entering any Albanian home, and she immediately ushered us to her room which looked like a living room. It had two couches, an amoire, and a coffee table - nothing personal. She told us she slept on the couch (maybe it pulled flat like a futon) and she was so proud to show us her Albanian bible and devotional. We were introduced to her parents and were asked if we could stay for a "visit". We said we couldn't but before we knew it mom had disappeared. We talked a short time and then as we were putting on our shoes mom came rushing up the steps with a bag from the market. It was so important to them to be hospitable so we just couldn't leave although we knew we'd be late getting back to church. She reappeared with a silver tray and crystal glasses filled with carbonated lemonade and candies. We graciously toasted Gersa and her parents, "Faleminderit" (thank-you) over and over again, then we said good-bye. Rushing back we saw children running down the streets towards the church and when we got to the church lots of children were waiting outside. Once inside we took our stations and the children started coming in. I was in charge of the bean bag toss, shouting "Bravo" every time a child got a bean bag into a bowl and giving out small prizes when a child made two successful tosses. The room was filled to capacity with children and parents laughing and having a good time (we figure about 250 children participated). It was so hot and sweaty and within an hour we had almost run out of prizes (and believe me, Dundee Presbyterian had brought suitcases filled with carnival supplies and prizes so there was lots of stuff). The stickers that many of you sent were used by the children to decorate small colorful bags that held all their treasured prizes. After a short message from Mark and the church's pastor the carnival ended a bit earlier than planned, we cleaned up, and headed home, stopping in Korce for a dinner of vegetable antipasti, greek salad, french fries, grilled pork chops and pork roast (Pork? In a country of Muslim background? Yep, they eat a lot of pork, normally in the form of ham and salami). Overall, the day was rewarding on so many levels and as we rode back after dinner in the dark I very thoughtfully listened to Amy Grant sing Christian songs on my iPod with complete contentment.

40 Days of Mourning Over

Yesterday, July 5, marked 40 days of mourning for the family whose daughter was killed tragically during a church youth group hike. As I mentioned earlier the family does not leave their home for 40 days except to visit their daughter's grave site each morning. During this time they are not left alone as family and friends are constantly with them. Extended family members bring meals. Monday night the extended family along with Mark & Ruthie gathered at the mourning home and yesterday broke the 40 days of mourning. About 100 friends and family members gathered at the mourning home and then all walked to the grave site together. As told to me by Ruthie an formal ceremony doesn't take place at the grave site but as per the Albanian custom the mother wails, the parents talk and wail to the girl "why did you leave us" sort of stuff, lots of crying, and there is fainting from emotion. The gathering is not a celebration of life, but a true painful part of mourning. Afterwards everyone gathered for lunch and Ruth said the whole ritual is a very sad and difficult. The mother will wear black the rest of her life and there will be intervals where this mourning ritual will be repeated. I certainly respect the pain these people are feeling but I am very grateful that my faith gives me hope, peace, and comfort as I believe our earthly life is just a bridge to eternal life with God.

On the home front I worked on the playground this morning which is in Mark & Ruthie's front yard (the yard is enclosed with a stone wall). It's a 10-year old wooden playground that has rotting wood that needs replacing, and lot of scraping and sanding to prepare it for staining. Ruthie just explained to me that this playground is used as an outreach to the community. During the summer, five nights a week, the playground is open to the town's children for an hour and during the winter it's available on the weekends. She said the playground gets lots of use and they've been worried about it getting older and not being as safe as it should be. I feel privileged that we are fixing it up and in that way are also being a part of the church's outreach to the community. As I mentioned earlier I am now very involved in meal preparation so while Mark & Ruthie were at the mourning ritual I prepared lunch, and then went to the market to buy food for dinner. After coming home I prepped the meal, cleaned up, and then helped Ruthie hang the laundry. Albanians have washing machines but they hang their laundry out to dry - even in the winter when temperatures are below freezing. I haven't hung laundry on a clothes line since I was a little girl - it was kinda cool.

Yesterday our team had two mishaps. One of the roofers - a 21-year old young man - slipped on the very steep roof and twisted his ankle very badly. He was taken to the hospital where the doctor and nurse from our team met him. They x-rayed his ankle - only $5 with socialized medicine - but the good news was that it wasn't broken. Also, today one of our roofers got heat stroke but once again it was great to have medical help as part of our team.

Today we are heading to a village called Bilisht, about an 1.5 hours north east of here, real close to the Greek border. In a church there we will hold a carnival for the village's children. It will be a long day as we'll leave right after breakfast, and once there we'll walk through the village and pass out flyers about the carnival. The carnival will be held in the early evening so by the time we have dinner afterwards we'll get back to Ersekse late. More about the carnival tomorrow.

A Walk to Camp

As I've mentioned before the group is staying at Mark's house and we walk 15 minutes to get to camp. "Camp" is not what we think of as "camp" - Calvin Crest, Westminster Woods, or even Huddard Park. The actual camp's grounds are quite small and consist of a long rectangular building (see pictures posted previously) which holds the boy's sleeping rooms, the kitchen, a meeting hall, the girl's sleeping rooms, some staff sleeping space, and a few small classrooms. Directly across from this building is an outdoor eating area, a volleyball sand area, a storage shed, and the rock wall/ropes course. The camp is located in what feels like the outskirts of town. Because camp is small they utilize areas outside of camp, like the walnut grove, a field and Mark's church for various activities.

Things have changed for us as this weekend two groups from Boston/France and England arrived to help. There is so much help this week that they can't use us all at camp and there's not enough room for the large 9-11 year old camp (larger than last week), staff, and all the volunteers to eat there. In fact the Boston/France group (young adults from Boston partnering with a French group) are staying at a hotel, I'm not sure where the British group is staying. Anyway, our group will probably not be helping much with camp this week and we'll be eating all our meals at the Stoschers. Can you imagine cooking for 28 people, three meals a day for an entire week? The roofing crew is still able to work on the new roof but the rest of us will work on finishing up the playground restoration and getting involved in shopping and preparing food with Ruthie. I'm the organizer of that (not surprised are you?) so schedules are made and posted and I'll be involved myself a lot as I feel Ruthie should have as much support as possible although she is so gracious and is a wonderful hostess.

We enjoy our walk to camp (especially if it's not raining which it has done every afternoon) so I wanted to share with you some of what we see during that walk.

Erseke Sights and Sounds

After I finished my Sunday afternoon blog I was ready to walk around Erseke. By that time everyone who was going had already left so I set out on my own (I was told it was safe here to be on my own). Sure, I was stared at a lot but I said "hello" to everyone I passed and most would at least not their head. I never felt insecure or concerned for my safety so I just took in all the sights and sounds.

World Cup Soccer "football" is popular here and men gather in bars and coffee shops to watch the games together. It's common to see men gathered on corners and in bars but not so common to see women or children gather. The woman's role, especially those of marrying age, is a domestic one so when you see them about they are usually coming or going from the market or taking care of a task. Albanians I have been introduced to are warm and friendly, and even though I don't speak Albanian, we kiss on both checks and embrace each other.

Generally speaking Erseke has an unkept look. Weeds grow untamed, buildings are in need of repair or are deteriorating, garbage accumulates in roadside piles and litters the sidewalks, chickens roam freely, roosters crow all day, and there are many smells - some pleasant some not so. In spite of, but more appropriately because of, there is a beauty and charm here that would otherwise be missed - the starkness of bright red poppies against a crumbling stone wall; dark gray clouds contrasting against the blue skies and bright green mountains that surround the town; a street in town lined with 100' highpine trees (we are at 3500'); grape vines freely growing all over town budding with new life; the crackling of thunder, the wind that blows a storm in, and the fresh scent the rain brings; the quaint medieval feel of times past. There's a realness here where the superficialness of our lives back home is gone. It's not about having the most expensive car, jewelry, or Coach purse. It's not about perfect hair styles or having a different and new outfit everyday or going to Starbucks to get the perfect no-fat, no-whip, sugar-free double espresso vanilla latte and then getting mad when your order isn't right. Being here brings everything into perspective as it's back to basic needs and really seeing and appreciating God's creation and beauty around us.

Saturday in Erseke

I am writing this early Sunday afternoon after attending church service at Mark's church. The church building is a former home converted into a church with a small sanctuary, a few classrooms, and a front and backyard enclosed with a beautiful stone wall. The church service was held in the front yard underneath grape vines which was an absolutely beautiful setting. We sang songs in Albanian (some with familiar tunes) and Mark's sermon was in English, translated into Albanian. He spoke freely of the 14 year old's death a month ago and honestly talked about his own struggles with why it happened and where God was. Daily he spends time with the mourning father of the girl, his friend, which is opening his eyes. While Albanians attended the service it was largely an international service as it included summer volunteers and staff members from England, Canada, the States, Kosovo, France, Finland, Germany, and a few other countries. It was a wonderful service and afterwards there was a time of fellowship in the church's backyard where young adults played volleyball, and others enjoyed Kool-aid (that's where the donated Kool-Aid is being used), cookies, and visited with each other. After church Ruthie, with the help of others on our team, prepared a wonderful roasted chicken dinner. At the end of the meal she served a birthday cake for the four team members who are celebrating b"days (two of them today) and then we recognized the birthday of our nation on this 4th of July. We all sang God Bless America and I got so teary-eyed as I was overwhelmed with the appreciation of where I live and the freedoms we all take for granted (by the way, I wasn't the only tear-eyed person).

Yesterday, Saturday, we worked in our crews in the morning (I stained the playground benches I'd previously prepared) and then I, along with two other ladies from our group, walked to the market two blocks away with Ruthie, Mark's wife, to buy lunch makings. The campers left Saturday morning, so instead of having our lunch and dinner at camp, we are eating at the Stoscher's home. The small corner market sold lots of fresh vegetables so Ruthie decided to make a chicken vegetable soup (remember, she's feeding 28 - our group, her family, her parents and niece). Albanians shop daily, just like in Europe, so we bought just want we needed for lunch and dinner. Once back home I was happy to assist in the kitchen chopping and preparing the soup, a tomato/cucumber/onion/feta salad, and drop biscuits for lunch. Dessert was sliced watermelon (really delicious here, and we've had it a lot). After lunch, and since the camp was closed, the staff opened their rock climbing wall and small ropes course for us. I made it three quarters of the way up the rock wall, then up a swinging ladder, across a swinging bridge holding only a rope and down a zipline. It was a small scale ropes course as compared to ones like at Calvin Crest camp but it was challenging enough. It was a really great activity to bond the team as we encouraged and cheered each other on. We've had rain every afternoon but today the clouds held it in with only a sprinkle now and then.

Saturday evening we prepared yet another big meal of macaroni, beef strip chili topped with all sorts of fresh veggies, more tomato/cucumber salad, and raw carrots. Love all the fresh veggies here! On Saturday evenings there is usually a dance at the church but we discovered that because the church is in mourning over their loss, and out of respect for their family who is mourning, the dance was cancelled. The locals met at the church for some social time and then for about two hours people in town stroll the streets. We joined in and enjoyed an evening walk around town.

This afternoon, Sunday, we have free time so some of us will go for a hike in the hills and others will walk around town. I think I'll walk around town since I haven't seen much of it other than my stroll last night. Our group has bible study every evening which requires quite a bit of personal preparation beforehand. I have to squeeze reading and studying time in between work time, meals, and bedtime which at times is challenging. Days like Saturday and today where we aren't as busy make it a lot easier to focus on bible study which allows me to participate when the group meets. Well, it's off to walk, look, see, and appreciate where I am.