10,000 steps by 3 pm - Monday, 19 October

On the day I left, I walked 10,000 steps by 3 pm... almost 14,000 (according to that little device on my wrist) by the time I got onto the plane in LAX headed for Rome.  While I haven't yet made that goal while here, I have managed 10,000 by 6 pm with added steps before turning in... and that doesn't include walking up stairs!  Albania is a walking place.

What is new?  First of all, it feels so much like I never left here.  The weather, the people, the friends!  It truly does feel like my second homeland.  If only God would plant the ability to learn/speak Albanian into my head!  That would make it perfect!


The first new thing I noticed is a filtered water station right across from the Qendra Stefan... it looks like a big copper coffee pot.  There are others I've found dotting areas I have been so far... built in the pattern of small castles.  These are a gift from Kuwait.  They remind me that not all people have access to safe water - either in Albania or elsewhere.  In fact, when I mentioned this new "decoration" to my friend Elda, she commented that she has a can outside her shop to collect run-off water from her air conditioner.  One day, she saw a rag-tag man pick up the can and he downed the dirty water before she could manage to get to him so she could offer him her own water bottle.  It is a good reminder that lives elsewhere face different challenges than we face - like a lack of healthy choices we take for granted.

The desperately poor are still here.  While the government is trying to enforce the "laws on the books" (anti-pandering, for instance), and while this is most likely a good thing in the long run for the country, a consequence is that it further marginalizes the already marginalized and powerless.  Getting people to pay for their electricity, for instance - which was reportedly free under communism (making the concept somewhat oxymoronic to many) - has resulted in many of the poor being unable to pay and being disconnected from the grid.  On the one hand, a fairly common cause of death here is electrocution as men climb polls and try to "scab" electricity from someone else; additionally, the electrical infrastructure is inadequate.  This means that enforcing the law hopefully means fewer men will die from electrocution and the electric company will begin to have funds to maintain the infrastructure.  Even so, there are unintended (but anticipated) consequences.  Isn't this always the way?  What is a good thing often has a potential for bad side effects - take medicines, for instance, with their long lists of potential side effects.  Life is so often a balancing act... it gives me sympathy for those making decisions on a governmental level. 

Another consequence of the government trying to make order of chaos is that most every vendor now gives a receipt with every purchase.  That will make accounting so much easier for me, but for small vendors, the machine they are required to purchase is $400 and one of its major goals is to make sure that taxes levied for all purchases will actually begin to be collected.  Competition with vendors who do not collect taxes makes it difficult for those who wish to follow the law.  One of the differences here (and in much of Europe) is that the VAT tax (what we might call the "sales tax") is added to the price of the item to be sold rather than added to the bill at the time of purchase (as we are used to).  Adding the VAT to the price of the item makes it somewhat "invisible."   Making the tax "invisible" makes it easier to adjust the tax without too much fanfare because most people don't realize how much of the purchase price is tax.  It is kind of like the airline ticket we bought to come to Albania.  One of our tickets was, let's say, $1500.  I was interested to find out the actual fare payable to the airlines, so I clicked on something called "fees" and learned that less than half of the ticket price was for the airline and the rest was a litany of landing fees, airport fees, security fees, etc.  The next time you purchase an airplane ticket, look at the breakdown.  It's interesting.  We need the protection and maintenance of airports, but since all of that is included in the "airfare", we have no idea how much we are paying! 

Yesterday was really fun!  I went to Cornerstone Church at Instituti Jeta e Re (CRU) and got a chance to listen to a guest speaker preach... the head of Child Evangelism Fellowship from Hungary!  He spoke on 1 Corinthians 4 - a text helpful to me on this trip.  After the service, I talked with him and met the head of CEF in Albania as well as the head from Romania!  Triple whammy!  There was also  a missionary couple from the church who were back on a brief home leave and were introduced... they do relief work in Turkey... I'm interested in talking to them via Skype after I return home to learn more about how they approach Syrians (and others) fleeing the chaos in their homeland with the Gospel.  I also caught up with a lot of friends!  It is so good to be back!

After that, I had an opportunity to present a craft at a women's retreat for one of the churches here.  Their emphasis was on small groups - and one woman gave her testimony of being invited to a group, not knowing it was a "faith-based" group, which eventually led to her salvation.  It was inspiring!  And reminds me that we need to have places to invite unchurched women which are not overtly evangelical, but are safe, fun, and inclusive. The craft we did was a paper Christmas craft with a Gospel story.  The women were excited to be able to replicate the craft with their children and to decorate their tree with something that could spark a conversation.

Well, off to meet with a friend in health care - to find out what is happening there!  Pray for Debbie as she wends her way east... she starts out fairly early on Monday, but doesn't get here until Tuesday at dinnertime (time change and travel time).  Please pray for safe travels and an easy transition to Central European time for her.  The time change is always a challenge.

Mirpafshim!