Our third day in Albania was our first full day in the city and mostly a day of rest. We were able to sleep in a little later and then had the opportunity to go shopping at some street vendors and at an Albanian mall. Albania is unlike any other place I’ve ever been to. Hopefully you can tell through some of our pictures, but much of the city is very developed with paved streets and nice restaurants. However, like Geoffrey said in an earlier post, there are many abandoned buildings, trash all over the city, and areas of extreme poverty where the gypsy community is. When I asked Tani, our liaison from the church we’re partnering with, what the best part of Albania is he replied very sarcastically that it was, “Being able to throw rubbish any where you want!”

It’s also been very interesting to see how important an Albanian’s self-image is to them. Besides the beggars we see on the side of the road, most everyone is always dressed very nice, including the the people we are working with in the church. For some reason I thought that materialism would not be as big of a problem as it is in America, but this doesn’t seem to be true at all.

Please be praying that God would fully prepare our hearts to be able to minister to the youth on Monday and that we would be fully rested for a full days work.

-Josh