Guess what?! It has officially been a month on this trip, meaning I'm already 1/3 of the way done. That blows my mind. It has been such an incredible time so far, getting to experience the Albanian culture, getting to serve in so many amazing churches, and building relationships with so many cool people. It's been so good that I'm going to come back for the spring semester, crazy right? I feel God calling me back to continue this adventure in January, and I can't wait to see all that He does during that time.

To give some updates on ministry, it has looked a little different than I think all of us expected here. I'm not quite sure what my expectations were, maybe more house visits, more work with the unbelievers in the town, more outreach with the poor. But that's not really what it's been. We have been so blessed to be able to help our ministry host Ardete around his church, running kids camps, conferences, helping with the youth group, and doing maintenance work on the church. I have also gotten the opportunity to be on a ministry team to the capital Tirana every Thursday, helping with worship in their church and sharing my testimony, but also meeting people and hearing their stories has been part of ministry there. I've started to realize that the crazy moments of serving that God is calling me to aren't necessarily crazy in the way I might have thought. They are crazy in the sense that God has been moving so much just through my conversations. Just through stopping on our way to the store to catch up and talk with some of the boys who come to youth group. Or through taking extra time at the fruit stand to listen to the seller and then share the gospel. Or stopping and praying for someone on the street. It's all the moments like this that I have realized are ministry. The little moments of building relationships with people that open up the opportunity to share the gospel. It's the way that God moves in the moments that feel so normal, and it's so important for me to make sure I am not missing these moments because I am being lazy or letting fear get in the way of engaging with people.

As part of this trip we also have time built in for our classes. Whether those are college classes, leadership classes, focusing on career development, or growing in our faith. This time has been such a blessing for me because as I am pouring out serving others, I am also being poured into by our leaders and mentors here. I think for the first few weeks I was so focused on growing though and trying to make progress on goals that I forgot about leaning into my relationship with God. This tends to look a be a pattern for me but it's one that I don't want to continue. My focus this past week was different. It was on God. I was intentional to ask God daily what He wanted to show me and how he wanted to move, and I was in prayer and the Word daily. This changed everything and it was the best week I've had on this missions trip so far. Instead of being maybe 75% of the way in with God I focused on being all in and I could see the fruit of that in my life. Through having so many awesome moments in ministry with the kids and being able to connect with them more, to having some special moments worshiping through distraction, to also seeing my friendships here flourish, God was so present in it all. So this is my encouragement to both you and to myself that God's way is always so much better.

Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks!