This was
April 1999, docking in Durres, Albania on a boat from Bari, Italy in the middle
of the Kosovo Crisis.
I was
part of a team helping distribute food +clothing to refugees who’d fled their
homes with nothing but their lives. 10 years before, I’d dreamed the following
3 nights in a row: I was docking in a port somewhere near Greece;
the
front of the ship opened up and I felt a whole new area of life, ministry and
relationships also opened before me!
3 nights
in a row convinced Erica + I that God was not calling us to teach English in China,
but to focus elsewhere.
It took
10 years before this part of the dream was fulfilled, but God who does
‘exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think’, saw even further. Look
closely + you can see a white cross painted on the dock right where we are
landing: not a common welcome in an overwhelmingly Muslim-atheist nation! 17
years later I have returned + this ‘writing on the wall’ continues as a beacon
of hope and a mark of blessing for Albania’s full healing in the gospel!
The 1999
Crisis in Kosovo shocked many in the West: how could modern-day Europe
experience such cold-blooded massacres as the Orthodox Christian Serbs were
waging against its Muslim Albanian population in Kosovo?
Our civilized
culture thought we were beyond such atrocities. Apparently not. And I wondered if I could help?
After all, almost 30 years before, my friend + I had finished a day’s
hitch-hiking in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina and its people had overwhelmed us
with their hospitality. Serbia’s plains had given way to rugged mountains;
donkeys and even oxen now pulled heavily weighed down carts; minarets replaced
steeples dotting the landscape; men wore unfamiliar, white felt kaftans. It was
clearly a different, poorer, more agrarian and more Muslim culture than what
we’d left in the north that morning. We tried to find out about getting a train
further south to Skopje that evening, but rather became the objects of
attention ourselves. Backpacking foreigners were quite the novelty then in this
part of communist Yugoslavia and a crowd of interested, inquisitive students from
the local university quickly gathered. Spirited questions rose in a noisy
crescendo: a babble of tongues, and I tried to answer as many as 4 different
languages at once! ‘Von wo kommen sie? Parlez-vous francais? Po-russki? and
even some in broken English!
Our self-declared
hosts soon ruled out a train and decided we would instead be staying the night
with them. Their spokesman, Hilmi, and a cohort of friends determined and put
into process what they deemed the best plan of action. We needed food? Almost
magically, 2 meal tickets appeared for the dormitory cafeteria. A place to
sleep? A bed suddenly became vacant because one students’ roommates had gone to another city for a few days.
So it was decided
as they whisked us off to supper while our packsacks followed behind. A hot
bowl of soup and lots of bread – double
helpings even! for only 16 cents! And afterwards, a train of more interesteds followed
us into the lounge to drink chai and practise English. Many difficulties in
understanding arose and the power went off many
times, but we talked long into the dark. Finally, it was time for bed and they
led us to their room, a dirt floor with a wood-burning heater in the corner to
keep the winter cold at bay. We snuggled in our warm sleeping bags; the other 6
in the room had single blankets. In the
middle of the night I awoke to discover 2 others sleeping on the dirt floor. I
guess their unexpected trip had suddenly been cancelled? Or perhaps their
simple hospitality just knew no limits to even their own discomforts? This picture of generosity remained imprinted
in my heart and mind over many years.
So while
I watched the 1999 Crisis unfold on the evening news, I wondered if perhaps
some of those same students who’d so unselfishly helped us now needed help themselves?
The
story became even more personalized when the CBC reporter from Lezhe, a city in
the north of Albania, turned out to be Paul Workman, Erica’s cousin. Halfway
through his report, the venue changed as he was standing in front of a ship in
Durres, explaining that due to nightly NATO airstrikes
across Albania into Serbia, ships were now the only means of transport into the country. I saw the ship’s
name: Paladio in the background and
as he continued speaking, I suddenly heard the Holy Spirit clearly say, ‘That’s
your ship!’
I thought I was just hearing things, so I put it on the back
burner in my mind.
The next
day, an American pastor friend phoned me. He had just heard through some of his
English friends that one of their contacts headed up a Bible School in
Albania-- in Lezhe, the very town Paul had reported from the night before. He wondered
if I would lead a team there to help distribute food, clothing and supplies to
help the refugees.
What a
quick answer to my prayer! and after talking and praying with Erica, I found someone
to deliver my mail route, 2 weeks later, 3 young guys + I were on our way: flights to London + Rome and an
overnight train to Bari, from where we hoped to catch a boat to Albania. We
arrived at the port early in the morning only to find that the boat to Durres
wouldn’t leave until midnight. As we sat waiting on the dock, looking across
the Adriatic, I saw a small speck off in the distance and heard the same voice
speak the same words, ‘That’s your boat!’ We couldn’t even discern it was
indeed a boat out there, but sure enough, as the dot moved closer and became
larger, it grew into a boat, pulled into the harbour and docked right in front
of us! Same boat, same name: Paladio!
I was
convinced: something more than natural was at work here!
And then
I remembered that dream from 10 years before; my dream onboard a ship coming
into a port near Greece. I somehow knew it was not Greece, only near Greece,
and I remember being disappointed because Greece had always been my second home
while backpacking and I’d always wanted to return. The sun was rising as I stood on an outside
deck; the front of the boat opened up and a whole new scene also opened up
before me! And that was all!
But after
10 years: years of pastoring, both elation and dejection, was ‘my ship’ finally
indeed coming in?
We
watched the passengers disembark. They
looked shaken, dishevelled; some appeared thankful to be back safely, while others
strongly advised any embarking passengers not to go to where they had just escaped.
We spent the day walking
around the old city, taking in the sites of ancient stone walls and churches, eating
gelato.
Then early in the evening,
we returned to the port and elbowed our way into a pulsating line-up of
passengers wanting to board The Paladio for Durres. It
remained rather unclear how to get actual tickets: if you’d paid in a travel
office, you still had no assurance your tickets would get you on that
particular boat. Your only verification you would actually sail came only once
you were on the boat, so wannabe passengers jockeyed for position in line. It
seemed like all nations were pushing for a place on my boat: a large contingent
of American Muslims, Scottish mercenaries, fresh from
the The Congo civil war seeking new opportunities to fight for the KLA (Kosovo
Liberation Army)., as well as other Christian missionaries.
It took 5 hours before our
group successfully pushed our way up the gangplank and onto the boat together.
And still no guarantee we
would actually sail! We then had to manoeuver up a spiral staircase, verify our
tickets, and finally gain Albanian visas so we’d actually be accepted into the
country on landing. And visas didn’t come cheap: US$190 each!
Somehow we passed all the
tests and finally set sail at 230am. In all the confusion, only 3 ½ hours late!
So many people on board, there were not enough seats for everyone, the smoke-filled
lounges and bodies trying to sleep everywhere, many just slept out on the
wind-blown outer deck. But my faith and confidence had grown throughout the
day: this was ‘my ship’ + I was going to sail on it, and sure enough, here we
were, right in the centre of God’s apparent will. He was not only going to do
something, but He was doing something. It was present, more tangible than the
smoke-filled lounge, so rather than fight to sleep, many passengers just stayed
up to talk and share our story. I got to share our story with a group
of Muslims from Detroit.
Their imam, a young Dean Shaska, had just visited with President Clinton the
week before concerning the crisis, was now on his way to find out if his family
was safe, but couldn’t figure out why a group of young Christian men were
coming all this way to help Albanians they didn’t know? So I told him my experience in Kosovo and my dream from 10
years before and my conviction that this was indeed ‘my ship’ and even
described the way we would all be arriving in Albania and God was doing
wonderful things and would even do more if we only had hearts to receive it
all. It was a long night and we all grew progressively more tired as it wore
on, but I grew more excited as the morning approached and as I shared my dream
with others, they also got excited about what prospects awaited us in Albania.
So when the day began to
dawn and the captain announced we were approaching land, our group of 4 had
grown to about 24 and they followed me up to an upper deck. Darkness broke with
the morning sun. A voice cried out, ‘Land!’
just as we passed a battleship stationed
just outside the harbor; high dock cranes appeared in the distance, the boat’s
door opened to the harbor and its city before us + just like the God who does ‘exceedingly abundantly above
all that we ask or think’ had led me this far also continues to lead, there
before us, right on the dock, before a
scene of chaotic confusion, at
the entrance way to a predominantly Muslim country, someone had boldly painted a
white Cross! Emblazoned directly before us, right in our approach, opening the
way and welcoming us in more than my dream had ever envisioned.
We stayed to help the
Kosovo refugees for just about 3 weeks: working, meeting with the displaced,
sharing their stories, pain and sorrows. It turned to be one of the most
emotionally-difficult missions trips I’ve ever experienced, and it left its
mark in my heart. But we’d done very little gospel ministry on that mission;
we’d been advised to keep any evangelism low-key and keep it to practical
helps, and now here I am again in Albania, 17 years later, but this time, at
the invitation of indigenous Albanian Christians with a vision to raise up
spiritual eagles in what has been known as The Land of Eagles! And I am once
more excited to see what God is doing and will do in this spiritually vibrant
land. Today, another young man gave his life to Christ and answered the call to
see not only his life, but his nation, changed to the glory of God. Two pastors
have volunteered to translate the Come Follow Me discipling handbook into
Albanian! There is harvest here: pray the Lord raise up sons + daughters to labour
and bring in the net bursting nets, a harvest of souls!
