THE WHOLE STORY IS TRUE.

The World Race is so much more than a mission trip. But only if you want it to be. I’ve realized recently how much this experience has transformed me as a person.

We just celebrated the half-way point of this eleven-month journey. We are closing our time in Albania and preparing to move to Turkey. Albania for me has been a period of unexpected personal hardship and growth as well as a deeper and more intimate relationship with my Savior. When we arrived in this country, we had just experienced team and role changes. Not only did I receive a brand-new team of five women, I also stepped into the role of team leader. Someone advised me as I was stepping into this position,

‘Get ready to have all the things you think you’re good at, stripped from you.’

This was really solid advice. Personality traits and wisdom that I once took pride in and patted myself on the back for, I have completely surrendered and laid at His feet.

I’ve wrongfully put pressure on myself to appease everyone on my team, to make sure they are comfortable, and to keep the peace. There’s a big difference between being a peacekeeper and a peacemaker. Keeping the peace means staying silent and quenching the Holy Spirit inside of me when something is on my heart, just to maintain harmony. It’s not kind. True kindness through peacemaking looks like pursuing honesty, boldness, equality, and respect. This hasn’t been easy for me. I am someone who would apologize and take the blame for anything if it means not disrupting the current status of peace. As a team leader, there have been times where being bold and honest temporarily disrupt the peace, but then bring so much more unity and respect to our team.

In Albania, our ministry has been mainly focused on what we (the World Race) call ATL, which stands for ask the Lord. We partnered with a church here in the capital city of Tirana and they trusted us to pursue ATL full-time. ATL is a lifestyle of ministry, no matter what you call it, that all followers of Christ are called to live out. It looks like living our days for others instead of ourselves, being interruptible, listening to the Spirit before we move, sharing the gospel, intercessory prayer, and spending time as a team. On the World Race, when ATL is your main form of ministry, you learn to get creative. Our team has worshipped in the middle of the biggest city square in the country, we have painted watercolor cards with the translated gospel and handed them out to people, we have interceded in mosques for the hearts of Muslims to be softened to the gospel, we have played card games in coffee shops and invited strangers to play with us, we have read the Bible out loud in public, and the list goes on.

This is the heart of ATL: sharing the gospel to those you have the privilege of living among.

In full transparency, it’s easy when doing ATL to get lazy, to get discouraged, and to get bored. It’s easy to lose sight of the reason we’re here; both on this trip and on this Earth. We’ve been commissioned by our Savior to make disciples. All of us!

For the majority of our time here in Albania, we lived in a sweet, little, hostel next to a police station. Praise God for safety! Every day when we would leave our hostel and walk in the direction of the city center, we would pass by the same street vendors and small business owners.

Aita, a mom with a kind smile who owns the corner fruit stand,

Abdul, an older, Muslim man and his wife who own the little convenience store,

Christina, a young and generous girl who works at the craft supply store, and

Clea, a quirky, artsy girl who owns the Albanian artisan store.

Walking down this small street in the afternoons felt a little bit like a Disney movie. Walking with pep down the bustling street, waving as we go to all of our foreign friends. We frequented these shops often, sometimes because we needed to buy something, but most times to build on these relationships. Abdul and Christiana have both now received the Bible translated into Albanian. My teammate Lexy, a few days after delivering the Bible to Abdul, asked him if he’d been reading it. He used Google translate to ask her,

“Is the story true?”

“Yes,” she replied, “the whole story is true.”

Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom.”

The Lord has been so kind to me lately as He changes my heart towards time. Time is short! On the World Race, most information regarding time is kept from us, so that when we move to a new country, we don’t know how long we might be staying there. As a former chronic procrastinator and time-waster, God has drawn near to me and taught me how to number my days for His glory. Life is a vapor and His Word is the only thing that will last! Living with the mindset of ATL has made me very aware of time. Even if I’m not giving a Bible away, am I interruptible? Are you interruptible? When we buy toilet paper, wait in line at the bank, sit in traffic, do our jobs, pay the waitress, are we easily interruptible to how the Holy Spirit is moving through and around us? Are we willing to give our money, our lunch, our time, our reputation, our lives for His will for us? I am. I’m ready to look ridiculous, to be scoffed at, to be overcharged just because I’m an American, to get dirty looks, to risk my safety, to stay up late crying over the goodness of scripture, to get even more uncomfortable if it means that I will have chased as hard as I can the Lord’s commission for my life. Are you ready?

Next week, we hop on a 24-hour bus ride to Istanbul, Turkey. Please pray for our squad of 30 as we transition to the Middle East and into a country that has just experienced incredibly difficult devastation. Please pray for the hearts of Turks to be softened to hearing the Word and for stamina for our teams to share the Good News with urgency and boldness.

Thanks for bearing with me,

Your sister in Christ,

Caroline