Yesterday, after I had spent some time studying the karkolec, I looked past the field behind our new church. On the hill I could see the sunlight reflecting off of the windows of the buildings in the town of Krujë. It reminded me of an observation I had heard another missionary make about the ancient strongholds of this land. “A city on a hill,” he said. He was quoting scripture about Jerusalem, but he was right.
The city on a hill is a place, but it is also an idea, a metaphor. Jerusalem was a city which existed outside of the reach of many of the evils of this world. Jerusalem is a city which will exist outside of the reach of all evil some day. Once a community had built it’s stronghold at an advantageous height, at the end of a winding path or just beyond a narrow pass, it’s members could live assured of their safety. The city of Krujë successfully repelled three sieges by one of the most formidable militaries of its day; the Ottomans.
Today Krujë serves as a metaphor specific to the Albanian way of being. It is a metaphor of preservation and self-reliance. It will forever be the seat from which the Albanian people galvanized their identity under the careful direction of one man, George Kastrioti Skanderbeg. Without him, and the sacrifices made by those who served under him, it is likely their would not be an Albania at all.
We can not know the significance our lives may have to those who still live after we have died. Legacies are in blood, but also in the stones of hillside cities. While Kingdom building, if you handed a mallet to a glazier as he worked to set a pain of glass, Jerusalem belongs to you.
albaniacalling 