Today Visi and I went for pizza instead of our usual chofta and coffee.  The waiter came to take our order.  “Nje sallam,” Visi said.  “Dhe per une, nje hardhutsk,” I said.  

“One peperoni,” Visi said.  “And for me, one lizard,” I said.  Karpudhia and hardhutsk may sound the same to me, but the waiter couldn’t seem to get his head around the fact that an Amerikan had just ordered a legged-snake pizza.

Soon after we cleared up my language stumble, Fatjon showed up.  My translator turned 15 a few months ago, and my parents sent him a birthday card.  He had never received a birthday card before.  This piece of mail brought my running total to 2 packages sent from home in 7 months.  Before the invention of mail I imagine missionaries received even fewer packages.

Tomorrow morning I will be flying to Turkey.  I am excited to visit the birthplace of Christianity.  From there I will travel on to meet with a missionary in Romania who is trying to put together a program for recovering addicts, a kind of trade school.  He has asked me to help him develop a curriculum so that the men who come out of rehabilitation can then receive training for the construction world.  Perhaps one of the subcategories for study should be the preparation of amphibious creatures for consumption as the topping for pizza.

The end of my day brought me to a road I didn’t want to be on.  The setting sun found me there and reminded me that every road is a blessing.  The sky paint was a rich ruby over black-green hillsides.  The destination was not as beautiful as that, but the road is often more spectacular than where it takes you.

Today I worked with Visi putting the tiegula back on the roof of the godina at the church project.  As we worked we spoke in Shqip, and only in Shqip.  On the job site I can infer the meaning of words I don’t recognize, given their familiar context.  The conversation tends to be limited to brief commands of an urgent nature, the kind I have been responding too since I began working on construction sites 15 years ago.  From on the roof Visi shouted down at one point “Ma che dici?!” to which I responded “Ma che fai?!”  After that exchange we both launched into opposing diatribes that we intended to sound as though they might be composed of proper Italian, though we both knew that they were not.  In retrospect it is a wonder that I didn’t end up with a roof-tile cracking me over the head.  Italians are known for their use of hand motions during discourse.

Later in the day the Plagenhoefs came to the site for a meeting with our engineer Fisnik.  I shared with Stephanie my nickname for our imposing Albanian master builder.  “Fisnik,” I said, “Yo.  Emrin yo eshte Fisnik, Fiks Niche eshte.”  Fiks and niche put together would mean “precisely number one,” or “exactly the best.”  Stephanie laughed and added that he would not be given that name until after the work had been completed.

Later still I was sitting at the dinner table with the students from school.  Etmira and Nella had prepared soup.  Etmira tried it first and said “O, shum krip,” which means “Too salty.”  Nella responded by saying “Shum krip, ska problem,” which means “Too salty?  Not a problem.”  I found the exchange to be so funny that I laughed long enough for everyone to begin wondering if something was wrong with me.

You don’t like it?  No problem.

I began journaling this afternoon around the question of how important common language is for true communication to take place.  Are words as revelatory as we think they are, or are they really just masks we place in front of our ideas?  What does true communication consist of, and are words involved at all?  You understand. 

In Seattle I found friendship with a man who needed help getting on his feet.  We met at Pike’s Place Market on a Saturday while I was there with a friend of mine from out of town.  If you make friends with someone who is always hungry, you need to have a good supply of food.  I never got around to testing our friendship to see if it could weather a time where I was not providing some sort of support for this man.  I moved to Albania in April and have lost contact with roughly ninety percent of my contacts there.  Since arriving here, I have found friendship with a pack of dogs.  There is also a boy name Roars who follows me down the street from time to time.

The dogs are true and fond of me.  They will follow me whether there is food involved or not, sometimes to their own peril.  I have passed through the territory of other packs of dogs while my pack was still in-tow.  No blood was shed, but there have been other times when these little friends of mine have come close to meeting a Mercedes making quick a distance along the winding road which takes me home.  While scratching the sagittal crest of one of the females the other day, I realized that I may be the only human to ever make contact with her out of kindness.  I’ve seen one of the men who lives in a house near to where my pack congregates kick one of the dogs in a manner meant to injure or kill it.  These dogs are unaccustomed to kindness.

I am doubting Roars’ friendship for me since our last encounter.  While on the road, if I have two apples I will give one to Roars.  If I have two nectarines, he may as well have one and I have been good about sharing what I have.  A few days ago, however, he asked me for money.  I wasn’t entirely sure what he was saying, so in the interest of ending the conversation I said “Ndoshta pas naser,” which means “Maybe the day after tomorrow.”  He followed up with me two days later, asking where his money was.  “Money for what?”  I asked.  “For school,” he replied.  “I don’t have money for you.”  I told him.  And then yesterday he asked me for money again.

A friend of my father’s tells a story of an excursion he took one time as a youth with his Boy Scout Troop.  In Yellowstone National Park his friends and he witnessed a man feeding Oreo Cookies to a black bear.  As soon as the cookies were gone the bear mauled the man and left him severely bloodied.  “The moral of the story is…when you’re feeding Oreo Cookies to a black bear…don’t run out.”  I am out of Oreo Cookies, and a part of me wonders if I’m about to get mauled.

Yesterday was a holiday for seemingly everyone except Visi, Agim and me.  Today we had eleven people on site.  Four men were hanging rock on the second floor, three were down below putting the next phase of touches on the concrete slab, two were working on the plumbing and Visi and I were working on the Godina.  I realize that I have been saying Gabina in my posts.  Another mistake I made was from yesterday.  It turns out that Bajramin has nothing to do with the month of October, but is a set number of days after Ramadan which can happen just about any time according to our calendar.  I learned today that there are two calendars for Muslims.  One is called the French, and the other is called the Turkish.  I think we’re on the Turkish one here in Albania.

It was challenging today to stay out of my head.  I am a man who likes a predictable, clean and relatively quiet job site.  Zero out of three isn’t all bad.  I may be able to find serenity under more tumultuous conditions as I mature as a missionary, which is certainly a positive.  One of the men on the job site challenged me to an arm wrestling contest today.  Before I could refuse he had already positioned himself over a marble window sill; the elbow of his right arm firmly set, his left hand clutching the lip of the slab.  He beat me soundly before asking me how many years I had.  As it happens, he is three years my senior.

I took a few minutes to visit our neighbor Ardi.  I don’t often see him working at his house during the week.  He and his wife were building a house for their chickens.  Resourceful would be the one word I would choose, if I had to choose only one to describe Albanians in general.  My second word would be passionate, and number three would be emotional.  Four, five, and six: certain, sure, and right.

By the end of the day I was ready for the end of the day.  I visited my pack of dogs on the way home.  Their number has been reduced to four either through acts of nature or acts of violence.  Max is still alive, and he still won’t let me get near him.  He recognizes me as a source of food, which is all I really want to be for him.  I don’t love him for any reason in particular.  I love him because I choose to love him.

Today there was a departure from the normal pace at which Albanians typically live.  Most shops and small businesses were closed.  Only one of the drivers I know was working out of Zogu i Zi today; typically there are about a dozen.  I had forgotten that today was the Muslim holiday of Bajramin until Fatjon showed up at the job site because school had been cancelled for the day.  In the States we don’t close school for holidays other than those recognized by the State or the Christian Church.  I was surprised to learn that Bajramin, a holiday that happens both at the end of Ramadan and, apparently, near the end of October, are days when schools here are closed.  

Fatjon invited Visi and I to his home for lunch, and we accepted.  We began our visit with a small chocolate, followed by the serving of beverages.  After a little while Fatjon’s mother brought out a hearty potato and beef stew, cold noodles with chicken, byrek, fresh bread and a bowl of peppers from the garden.  Our conversation went beyond the normal table talk I’ve grown accustomed to.  Fatjon’s  parents both shared with me about experiences they have had with God via the Church and the Bible.  I didn’t expect to have conversation around religion at all, but there I was, with two people I love and respect, whom I want to know God, sharing my experience and understanding with them.  

Dardajan, one of my missionary friends to Macedonia, believes that the first conversions in that country will be of whole families.  Please pray for the family of Fatjon, that they will continue to investigate the mystery of God for themselves.  Sajmir expressed an interest in becoming more educated about the contents of the Bible before taking any definitive steps forward.  I encouraged him to use me as a resource.  Sometimes you can see the God in someone long before they find the Jesus within themselves.  I have known many good people.  I hope one day to travel to Mitrovica for a Church outreach and to have Sajmir and his family there beside me.  In God’s time and by His design, this will happen.

Today I came by forgone to Macedonia with the Plagenhoef family.  We are here in the city of Struga with about two-hundred other missionaries to Albania.  Struga is a city on the northern shore of Lake Ochrid which is arguably the most beautiful work of nature in the Balkans.  Struga has a more European feel than any place I have visited in Albania, but that may be due entirely to the constant influx of tourists and tourist money to this place.  The language here is called Macedonian, but it is very similar to Serbian, which is very similar to Croatian.  The money here is the Denar, but the Euro is widely accepted and appreciated.  

We will be here for five days.  I love asking and finding out how to greet people in a language that is new to me.  The script here is Cyrillic, which adds a wrinkle.  Albanian has ten additional letters in its’ alphabet, but it is relatively easy to sound out.  With Cyrillic, I don’t even know where to start.  Maybe five days here will offer clarity.

Every day is a gift from God.  Can you imagine receiving a gift from God?  Can you imagine waking up on Christmas morning to have a package under the tree from the creator of all things?  You have it.  You have today.