Now,
contrary to what you might think, this story is not about my steel pan, which
is lovingly called my “frying pan” by Doni or “your strange instrument” by
others. In fact, this story has nothing
to do with a frying pan, figuratively or literally. Just a fire…
Now, sadly,
I have no pictures at all from this week.
So instead, I’ve thrown in some leftovers from the travel weekend.
These ones were taken on our way home, when
we stopped in Gjirokaster and toured a castle.
In mid-November,
the students were divided into three groups and sent out to different locations
throughout Albania to do outreach for a week.
My team was small – just me, Visi, and Elisa – and we spent the week in
Tirana. We were working with Campus for
Christ which recently started a new church in Tirana. To be honest, it was a difficult week. I wanted to be doing more. But God had a pretty important lesson for
me. On Thursday night, we were putting
on a little program with music, a drama, my testimony, and a chance for
discussion. The attendees were supposed
to be a bunch of students from the Fine Arts University, and several of them
were going to perform, and then I was going to perform some pieces on my
pan. Well, a last minute rehearsal at
the University meant that I was the only one performing, and those that we
hoped would be attending didn’t come. On
top of that, I was disappointed with our drama – I was pretty sure it wasn’t
going to have any meaning to those watching.
By the time I shared my testimony, I didn’t have any faith that God was
going to use this evening at all.
Imagine my surprise when my testimony encouraged one of the young men to
share very openly about his life and struggles.
I was humbled that night – who am I to question what God can use?
Are you
still wondering about the fire?
For the last
couple days of our week, we were helping at the Global Leadership Summit in
Tirana. The Summit was held at the Institute building where Campus for Christ
is based. It’s four stories tall, and
has offices and meeting rooms, large and small. We’d already participated in the Summit in
Erseke, and this time we were helping – mostly preparing for and serving the
coffee times.
On day 2, we
showed up at about 7am, ready to make a lot more cheese/olive/red pepper
toothpick skewers. As we headed up the
stairs towards the kitchen, the smell of smoke became stronger and
stronger. Upstairs, Mark was just
emerging from the kitchen, along with a cloud of black smoke. The smoke seemed to be confined to the
kitchen. We all peered through the
window in the door, trying to detect the source of the fire. The smoke was dense, and everything in the
room was already generously coated with thick black soot. Meanwhile, Mark cheerfully encouraged us to
“just leave your bags in the next room for now.” I’m thinking, “Are you kidding?! If the building is on fire, it’s generally
advisable to get out!”
Several more
times, Mark filled his lungs and plunged into the kitchen for as long as his
lungs would allow.
Then we came to the
alarming realization that the smoke was not, in fact, originating in the
kitchen, but rather, it was pouring into the room from a heating vent in the
ceiling!
I still can’t understand how
Mark remained so calm as he bolted downstairs.
At that point, we were advised to take our things outside!
My favorite image of the day was watching
Mark cheerfully and casually grab a fire extinguisher on his way up the
stairs.
You would think that he did this
every day!
For a little
while, we thought that the fire originated in the heating system, but then Mark
discovered a very hot office door upstairs.
Some drama ensued when the key for that office could not be found!
I think it was at about this time that Mark
called the fire department.
About 30
minutes later, a policeman arrived to survey the scene, and then he paused to
have a smoke outside.
Later, a fire
truck from another era pulled into the yard, and eventually, the fire was taken
care of.
I never heard the cause of the
fire, but I know that the office where it began was completely destroyed, and
there was significant smoke damage in parts of the building.
Unbelievably,
the conference resumed only a few minutes after nine (the whole drama began at
about seven), and we relocated our snack-making to another room. Much of the food was destroyed from the smoke
and soot, but we managed with what remained plus some extra groceries.
I spent much
of the day in the kitchen, washing soot off of every single surface.
I never want to smell building-burning smoke
again.
I am so thankful that some of us
arrived early that morning – had there been no conference that weekend, the
damage may have been much worse!
Greatest
lesson:
We are free in Christ, but we live for a higher purpose than our own
rights.
Fun fact:
We love to
talk about the weather, don’t we?!
It is winter
here, but it is often quite pleasant. It
snows sometimes, but it also rains sometimes.
The snow doesn’t usually last long at all down here, but the nearby
mountains always have a pretty coating.
Erseke means “windy city”, but it doesn’t usually hold a candle to
Lethbridge. A couple days ago, though, I
actually had to lean into the wind to stay on my feet. Felt like home!
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