Albania

Hey Y’all! It’s been a while! I’ve been busy with settling in to my new job and routine with Watermark. It’s a really great place to work and I feel super blessed to have the opportunity to join staff there! But even as I readjust to life in America I’m still looking back to Albania and my next opportunity to go. And the Lord graciously provides! I will be going on a trip in December with Will Noll, Matt Rial, Chris Hyland, and hopefully 1 to 2 others. We have been communicating with the elders of Guri i Themelit church over there to set up a weekend guys’ retreat, where we will discuss openness and authenticity. They expect upwards of 50 guys to come out to this retreat! ...

My journal for the 2017 project is up! photo by Lauren Dean End of the road All good things come to an end, and my STINT in Albania is no different. On 7 August I fly back to Dallas to spend at least 1 year there, with the hope that I’ll return to live in Albania sooner rather than later. At this point I’m holding all my plans loosely. I know what I want to do for the next year, but beyond that it’s up to God. ...

photo by Lauren Dean Day 1 Sunday July 2 Today was a travel day for the others, fortunately I didn’t have to travel :). I got to go to church and have a nice afternoon coffee with a friend. We went to go pick up the group at the airport at 5:00, but the plane was delayed a bit. We had a good coffee at the airport waiting for them. ...

So, I’ve got an announcement to make. These past several months I’ve been exploring two options for my time after my STINT is up. One area I was exploring was with the Digital Strategies team in Albania, working for Afrim Karoshi. I went to a conference with the Digital Strategies team here in May as part of that exploration. The second area was an open position at Watermark Community Church as a programmer. ...

April was a fairly slow month. We had our normal schedule of a professional meeting and a social time. This month we had fewer people than normal, but we had a lot of new people which was very interesting. I’ve had several opportunities to follow up with contacts, though this appears to be a busy time of year for most of the professionals. We are trying more to model the follow-up process for our partners, inviting them into these meetings and giving them opportunities to lead. Albert has been doing a great job helping me mentor one of the new believers in the first steps of learning about his faith. ...

We love momentum March 13-17 was a big week for us. We invited a group from Louisville, TX To join us for a week-long momentum building project. This group had an amazing impact, we drew in well over 100 people for the seminar, and our social time was a big success as well. We got a lot of new contacts and, as was our goal, we will be following up with them over the coming weeks. ...

What a great weekend! This past weekend we went to Cyprus for a conference about reaching leaders and influencers for Christ. The group was about 28 people, including 10 professionals, 4 teachers, two businesswomen and a government worker. It was a great time of learning and inspiring our partners to reach their peers for Christ. One speaker was a bible teacher who took us through the book of Mark, highlighting the disciples’ stories and their leadership journeys. Another speaker was a professional business consultant who focuses on leadership training. Alba in particular got a lot out of that speaker, because she leads a team at her work. The third speaker was the vice president of Leader Impact worldwide, he introduced to us the concept and mission of TraNet. We also had various smaller seminars throughout, on interesting topics such as the Sabbath rest as applies to business, and integrating faith and work from a former communist perspective. ...

Lots of stuff has happened this past month! Last I posted I was in the middle of a 2-week break in Dallas. That was a great and relaxing time for me, helped me to prepare mentally and spiritually for these next 7 months in Albania. I saw friends and family and enjoyed plenty of tacos. When I got back it was right back into the swing of things with a seminar the next day. It was a video seminar, we showed Patrick Lencioni’s talk from the 2016 Global Leadership Summit. It had already been subtitled in Albanian. The talk was great, but when we asked our partners afterwards for their feedback they said it would be better to have a live speaker in the future. So, as much as possible, we’ll try to do that. ...

Merry Christmas to everybody! I love Christmas time, spending time with family, listening to the Advent messages at church, and especially the Christmas hymns. My favorite is ‘O Holy Night’. It’s my favorite because it speaks of the hope that came into the world when Jesus Christ was born. Hope is an elusive thing. Lots of people lose hope when what they desire becomes impossible, or even worse, when they get exactly what they wanted. ...

We’ve been working on follow up since Momentum Europe. We’ve had some good meetings with people, and had some good conversations. Of course our goal is to help our partners to do that more and more - to have the conversations that lead to Gospel presentations, to encourage them to share with and invite more people, and to build their confidence. To that end we organized a training conference this past weekend. We invited about 20 young professionals out to Durres for 2 days of working through the “Bursting Your Bubble” curriculum. It was a great success! They enjoyed the time together and came away with a stronger desire to serve and share with their peers. ...