Manistry

Team changes on The World Race can be an emotional time for everyone involved. People are leaving friends that they have spent everyday with for the last four months. Leadership positions are switched and roles are reversed. All this is happening as we begin to travel to and enter into our third country of the Race! It’s the perfect storm for chaos, hurt feelings, and confusion. Luckily for my team, it has been nothing of the sort. I am now officially a member of Daddy Day Care, P Squads one and only all male team. We also just so happen to be the only guys on our squad as a whole. To learn we were going to be on an all guys team was such a special thing to learn about as we were ending our time in Romania. We had already been living and serving as an all male “unit” several times during our stay in Craiova and Draganesti.

On top of team and country changes, our team had the misfortune of our church partnership canceling on us last minute. This didn’t deter or stop us for one minute as we quickly found housing in our price range and began to ask the Lord where He wanted to send us. My team and I took 3 days in Tirana (capitol of Albania) to pray and meditate on where the Lord wanted us to head next. Through prayer and some divine Google searches our team ended up two hours southwest in the coastal city of Vlorë. A kind man gave us missionaries a break on housing for the next month we began our trek south.

We landed here in Vlorë about two weeks ago with no clue why the Lord would want us here and no idea what He had in mind for us. We started every morning in prayer and worship that first week and then hit the streets. Sometimes we would get people talk to, other times we would just walk around the city trying to figure out why we here. Since those first few days the Lord has moved pretty fast in giving us work and projects to plug into. Many of us are helping with the remodel of a church building in preparation for Easter. We have attended several church services at a Baptist church in the city, pastored by the kindest family from Tennessee. We also got the opportunity for coffee with a member of the Peace Corps and got involved with a public library who is hosting english youth events in conjuncture with the United States Embassy in Tirana.

This update is quick but I just wanted to hop on here and let my friends, family, and supporters that the Lord is moving here in Albania through some of the most God centered men I have ever met. I’m very excited for what the Lord has for us over the next month and a half of ATL and will make sure to bring you guys along.

Much Love and God Bless

Jaden