I finally arrived in my new home in Tirana, Albania after a 43 hour travel day from Guatemala! Our squad attempted to sleep in the airport in Guatemala City before all the flights, but I ended up only sleeping about 20 minutes of the entire travel time. We had a layover in Canada, then another layover in Athens, Greece, and finally arrived in Tirana on November 16, 2025. The first day there, our team did not set any alarms because our only plan was to have lunch with our ministry hosts at 1pm. We definitely miscalculated how tired we were from our travel day, and how jet lag would affect us. We ALL overslept, and ended up waking up 30 minutes before having to be at the lunch! This was such a silly experience because we had just landed in this new country, none of us had showered from the past few days traveling, and we had NO idea physically where we were because well, we had just arrived in a whole new country! As soon as we stepped outside though, we all started falling in love with Tirana. It was a beautiful fall day, and the lunch we had with our ministry hosts was so special. They bought is a lunch with two different meats (we haven’t eaten much meat on the race), our hosts were super sweet, and the view of Tirana from our table was so beautiful! We were all moved to tears at some point during the lunch because it all just felt like such a blessing.

The biggest turn of events for the day was that our ministry host said that later that evening, we had church. The church service was no ordinary thing though. It was a surprise wedding! The church had been doing a series on family, and they decided to end the series by having a couple get married!!! All four of us girls were SO excited! Especially Kayla and I, because when we were in Guatemala, there were 4 specific things we prayed for about Albania. We prayed for a hot shower (we hadn’t taken a hot shower in 2 months), our own beds, a kitchen to cook all our own meals in, and a wedding to attend. God REALLY showed out to us because we got ALL of those little requests answered in our FIRST day in Albania! It built my faith so much. God the Father is SO good. He hears every single one of our little prayers, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem. Like a good father, he desires to give his children good gifts, and belief in that was really solidified in my heart that first day in Albania.

The next day was our first day of ministry. In Albania we split our time between 2 places. The first is the church we partnered with called ICF Tirana. At ICF, we helped with several different young adult, youth and children’s  groups throughout the week, and were an extra pair of hands for whatever the church needed to have done. This included things like preparing snacks, decorating for Christmas, praying for the church, and encouraging the church members in the faith. The other organization we partnered with was the Jonathan Center. This is a therapy center for special needs patients. They have music, speech, occupational, and psychological therapy for people with special needs of all ages. Because it is a medical center, we weren’t allowed to do much with the actual patients except give them kind words and smiles as we saw them in passing. But the center has a coffee shop attached to it that provides jobs for people with special needs, and a nice place for the mothers/care takers of the patients to hang out in while patients have their therapy. We partnered with the Jonathan Center by helping in the coffee shop through rearranging, giving ideas/suggestions to get more customers, and through making LOTS of Christmas cards for the center to sell as a fundraiser! We all learned how to quill, and made the Christmas cards really cool and special for the center!

The first day of ministry is a day I will never forget. My phone had been on the fritz for a few months at this point, and I left America hoping that it would last through the entire race, and I could replace it when I got employed again after the race. However, It decided to completely shut down the night before our first day of ministry. So I walked into our first day without a phone, which honestly I wasn’t too concerned about. I figured that I would just figure it all out at some point, but I didn’t feel rushed about it because everyone else on my team had a phone.

On my walk home that night, my team member Grace answers a phone call, and she hands me the phone and says “I think this is your mom.” I was a little confused as to how my mom had Grace’s number, but I figured somehow she had gotten ahold of our leadership team and gotten her number because she found out my phone was completely dead. So I answered the phone thinking that was the conversation we were about to have.

Unfortunately that was not the conversation we had. My mom told me that a day ago, my pawpaw had a heart attack and passed away. This was completely unexpected for me. It was so hard to hear because my pawpaw and I were very close.

The next week or so was very hard. Grieving is always hard, but this seemed unusually cruel. I had just arrived in Albania, and the culture shock was heavy. I went from sunny, bright, colorful, and warm Guatemala, to a new country that was dark, cold, and extremely unknown. I didn’t speak a single word of Albanian, and for the very first time in my entire life, I was living in a bustling city. The time difference between home and Tirana is 8 hours, and that seemed so hard because I could only talk to my family at night. Plus, I didn’t have a working phone to call them whenever I wanted. The wifi in our apartment only worked about 3 days a week because of all the rain, so that took out the communication via my laptop. On top of all that, I was in a new team with 3 girls that I had never been on a team with. Obviously they tried their very best, and I tried my best to communicate what I needed. Anytime I needed anything, they were there for me. But it was hard socially on all of us because we were just getting to know each other, and grief is weird.

It was really hard to be away from home during this time. All I was craving was comfort. I wanted to sit around with my family and recall silly stories of my pawpaw. I wanted to hug my sisters and cry with my dad. I just wanted to be there, but I was across the ocean in a country I had barely heard of, with people I barely knew. It was HARD.

The timing seemed all wrong, and I kept asking God “Why now? Why here?” Although I’ll never fully understand, I do know I had nothing and no one to fully rely on… except Jesus.

Jesus was the one who sat with me in my bed while I was crying and grieving. He was the one who answered all my “What REALLY happens after death” questions I was asking through his word (especially 1 Corinthians 15). I felt him holding me when I was alone, and I pressed into Him and Him alone as I grieved. And honestly, what a gift that is. It grew my intimacy with God in an incredible way. When I just wanted to cry and talk to my family, they were asleep on the other side of the ocean. But God wasn’t. When I wanted to cry in the arms of the friends I made in Guatemala, they were on other teams in other cities. But God wasn’t. I had big questions and big feelings. But God wasn’t scared of any of them. I was brokenhearted, but he drew near to me just like he promises in Matthew 5.

God knew what he was doing when he allowed my pawpaw to pass away during this time. I see the fruit of it now, although I definitely questioned it when I was in the middle of it. I know how God cradles the brokenhearted, and how he gives them strength. I see his hand at work through all of it, and I’m so grateful I have a God who cares enough about me to be with me in the hard times.

I am also thankful for my sweet team that let me talk and process the silliest, smallest, and hardest things with them. They never failed to cheer me up. They saw me at the lowest, and encouraged me through it all. I am so thankful for them, and I love them so much.

(Our cute little apartment in Tirana!)

(a cool building in the center of the city)

(the view from our apartment!)

Albania had so much good in it though. Those first few weeks were super hard, but were followed by the sweetest friendships, coolest experiences, and deepest connections! Our team really connected with the young adults of the church we were partnered with. We spent many days and nights getting to know them, and pouring into them. They poured into us too, and taught us all how good community outside of the race should look like!

Our church in Albania was so sweet to us. Obviously Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and we didn’t think we would get to celebrate in any big way when it came around. We were wrong about that! A family from the church put on a HUGE Thanksgiving celebration! So many people from the church came, and it was so fun! They had classic American dishes like turkey, sweet potato pie, and mashed potatoes, but they also had classic Albanian dishes for us to try too! My favorite was the dessert. They had homemade baklava, and it was one of the most delicious things I have ever had in my entire life. We felt so loved and at home that day. I am so thankful for such a sweet church family that poured into us.

(Our Albanian friends!)

(Baklava!)

We got to celebrate Thanksgiving the next weekend with our entire squad in Pogradec, Albania! It was so wonderful getting to reconnect and feel refreshed by the squad. It felt like family coming together, and that was really special. It was also hard because it made me miss my family and my grandpa, but it was so wonderful to have people around me to process all of that with.

(my team in Progradec!)

(The whole squad for Thanksgiving!)

ICF church in Tirana asked us all to speak at some point during our time there, and this was challenging because I really do not like public speaking. Something we all were growing in was hearing the voice of the Lord on a daily and personal basis, and it was so cool because thats exactly what the pastor wanted us all to speak on from the stage. I shared about a time in Guatemala when during a time of prayer, I heard one of my teammates names SO clearly, and shared that after the prayer. She said that right as I was hearing her name, she was frustrated with God because she just wanted Him to say her name and speak to her more clearly. God used our unity to allow her to hear His voice, and that was so cool. After I spoke, I received some good feedback on how it touched the hearts of the congregation, and on how I can improve for next time I’m asked to share!

One of the days we were walking home from church, we ran into a man on the street. He was an American man from Alabama traveling Eastern Europe. We struck up a conversation with him, and we all ended up getting dinner together. He was a very intelligent and open man, and gave us space to talk about "what we were passionate about." Of course, all of our answers were that we were passionate about Jesus! So he heard all of our testimonies, and had a very deep and long conversation about God, Jesus, and religion. We all felt in our souls that the man wasn't ready to reviceve Jesus, but the conversation was very growing for us all. Please pray for this man to come to know Jesus! He has all the head knowledge, he just needs a move of the Holy Spirit for it all to become heart knowledge!

Another part of the ministry our team took part in was pouring into a local missionary family one of our teammates previously went to church with back in the states. The couple had moved here several years ago, and were going through some heavy stuff with their ministry. We were able to encourage them, pray for them, and spend some quality girl time with the wife. She shared after our time that this really blessed her, because she struggles with community here. We were able to get really vulnerable with her, and we all grew in our faith from that vulnerability. She poured into us also by teaching us how to grocery shop in Albania, and she took us to the local national park one day, which refreshed us all so much! We were able to introduce the wife to one of our friends from ICF, and we are praying that the churches begin to have better relationships with each other in Albania because unity in the body is something that they struggle with. I would love for you to partner in prayer with that as well!

Our last week in Tirana, we helped with two big Christmas events. The first was with the Jonathan Center. It was a time of celebration and sharing the gospel with the patients there. Our landlord has a traveling children’s ministry in which he puts on a very unforgettable puppet show in combo with a clown, and shares the gospel through that. So he put on that show, and we helped with the event. I helped by doing face painting, which I had never done before, but ended up really enjoying!

The next day, we helped with ICF’s Christmas event, which took place in the center of the city at a Christmas fair. The church had a whole booth, and we helped by making balloon animals, sharing the gospel, playing with kids, and doing face paint again! I ended up connecting with a couple of teenage girls, and we had a conversation about Greek Mythology, and they told me that they don’t fully believe in Greek mythology, but they are super intrigued by it. We ended up exchanging instagrams, and I’m hoping our conversations lead to more gospel conversations in the future. I would love if you could pray for these sweet girls to become as curious about Jesus as they are about Greek mythology!

Another really cool thing that happened was my team and I went into this giant mosque in the middle of Tirana, and we got to pray out loud in the coffee shop in there to the one true living God. We were undoubtedly the only Christians in entire building and surrounding area. It felt powerful, and also broke my heart that everyone around me was living a life without the hope of Christ.

I got to take a day trip with my teammate Grace on our day off. We went to Barat, Albania. This trip really bonded us, and made us feel like “normal” people again. Being on the field for so long now, we both really needed that. And Berat was so beautiful!

I’ll end this blog with a silly little story about the craziest thing I have eaten while on the field. On our final night in Tirana, we went out to eat with our ministry hosts. We went to a nice restaurant where they knew the people who worked there pretty well. I’m not sure entirely how this all came about, but somehow the workers there wanted to honor our ministry hosts, and in Albania, one way they do this is by serving them a cooked sheep’s head! I have never in my life seen something so strange! They brought it out, cooked and cut in half for us to eat. All four of us girl’s faces must have been totally shocked, because our hosts explained that this was a huge honor in their culture, because there is only one head on a sheep, and it was very meaningful to be served it! It’s not even on the menu to order, it has to be presented to you! They encouraged us to eat it. Unashamedly, I ate the sheep’s brain, and the sheep’s tongue! If served another sheep’s head in my life, I do not think I will pick either of those organs to eat again, but now I have a story for when people ask “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?”

Thank you all for your support and prayers in this mission trip. I am learning so much about the Lord, and hopefully teaching and encouraging others in their walk too. I really appreciate every single one of you reading this! God bless you!

(A few more photos from Albania for you all!)