Joyful, Joy Filled

The Women's Day retreat was a wonderful success! What a GIFT it was for me to attend! Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who prayed for us!  In the days leading up to our departure we had not yet heard how many village neighbors might be attending.  Would it be a dozen? Would it be more? Or less?  After all, retreats are a completely foreign concept in this corner of the world.  Would all the preparation and goodies be for naught? When we arrived, Shpresa told us that there was a WAITING LIST of ladies who wanted to attend!  Praise the Lord!

In the days leading up to the retreat we visited about half of the women who had registered.  We were curious to hear how much of a hardship it might be for some of them to attend, to get permission from husbands and fathers to leave town overnight.  From what we heard, participation would not have been nearly so high ten years ago, but today, there was a trust in my parents and Planters that allowed many of the ladies to come.

(Below) Shpresa knew of a hotel on the sea in Durres (known in ancient times as the city of Illyricum), just about 20 minutes from Vlashaj. In the history of Christianity in this region, this city has played a significant role.  This particular hotel had facilities well-suited to accomodate our event (i.e. a conference room).  The Florida team brought gift bags for each attendee and before their arrival at the hotel, we placed gift bags on each bed, chocolates on each pillow, and tacked a scripture verse (related to the theme) on each mirror.

Of course, every conference requires a registration table!  I have a funny story for later related to my use of "Google translate" for the program text.  It may be in next newsletter we send out, so you'll just have to wait.

A bus was rented to transport the ladies from Vlashaj to Durres. The advance team served as the welcoming committee.  Can we just say we were blown away by how nice the women looked?  Many had obviously visited the hairdresser that afternoon and were dressed 'to the nines'.  This was obviously a very big deal and we were touched.  It was also sweet to see them search out with their eyes for the ones of us who had been to their homes.  The pre-retreat home visits were so beneficial.  We only wished we could have made more!

We opened with crafts and a few games before dinner.  They made wreaths out of coffee filters and wire hangers (I can't say that I've ever seen a wreath in Albania before, but hey, maybe this will start a new decorating trend!).  They also decorated wooden picture frames that would later be filled with a memento from the event.  These ladies cranked out the crafts FAST!  One would have thought it was a competition or something, not a relaxing activity!  I have a feeling that most of these women are conditioned to only operate in "work" mode!

When craft time was over, everyone was released to their rooms to change for the banquet in the hotel restaurant.

While this was my first time to celebrate Women's Day in Albania, I understand traditional dancing is customary.  I should have jumped in and joined in, but my lack of rhythm, combined with my two left feet kept me hiding behind my camera while the others danced! I'm going to have to study the steps and practice before next March!

The ladies basically sidestep in a circle, and the line leader waves a handkerchief or cloth napkin.  I'll see if I can find video to upload later!

(Below)  I brought a photo backdrop and took portraits of each attendee for a later project/gift (remember those photo frames they made during craft time?).

After the dancing, Tina and Lacy came to my room to help me set up our little photo lab, plugging in transformers, stringing cords and changing out toner cartridges.  They were troopers because we were all exhausted by this point and we had to dump the images, select the best to print, color correct and export to JPG!  It was after midnight before we closed up our shop!

It turns out that Lacy, Tina, Hannah and I weren't the only ones to stay up til the wee hours.  We were told that the women were up very late visiting with their friends, swapping rooms, combining in some rooms so they could chat even later and not have to run back and forth in the hallway in their 'jammies'.  It reminded me of summer camp and I was tickled that they so enjoyed their time of fellowship!  One participant told me, "We never have time to just have fun with our friends!"  Others told us they wanted to go walk on the beach.  Because they had never been before.  My mind can't even wrap around the possibility that some of these women had lived 20 minutes from the sea but had never been there.  I traveled further to high school each day.

I was so glad to get the photo above at breakfast. Unbeknownst to us at the time, these ladies were four of the six women who would be in my small group!

Friday was all about JOY!  Joy in the midst of difficulties, joy that can only come from the Lord, joy not affected by circumstances surrounding us.

The three women from Florida who shared during the three sessions (Renee, Renee's daughter Jenna, and Sue) were real, sharing struggles and difficulties from their lives, but how the Lord had helped them through those trials.  The ladies at the retreat told us in their small group that they were blown away by their vulnerability.

Each session included worship, even though the vast majority of attendees were not self-identifying believers.  On a personal note, I was concerned that tardiness would prevent many from missing some of the key elements of each session.  It turns out that cell phones were the biggest distraction (in spite of politely, and sometimes humorously, reminding them to turn them off before each session).  Inevitably, whenever Jesus' death and resurrection was discussed, someone's phone would ring.  And ring.  And ring.  And then usually it would be answered.

Aren't their smiles just lovely?  They had such a good time.

During the last set of 'games', I snuck out to the lobby and with the help of my friend, Mira, the village nurse, we matched every one's portrait with her respective frame. It was so fun to see their faces when they walked out at the end of the retreat to find their frames filled and waiting for them!

The weather had been rather bleh.  Cool, misty, definitely overcast -- there were no sparkling views of the sea out the window to distract us.  However, after the final session, we told the women in our small group that if they had a prayer concern, they could pray with their small group leader.  We specifically asked if they wanted to invite Jesus into their hearts and four responded, "YES!".  We had many precious moments, and during it all, the sun broke through and filled the room with a warm glow that lasted until the ladies loaded back up in the buses to go home.

Sue, the team leader from The Family Church, had the wonderful idea to bring sand from Florida to mix with sand from the beach outside the hotel... unfortunately, the bag of sand was one of the many items which 'disappeared' out of their luggage in transit.  Thankfully, the shells did not, so they put Florida shells in Albanian sand and we closed out the retreat.

In spite of leaving after the ladies (to pack up all of our supplies and equipment), we managed to get back to Vlashaj as they had just disembarked from the bus which dropped them off at the bottom of the hill.  I jumped out the van and whipped out my long lens.  I'm afraid you can't truly sense the number of ladies in the pack below from my perspective, but it was a beautiful scene.

After showing these photographs to my mom, she shared a story from a couple of years ago.  She had been hosting a friend from Texas who has a prayer ministry. After this individual had completed a prayer walk in the village, she approached Mom and Shpresa to say that she had seen a vision of village women walking as a group down the street.  She said, "I see a harvest of souls from the women of this village!"

More goodbyes...

Lavdi Zoti! (Praise God!)  What a beautiful time.  What a gift.  For all of us.