10:22 pm
Today we
started later than we normally will. We started at 9am with a short morning prayer
service that is a conglomoration: 1/3 Morning Prayers from a prayer book, 1/3
Orthros and 1/3 other random prayers. Then we had quiet time and then
breakfast. Joining us for prayers, quiet time and breakfast were staff from
different ministries of the Archdiocese that then talked to us after breakfast
about all their different things. I felt bad – I was still kind of jetlagged
and dozed off a bit. They weren’t offended, though. They understood jetlag. (At
lunch later the professor of NT who is with us pointed me to two passages in the New
Testament: the fact that the Apostles fell asleep in Gethsemane right before
the climax of Jesus’s earthly ministry; and then he said not to feel bad if as
a priest people fall asleep during our sermons, because it even happened to St.
Paul in the Acts of the Apostles (understandably, though – they had gathered on
the first day of the week and St. Paul talked all day and all night. As it was
nearing Monday morning one guy fell asleep – I wish our people still had that
stamina!))
After talking with the staff
(around 12:30) we headed into Tirana (about a ½ hour drive) to visit the new
cathedral again. This time we went to the office of the Diakonia Agapes, an
Orthodox humanitarian/service organization. We were shown a powerpoint and the director talked to us, told us a lot, and answered some questions. They
also offered us coffee and snacks.
We got back to the Tabor Center around
2:45. Bishop Andoni was waiting for us. He had lunch with us and told us his
story. We finished lunch around 4:20. A few of us talked to Bishop Andoni for
another ½ hour (he’s really awesome!) and then Aaron, Matthew and I walked
around the property and saw the neighbors’ peacocks and looked into the half-finished
church that is being built on the property. Then Matthew (who prefers to be
referred to as Lord Bashford Duvall of Milbank III) and I walked down the
street a little bit. What a culture shock going out of the Tabor Center! It was
still great though – it felt very
European. He and I are both relatively dark so I wondered if people picked up
on the fact that we are Americans. He thinks they did because it felt like
people were staring at us a bit. We were looking for an internet café. We found
a place that said “Internet” but it looked shady and there was what looked like
a gang of hoodlums in front that had thrown a small rock at a truck driving by
and missed. We decided not to venture near the place.
A little after 6:00 we practiced
some singing of hymns and camp songs and such until the Albanian university
students came to join us for the evening. I ended up talking to one girl a lot
who reminds me of one of my friends from Worcester (probably her curly hair). She speaks English
and is very nice and has an interesting story. I sat next to her at dinner too.
I also sat next to another lady who works at the Archdiocese and who speaks both
Greek and English. I got to practice my Greek with her :)
After dinner we danced Albanian a
lot – they have a lot of nice dances that are pretty easy to learn especially
since they have the same beat and similar steps to the Greek dances that I
know. It was really fun! After the students left we did Compline and I came
upstairs to blog :)
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