My Albanian Vacation

I stood in the 8'x12', reeking-of-urine, sparsely furnished room and thanked God that I would not have to postpone the Italy portion of our trip while I waited to see if I would need rabies shots. There were many other things for which I could be thankful after my experiences of the past couple of hours, but that was the one that was forefront in my mind at that moment.

Karen and I had joined our daughter, Rebecca, and an Albanian Christian worker on a mission to deliver food boxes to some of the needy families they worked with. You must not think this "needy" resembles anything like the way we use the word in the United States. I'm not referring to people who are needy because they can only afford public transportation, or who fill out the forms to get a free or reduced lunch from the school, or who can't afford more than the basic data plan. No. Let me explain what "needy" means in so much of the world.

Our first stop was supposed to be to deliver some food to a single mother with several kids. The trouble was, nobody, not even one of her sons, seemed to know where she was. The kids were staying with the grandparents. Rebecca didn't want to leave the food with them because there was a very real possibility the perpetually drunken grandfather would trade it for booze. But, when we visited the house where the mother should have been, it was empty, except for the trash strewn about outside and in. One of the two rooms of this broken down, leaky, hovel was suffering from a severe case of the roof sags. Even a short person would have to duck to walk under this sagging roof (there was no ceiling, just the roof). There was no electricity nor running water. There was a 1/4" pipe out at the curb that supplied a trickle of water they had to carry into the house. It had once been suggested that the woman and her children should use the sunlit yard to grow some vegetables, but the landlord put the kabash on that idea. He comes by periodically to cut the weeds as feed for to his rabbits. Oh, I didn't mention that this habitat most of us wouldn't consider worthy of housing our animals has a landlord? Indeed, he takes half of the 4,000 Lek ($40) the woman gets from the government every month.

We took the boy with us as we drove down dirt roads, over brown grass, past dilapidated buildings to deliver some food to another single mother and her brood. She lived in a lower corner of one of those dilapidated buildings. Her situation was much better than the situation just mentioned. Her two little rooms had electricity, water from a constantly running pipe in the anteroom, and even a washing machine. Her living room, complete with two old sofas and a bed, was neat and clean. So was the brand new baby, the cutest little girl you could imagine, her jet black hair thick and shiny. It turns out, we had arrived just in time, as the baby's food was gone. The mother thought she had purchased baby formula, but since she can't read, it turned out to be sweetened condensed milk.  This is a woman Rebecca and others had tried to help get started in a small enterprise, earning money from selling used clothing. But, due to ignorance, lack of initiative, or both, that venture never panned out.

Our next stop was in the seediest part of town, at least from what I have seen. Whereas most cobblestone roads in the main part of town are swept and washed almost daily by the women who live in the property adjacent to each section, these roads were filthy and occupied by not just poor people, but creepy looking people. The main business in the immediate vicinity was a bar known for the prostitutes who work from there. We were headed for the home of the grandparents of the boy who was riding with us. It had been decided that his mother was not going to be located, so it would be better to give the food to the grandparents and hope it was used as intended. As soon as the car stopped, an old, very drunk man was at the window with his hand out. Grandfather continued to ask for money for cigarettes as we gathered around the grandmother to discuss the situation. Though I understand only two words of Albanian, it was obvious from his tone and body language as he spoke with our Albanian helper that he believed that I was rich and should give him his liquor money. He finally gave up and walked to a nearby step and sat down.

After the food was delivered inside, and as we were saying our good-byes, another man walked around
the corner, all smiles, and stood with two of the young girls in the family. He is not related to them. He works, it was revealed, for the owner of the "bar" around the corner, probably recruiting both clients and staff. We left with the sickening feeling that those young girls either were or soon would be working for him.

Our last stop was back across town in the general vicinity of Rebecca's home. We parked in front of an old, run-down office building that had been converted to small apartments. Electricity is available, but each renter must walk down to the park to fill containers with water from the public spigots. We walked up the two flights of stairs and down a long, dim hallway. We had almost made it to the last room on the right when a protective mama dog made an attempt to take a chunk out of my right calf. A man standing nearby smacked the dog and we hurried into the little room where I sent up my prayer of thanks. For some reason, the parable of the two men praying in the temple came to mind. You know, the one where the Pharisee prayed, thanking God that he was not a sinner like the robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even the tax collector standing next to him. The tax collector prayed and asked God to be merciful to him a sinner. It would have been so easy to pray that Pharisee's prayer, without the attitude of self-wrought superiority. Instead, as the woman who lived in this small room with her children prayed, thanking God over and over for watching out for them, I moved from thankfulness regarding the dog situation to asking for mercy on those poor, struggling, dregs of society, cast aside by prejudice and social and legal injustice.

So, it will be difficult, I hope for a long time to come, to complain about just about anything in my life. How insignificant my problems seem now. Does it really matter that I have to keep putting air in one of my tires?
At least I have a tire. Does it make any difference if I have to wait a few minutes for my computer to do what I want it to do? I have a computer and so many other electronic gadgets. I hope I will forever stop before I even begin to complain about my little first-world problems.

I hope you will be gracious and forgive me if I don't appear sympathetic to your little problems either. I just can't bring myself to care too much about how long you had to wait in line at Starbuck's, how that $600 stroller doesn't move just like you want it to, how your bed is so uncomfortable, or what a horrible day you had in your air-conditioned home with a fully stocked pantry and your clean, healthy, educated children, or how mean your boss was to you today after you drove one of your fully functioning vehicles to your comfortable little office where you earn enough money to buy your wife and children closets full of clothes and designer shoes. I just don't seem have it in me to grieve over such things right now.

Don't misunderstand. I am not opposed to accepting and using the rewards of hard work and wise investing. I just believe we need to get back to the beginning of all of it. We didn't get to choose where to be born; which country, what strata of society, or which chimney down which we were dropped. Therefore, all the privilege we enjoy is a gift from God, or should I say a responsibility? So, what right do I have to grumble about anything? What right do I have to shut out of my mind the horrid conditions into which others have been placed, and the injustice that keeps them there? I know I can do without this or that if doing so would help others, like my daughter and son-in-law, care for those in desperate need.

So, my challenge to each of us: Use the next moment of frustration caused by our wealth and condition to remember those in true need. And pray that it will change our lives.  Maybe even dedicate ourselves to actually doing something about it.  If I think and plan carefully, I just might be able to come up with another few bucks to dedicate to this or other ministries to the truly needy.