Sundays: A Place of Refuge

Hey Friends & Family!!!

The majority of churchgoers in service here are women & children. What it looks like at home for a woman here in Albania is that she has no voice, no opinions of her own, and her sole calling is to be a good housewife and to care for the children.

In this culture, it’s completely acceptable for husbands to beat their wives, and society won’t look down upon it. The government has deemed it as an illegal act, but in the community, no one will rat anyone else when they see it happening. This leads to women wanting a place of refuge, which ends up being the church. The husbands aren’t against them going, but instead, take this as a time to drop their wives off at church in order to go out into the city and have their own personal time. Whether it’s infidelity, a time to smoke cigars, or a time to hang out with other men and get a coffee— they enjoy doing this without their wife and children nagging them. Women, however, take this precious time of being in church to pour their hearts out to God. They might not get beaten every day, but even if it looks like getting beaten down once a week, this really is detrimental to a woman’s soul.

Every woman wants to be loved. She desires to be seen as the crown jewel that Jesus sees her as. We love to be encouraged with our voices & told how much we matter— and more than that, we love to champion others in their callings.

Even subtly harsh words go deep down in the crevice of our hearts as a poison that leaks out into how we see the world—and this really does feed the beast of our insecurity. I personally can’t even imagine not just hearing one comment of how you’re unworthy to be loved, but living in a constant state of unworthiness. Being told day in and day out how worthless you are is the reality that Albanian women face— solely because of their gender. We as an all-woman team have seen the struggles & the heart cries of these women & it’s truly an honor to even be able to cry with them. Jesus sees their pain, and we get to have His eyes and glimpse into the heavens for true identity to be revealed in their lives.

It’s not an easy burden, it hurts every day to see how oppressed women are here. But wow, we get to go against the social norm & speak about life & what the true love of Jesus looks like. We have that responsibility in our day-to-day lives to intercede for our sisters, for the family as a whole, for society as a whole, to run back into the arms of Jesus.

From the core of my heart to yours,