In a situation where there is a shortage of everything, can you ‘just’ pray for food, health and money? Mdw’er Wilma de Vries She often asks herself this question. In Albania, she helps to provide diaconal support to churches. She takes us along on her visits during an afternoon of home visits and tells us how she sees God’s hand at work amidst complex situations.
Always a surprise
“Just park your car over there; we’re going to visit someone here for a bit.” Tuesday afternoons are always full of surprises. I never know in advance where Pastor Fitije is taking me. Sometimes I find myself in beautiful houses, but usually we end up in cold, draughty little rooms. Now that the sun is shining brightly again, people are back out on the streets. It’s better to be there than inside walls covered in mould.
We walk through narrow streets, passing some rather lovely houses. It only serves to pique my curiosity even more. I’ve never been here before. I know that things might be different round every corner we turn. And indeed, little by little, the streetscape changes. The tarmac gives way, the tall gates disappear from view, the silence is replaced by noise, and the fresh scent of spring is replaced by a mixture of decay, smoke and sweat. Everywhere I look, shacks have been built. Wooden planks, corrugated iron, plastic: anything that can be used has been used to build something habitable.
Are you a doctor?
We step inside the first cottage. We are given a warm welcome. Inside, it looks surprisingly tidy. The room contains a neatly made bed, a sofa and a small cupboard that serves as a kitchenette. The floor is clean. A young woman looks at me with a beaming smile. Of course I’m welcome! “Are you a doctor?” Before I can set the record straight, she’s already rolled up her sleeve and is rattling off her problems. Twenty-one years old, three children, the eldest of whom is six. A shiver runs down my spine. Whilst I take her blood pressure, we have a bit of a chat. Meanwhile, a handful of children gather round me. It’s fascinating to listen to your own heartbeat for a moment. Do they go to school? “No way,” says the girl who, according to her mum, is six, but looks like a three-year-old. I wonder if her mum can count?
Like in a slum
We go from cottage to cottage. For a moment, I feel as though I’m back in the endless shanty towns of South Africa where I was in 2014. The smell, the noise, the type of houses, the problems… But I really am on a tiny patch of land in Albania. Sometimes I shake a dog off my trouser leg. Or I call out to the neighbours to turn the music down a bit, because I can’t listen to the lungs properly like this. I assess some skin conditions and try not to start scratching myself when I see the remnants of a scabies infection. I explain to a fourteen-year-old that vaping is incredibly harmful. A gentle approach won’t work here, so I give him a choice: “Do you want to get cancer or not?” My better judgement protests, because of course he doesn’t have that choice. Does he actually even have the choice to stop smoking? Do you have a choice when all the men around you – and many women too – smoke? Whilst I’m giving him a telling-off, the lad in question carries on, unperturbed, patching his bike tyre. After all, tomorrow he’ll have to go and collect scrap metal on his bike again. I have countless little chats about smoking. “Why do you smoke?” “Stressed, stressed,” comes the reply. A baby smiles mischievously when I manage to cradle her in my arms, and a woman doesn’t believe me when I tell her that the paracetamol she faithfully takes three times a day isn’t for her heart. A man is angry because I don’t have a miracle cure for his kidney stones with me.
Praying for the best
In every cottage, I am asked to pray. I hear my own words: “Dear Lord, You are the God full of love, full of grace, full of goodness… We pray to You: let this be evident every day in our food, in our health, and in the money we need for our necessities.” I feel doubt welling up in my heart: “Can I really pray this here? Here, where the problems are so complex…” My respect for the pastor and my colleague, who comes here every week, only grows. They have started a children’s club here and are working amongst the women, to spread the Gospel here too.
The Work of God
As we make our way back home, I find myself wondering what I have seen of God here. The woman who gave me such a warm welcome into her little cottage told me, with eyes shining, that she loves Jesus, and that she has so much peace and joy in her heart. What a light she is to those around her!
And do you know what the last little building was that we visited? The new church, as Pastor Fitije called it. A little house, a small building, a little church, a barrack… can it really be called that? People commonly call it a barrack. I like to call it a place of hope. A place of hope, of light, a place for the Lord. It is not the appearance that matters, but the heart that rejoices because God is present in the misery, in the poverty. Because He also brings people there who are a light, who bring His gospel. Because He builds His home there too. Just such a little house for Himself as the ones in which the people live, amongst whom He wishes to dwell.
That is what I say today: the God who dwells amongst people. Scorned by others, loved by Him.
