Back from the Balkans!

Hello everyone!

My team and I finished the last phase of our missions trip, and we are back in Paris again! The last 7 weeks I have been traveling around Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo, working with churches, organizations, and locals to help serve the communities and share God's love. It has been an amazing few months.

---

Albania!

Statistics:

Prayed for: 74

Salvations: at least 2

Healings: 1

Gospel shared: 109

Mercy ministries: 103

Bibles given: 174

First 18 days we lived on another YWAM base in Durres, Albania. Me and my co-leader Florent were leading a team of 5 students (plus a 2 year old and a 1 year old). The base there was in the middle of a summer bible project with a few other international teams, and we joined along side of them to do evangelism and worship on the beach every night, as well as pass out hundreds of Bibles. Albania is a nationally muslim nation, and yet people were so receptive and open to the gospel.

Within the first week we were there, I got to meet a mother of 3. We talked for a long time about her life and work, and then eventually she opened up to me about her worries as a mother, her struggles with loneliness, and her feelings about religion. She was from a muslim home, but she remembers having a real encounter with Jesus when she prayed as a young child. She never forgot that moment, but never knew how to explain it or what it meant, until she and I got to meet. By the time I finished sharing who Jesus is, and what He's done in my life personally, when I asked her if she would also like a personal relationship with him, she immediately nodded, eyes wide with excitement and said "Yes! Absolutely!". She gave her life to Jesus that night, and I got to give her a bible and connect her with the church we were working with. So awesome!

Also in Albania, we got to share and even preach in 3 churches, and lead a few bible studies as well to help encourage the local Christians. We even were allowed to go to 2 prisons and share the gospel and bring gifts. I had the privilege to be the one to preach in the women's prison, and around 60 woman were there that day, and I saw multiple praying along with me at the end to give their lives to Jesus. It was really cool, because I felt really unprepared before we got there and had no idea what I should say, but God helped me speak and I felt Him strongly with me as I shared the gospel with those women. God really moved that day in the prison!

---

Montenegro

Statistics:

Prayed for: 25

Gospel shared: 11

Healings: 1

Bibles given: 65

Next, we traveled on bus through the mountains and stayed the next 2 1/2 weeks in Podgorica (the capitol of Montenegro). We partnered with 2 of the local churches and helped lead worship, shared testimonies, and encouraged the community there. Even though we did street evangelism almost every day, this country was a lot more closed off spiritually, surprisingly. So, we did a lot of prayer and a lot of worship throughout the city.

We also got to serve under a young missionary couple from America, that had a heart for the nation and planned to plant a church. They had been there a year, and were still struggling to reach breakthrough. They wanted to start with bible studies, but needed a way to meet the community and the people. So we gave them the idea to start an English Club! We prayed, and joined with them, and they thought it was the perfect start to what God was calling them to! So we also spent a few nights passing out flyers and advertising the club, then hosted it in a cafe on one of our last nights. It's now been running for 3 weeks, and has a consistent group of about 10 people, and even got interview with the local news show there in the city! Amazing to be a part of the start of something new and encourage the missionary couple in their vision.

---

Kosovo

Statistics:

Prayed for: 14

Gospel shared: 42

Mercy ministries: 562

Bibles given: 55

Our last 2 weeks of outreach were spent in the cities Pristina and Gjokova in the country of Kosovo! This was my favorite location of them all because Service International (the missions organization out of my home church St. Louis Family Church) has a church planted in this country and I've gotten to serve there a few times before on past missions trips when I was in high school.

Here we worked a lot with children, because there are large populations of gypsies in these cities. Unfortunately, this people group is treated often like lower-class outcasts by a lot of the country, so the frequently live in very poor conditions. The kids don't get a lot of love and affection, so we got to go to their camp and bring some joy. We went multiple days, played songs, shared bible stories and the gospel, helped clean up trash, and really got to meet many amazing kids. It's amazing how much a child can appreciate just being seen and encouraged, when they're not used to that.

We also partnered with Service International and put together 560 free back-to-school gifts for children in a local community, then got to pass a lot of them out personally to the families. Other nights we got to do street evangelism and bible distribution, and handed out around 55 bibles! People in Kosovo are beautiful and warm, and I know I will go back again one day.

---

TOTAL STATISTICS:

Salvations: at least 2!

Prayed for: 113

Instant Healings: 2

Bibles given: 294

Gospel shared to: 164

Mercy ministries: 663

---

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

All of you who prayed for me, gave towards this missions trip, and supported me, I can't describe how much it means to me.

None of this would have been possible without YOU!

Next up for me...I will be helping in the media department on base, and also helping teach when the Medical DTS students that start their DTS this October! This is the same type of school that I did when I was in Australia and just finished staffing, except with a Medical focus. I won't be full time staff for the school, but I definitely will help out. For now though, I'm going to have some much needed rest and relaxation and try and ground myself after a long and intense 6 months. I will also try and do more photography on the side in order to raise more money for staff fees and future missions trips.

Prayer Requests:

• Still around $100 short on my monthly support, so please pray for provision and abundance in finances, and if you could pray and consider joining me in monthly support, that would be incredible.

• Please pray that I get more photography jobs!

• That I can really ground myself here in this next season and build strong relationships with people on the base.

• That I can adjust well into the new role in charge of base media and excel in this area.