Today is the last day of the walk. In the last 3 weeks there have been eighteen days of actual walking. I have walked 16 of them, Richard has walked them all. Jeremy Parks from the UK walked all of the first week with us, Steve Byrne walked the first couple of days before falling victim to some pretty sever blisters, Hervin Fushekati walked 4 and a half days. Tom Norton, from Cleveland OH drove most days and then on the two days I was not walking, he took my place, through the worst rain of the walk. Gary walked with us two days before needing to go home to the UK to bury his mother and Roy, our videographer, has been with us walking some (often backwards - trying to get just the right camera angle) since Llogora. Today Richard's wife, Linda, joined us for the last day of the walk.
We started out the day in Richard and Linda's kitchen having a nice breakfast followed by devotions. Richard took us back to the beginning of the walk, once again reading from Micah 6:4-8. He then read some newspaper clippings related to trafficking. After a time of prayer, we set off to the starting point of our final day. As we got underway, I sent Cindy a quick text message, and just as I was hitting the "send" button, she phoned me. The headache she has been struggling with for het last three days has been so bad that she asked me to catch the very first bus home tonight, rather than waiting for the morning bus. It is hard to be so far away when she is suffering so much so I sent out an urgent request for prayer to many of our local friends. As I was entering this text, a fox crossed the road in front of us - something a bit unusual.
Today's piece ended up being a bit longer than we thought it was going to be, and then as we neared the end something happened that was entirely fitting - and very Albanian! We had planned to go to the border crossing at a town called Konispol. Shaban, our loyal friend and support driver, has his mother-in-law living there, so he knows the area well. As we approached the village - perched on the side of a large hill - we saw a sign that said "Qaf bot - Dogan" with an arrow pointing straight and "Konispol Qender" with an arrow pointing to the left. Shaban told us to go left, up the hill to Konispol, and he would meet us in the center there. He also said it was only one to one and a half kilometers up the hill. We started on up the hill thinking that at last we were near the border crossing that would mark the end of our walk. As we walked up it started raining lightly and that kilometer stretched itself out until it was about 2 miles! In that time we climbed about 1000 feet vertically as well. The village itself is gorgeous with many very old houses (some over 250 years old) and an absolutely stunning view back to the sea and the island of Corfu. When we finally got to the top, we asked which way to the border and Shaban pointed us in the direction of the older houses and a huge radio antenna. "It is at the base of the antenna", said Shaban. As we get closer to the antenna, the road gets progressively worse and worse. I commented on that and Richard said that it used to be only a foot crossing over the border here. Well, when we finally get to the top, there is a huge old monument to some WW2 war heroes and a bar café - NO BORDER CROSSING!! We asked Shaban about it and he said, "There it is - down there!" and points to the crossing down at the bottom of the hill! We should have gone straight instead of turning up the hill to the village! Well, after a good chuckle about it (albeit a tired chuckle) we had a coffee, enjoyed the view, then drove back down to the bottom of the hill where we started off again - the right direction this time. Richard, Linda, and I walked the last couple of kilometers to the border crossing and the end of the Walk of Hope! The last two or three kilometers were in the rain, but we crossed the Albanian side of the border with pleasure!
I walked up to one of the border guards and gave him greetings from the border police at Hani I Hotit and told him that we had walked all the way from there. He was pretty surprised and asked us why we had done it, so we were able to explain a bit. After that, Shaban wanted to go into the "no man's land" between the two borders and visit the Duty Free shop, so I went with him. After a few minutes there we headed back to the vehicles and drove up to Shaban's mother-in-law's house for a nice lunch of fish, homemade sheep cheese, salad with olives from her trees, fruit topped with honey and cinnamon, and then bread and honey from her own bees. Shaban kept telling us, "She looks like Mother Teresa, doesn't she?" and in fact she did a bit! It was a lunch to remember after a walk that I will never forget.
We have walked the length of a country from north to south. As far as we know, no one has done it before us - certainly no other missionaries have done it as a prayer walk before. Along the way we have prayed, chatted with people, joked, laughed, limped, run, hurried, sweated, prayed some more, been awestruck by God's creation. It has been a tremendous three weeks and for me the only blemish is the two days I had to pull off the walk. Some day I want to go back and walk those two days, so that I too can have the complete walk under my belt.
I think God has used us to accomplish the objectives of the walk.
We wanted to pray - and we did - praying for the girls and women who are caught up in the horrible business of Human Trafficking. We prayed for families that sell their own daughters out of their poverty and despair. We prayed for the traffickers - that God would cause them to be caught, that justice would prevail, and that believers would share the gospel with them so that, like John Newton, the slave trader turned hymn writer, they too can become trophies of God's amazing Grace. We prayed for honest police, judges, and border guards. We prayed for the church to stand up and be the hands and feet of Jesus, reaching out to these women who are fortunate enough to escape, so that they too can find the hope that we have in Christ. We prayed for many other things along the way too.
We wanted to raise awareness in the churches. In Vlore we heard the church express a desire to work more closely with a women's shelter there that deals with women who have been trafficked. In Durres we heard the church praying fervently for the people involved. Daily we received text messages of encouragement from churches in the UK and from people here in Albania who were praying for us along the way. In each town that we held a meeting we were encouraged by the responses of the churches, and we are confident that more people are aware of the issue and have some concrete ideas of how they can help too. We continue to pray that there will be a ripple effect in the days ahead with other churches getting involved as well.
We also wanted to raise money to help the women. While I have not raised any money personally, people in the UK have responded well. Time will tell just exactly how much money was raised, but I am certain that it will help here. Richard has said that we will meet at a future date to direct the funds raised to the best place. If anyone wants to contribute to the cause of helping bring hope to victims of trafficking I will be happy to give you information about how to give.
It has been a challenge and a blessing the be a part of this walk. I am certain that it has changed me in ways that are probably yet to be fully seen. I hope you have enjoyed the walk vicariously as you have read this blog.
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