Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Gabriel

In effort to record my daily happenings, I want to tell you about the interesting and pleasant man I met today, because I don't want to forget him!

As Steve and I were hopping into a furgon from Libonik to Korce, a man from the back seat immediately asked us in English, but with a HEAVY Albanian accent, "Where are you from?"

I turned around to see an older man (51), with a red complexion, soft blue eyes, and religious tattoos on each cheek of his face! One was written in Arabic "Allah is great" and the other a symbol for Allah.

We easily chatted with him about what we're doing in Albania and heard a bit about his experience in America. He went to the States as an illegal immigrant by hiding on a boat from France to the States without anything to eat or drink for a week!

Anyways, he loved talking about religion and eagerly welcomed discussion about faith. He kept emphasizing he wanted to discuss faith peaceably with us, and we agreed! As we were discussing the Bible, the driver of the furgon said, "speak in Albanian, this sounds interesting!!"

Before parting ways, Steve exchanged numbers with Gabriel with hopes to meet again for coffee. I quite enjoyed the company of our new friend, and even better, the driver let us ride for free! A good day!

1 comment:

ajplays said...

See? I told you it wouldn't take six months to come home by boat. ;)

What inspired Gabriel to go back to Albania?

What's up with the volcano/flight patterns?

WV: Mulapp- An application for remote viewing my kids' production of Mulan since you won't be back in time.