ALBANIA
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Actions Speak Louder Than Words
I From the United States, Leilani Pollock served as a volunteer kindergarten teacher in Albania. She is a senior at Southern Adventist University, earning a degree in kinesiology.
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was super jetlagged but too nervous and excited to sleep. I couldn’t believe I was actually in Albania and that, within a few days, I’d be starting my new job teaching English to kids in the country’s first Adventist kindergarten. I had wanted to be a student missionary (SM) since attending the student mission vespers program my freshman year at Southern Adventist University. As I watched the SMs carrying flags from different nations, I felt a strong tug on my heart. I, too, wanted to serve! I hadn’t had a particular country in mind, but I’d asked God to send me somewhere unfamiliar to me. He had answered that prayer; I couldn’t even speak the language! As I lay in bed that first night, the reality of just how different everything was crushed down on me. How could I have committed a year of my life, so far from family and friends, to teach kids I couldn’t even
communicate with? Had I been crazy to accept this call? Tortured with loneliness and doubt, I wish I could have known then what I know now: God is always in control, He is always with us, and He will always provide for our needs. Unfortunately, it took some time for me to realize this. My first day at the kindergarten was one of the hardest days of my life. The kids, all 31 of them, wanted nothing to do with me. And I couldn’t understand a thing my coworkers were trying to tell me. A month later, things hadn’t improved. The kids weren’t learning much English, and their parents were getting frustrated with me. I didn’t feel qualified to do the job I thought God had called me to do. I felt like a failure. I prayed a lot those first weeks and clung to God’s promises. And then, slowly, I began to see
