Being evacuated out of Albania when I was thirteen has been the most difficult challenge of my life. My parents had been medically evacuated from Albania, and my brother was at boarding school. I was enjoying an extended stay with my best friends in Albania, that is, until anarchy broke out. Every week or so, I was able to talk briefly with my parents on the phone at a fellow worker’s house; she had the only land line in the community. I began to realize that my parents were still quite sick. I might have to leave Albania to join them in the States… and it sounded as though we might not ever return. The thought of leaving my home and my friends was frightening to me; America was a strange and foreign place to me.
But the situation in Albania was becoming more heated. One day I watched a mob of Albanians burn the democratic party building in our city. Rumors of plundering and uprisings against the government and the police filtered through to us almost daily. Finally, I received the message that I dreaded. My parents had called the worker with the land line and explained that I needed to leave the very next day during the countrywide ceasefire. They had made arrangements for my flight back to the States.
And so I packed all that day and made the circuit to say goodbye to all my friends. I was unsure whether I would ever see them again. I left the next day with my teacher and arrived safely in Thessaloniki, Greece. For the first time in my life, I boarded a plane by myself, feeling very much like a refugee. Though it took me many years to process the shock of that time, it was also the time of greatest spiritual growth in my life. I was forced to surrender my attachment to friends and to surrounding pleasures and to depend on the Lord alone.
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