What does a missionary do all day long?

Had to share this post from a fellow missionary in Albania.  David and his family live and minister in a smaller city about an hour from Tirana. 

Once upon a furlough, a sweet but naive man told me, “I bet it’s so incredible to be a missionary, to have nothing else to do but evangelize all day long.”  (At this point my missionary readers are chuckling audibly, because they all know that sometimes the simplest tasks can be all-day events in developing nations.)  Yesterday, as I must do each summer, I re-registered my Ford Transit van–and that’s about all I did yesterday.  Here was my day:

Step 1.  Drive out of the city to the police station with all the documents that were required of me last year for the same process.

Step 2.  Wait in a line for an hour in the sun (OK, I’m being generous — this is NOT a line, it is a mob of other sweaty, stinky men, all mashed upon you, jockeying for position, elbowing into one another’s ribs in front of a small barred window, behind which one man is processing what seems to be the whole world’s vehicle documents, by hand.  Three other employees are sitting with him, drinking coffee but, predictably, doing nothing.)

Step 3.  An hour later, when I finally elbow my way up to the window, I learn that this year I need to go to get a pre-inspection, down the road, so they can make sure my van isn’t stolen. My first hour in the sun amidst the aroma of body odor has been in vain.

Step 4.  I wait behind other cars for pre-inspection, and after 30 minutes, it is my turn.  But the people need to see my passport and visa.  I have in my hand the originals and photocopies. But no, they want a notarized photocopy.  Logically, there is no notary nearby.  I must drive back into town.

This resembles our life.