I arrived here at Udhekryq Bible School in Erseke on Friday. Since then I have attended worship in Albanian, walked to a nearby small village, biked down the road a ways, hiked to a gorge, had coffee in one of the local cafes, and taught several sessions on the parables of Jesus. Yesterday and today were national holidays so they did not have classes at the University of Tirana so Nancy was able to join me here on Saturday, but she will have to return on Friday to teach a class the next day. I will be here for another week.

Erseke used to be dangerous. They tell me that the advice given travelers not so many years ago was simply not to stop here, and to bus passengers not to get off. It is a small town and the Greek border is just at the top of the hills outside the city limits. There is no place to stay and only one restaurant. The shops are small and the side streets that are paved were so only recently. The apartment buildings are typical communist-era buildings—drab and poorly constructed. There are a couple small industries here, like the local mill and the cheese factory situated just outside the gate of our school, but agriculture and shepherding seem to be the mainstays of the economy. This season of the year we can see small fires on the hillsides every night, evidence of shepherds burning patches of scrub brush so the ground will come to life with something the sheep can eat. And there is a great deal of unemployment.

Erseke began as a way station for travelers when a small store sprouted up in the middle of nowhere. Gradually more people brought their goods to sell and the town just grew. The people here were strongly supportive of the communist regime, and Erseke is still considered solidly socialist. The Orthodox church is new and the church that birthed the Bible school is fairly new as well. There is no mosque in town, which is unusual.

And Erseke is beautiful. The air is clear (after the cheese factory has boiled its milk for the day) and the vistas go on for ever. As it sets, the evening sun lights up the mountains, and the snow on their tops sparkles. The crops right now are in and the new ones not yet up, the trees have lost their leaves, and the apples have been picked and sold. So much is brown—but it is a beautiful brown. What the town lacks in man-made charm is more than compensated for by God-made hills and fields and streams.

And then there is the silence. Nancy and I live on one of the busiest streets in Tirana. Traffic is coming and going all hours of the day and night. This provides endless entertainment for us as we watch the weaving and running and near misses from our balcony, but it does make for noise and foul air. Erseke has none of that. The mooing of a cow or the barking of a dog may disturb the silence, but little else does. We can walk down the middle of the highway that goes through the town and seldom be forced to move to one side or the other. It is quiet… And that makes me pause and ponder what life must have been like in the past when there were no cars and when people were not in such a hurry and when the sound of silence prevailed. I think of David in the shepherd fields and pioneers trekking west and ranchers today in parts of our country. It is a good reminder and has a strange attraction. It challenges me to rediscover what it means to, "Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10). How about you?