One Whole Year!

Well, I said at the outset of this thing that I was not very good at blogging. I have been out on the road a good bit lately and have not had the time to sit down and put down my thoughts so I am trying to get some down now.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Durres for the annual meeting of the VUSh – the acronym is the Albanian letters for the “Vellazerit Ungjillore e Shqiperise” or the Albanian Evangelical Brotherhood. This is the body that represents the Evangelical church in Albania, and is governed by Albanians. It kind of stands as a parallel structure to the AEP only it deals more with the churches as we deal more with the organizations and foreign missionaries. It was enlightening in a couple of ways, and if I am to be entirely honest here, a bit discouraging. As far as the church has come here in the last 16 years, it is clear that there is still a long ways to go. I know the same could be said for the church in America too, but it was still a little bit of a bummer. I hope and pray that over the next 3 years, the new leadership that was elected at this meeting will be successful in restoring unity in the church here.

This week, I was invited to take part in a Missions Consult hosted by a church in Korçë. It was a gathering of leaders from many different segments of the Evangelical church to discuss various aspects of sending Albanian missionaries out of our churches here. It was a very healthy discussion and very timely as several churches are trying to send out teams into neighboring countries. It was exciting to be a part of the discussion and hear what various others are doing in this area.

Yesterday marked our one year anniversary of our return to Albania, so we took the kids up to Mt Dajti to have a little bit of fun. They had not been able to ride the “teleferik” or chairlift since we got here, and Cindy and I had only done it once, so we all went up the mountain that way. Once at the top we walked around a bit and then had a bit of a picnic. Cindy had made some home-made peanut butter and put it into a Ziploc bowl. When we got to the top and opened my backpack, we found that it had opened up and the peanut butter had leaked! It was quite funny actually, as we started using bread to wipe up the peanut butter from the outside of the bowl, and the inside of the bag! It was a mess. We walked to the edge of the mountain and looked over, but by the time we got up there some clouds had started moving in and obscured our view of the city. It was still a lot of fun. Caleb and I threw a Vortex football for a while and the kids played on the playground equipment. It was late in the day so we had to head down after only an hour or so. After that we went out for dinner at a restaurant called the “Gjeli” (rooster in Shqip). It used to be a favorite of Cindy and I when we lived here before, and now it is a little bit fancier and more expensive. The coolest thing about the place is that the meat is all cooked on an open fire in this huge central fireplace. Very fun to watch, and presents a great atmosphere. The kids loved it! After that, back home to watch an episode of JAG on dvd and on to bed!