This is going to be a very full summer! I have just written an e-mail update describing most of the activities of the summer, so I will not rewrite it here. What I did not mention is that during most of the summer we will also have an extra child! Caleb’s best friend from Jackson, Turner Zahn, will be arriving here in Albania around June 8 or 9 and will be spending the summer with us. He is a great young man so we are looking forward to his being with us. It will be fun for all of the kids to have an old friend here to share things with. It also means that Caleb gets his new loft bed (so does Emily for that matter). So – in addition to scrambling around trying to get details ready for the team this is due to arrive 2 weeks form today, we are also trying to get the house ready for another “son” for the summer. Still we are really looking forward to sharing our summer with Turner.

We are also beginning to plan for a return to the US in November. Cindy’s folks will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in December so this looks like a good year to go back to the US for the holidays. We will try to squeeze in some church visits in addition to the family times, and may even try to get Erin to a couple of colleges so she can check them out. Next year is her senior year, so we need to be thinking ahead.

Life is plowing ahead full steam. God is opening all kinds of different ministry possibilities too. Last week I was asked to consider being part of a radio program for teens - kind of a “live studio audience” asking questions sort of thing. We’ll have to see about that one.

I dunno if I mentioned that we have changed kitties. We got a cat for the kids for Christmas – one that we rescued from certain death. Solid black, we named him Shadow – it was perfect! Unfortunately he had been abused so much that he never could get used to us, and would often lash out. We all have scars from him now. Since he would not settle down, we decided to give him his freedom, and dropped him off in a nice quiet neighborhood where he should do just fine. (I expect I will get flamed some for that…) We then adopted a tiny little kitten that was left on the doorstep of some of our co-workers. It took us a while to decide on his name, and for several days he was without an identity – thus we named him Jason (as in Jason Bourne – who also did not know who he was for some time!). He is adorable, but still a bit bitey. We are hopeful that since he was much younger when we got him, he can be trained. We have a couple of water bottles with “Kitty be good” written on them, though I doubt he can read. He starts to squint now when the bottles get near him though!

One recent development here that has taken us somewhat by surprise (very pleasantly, I might add) is that the local cinema is now syncing up better with the US schedules. Spiderman 3 actually opened the same day here as it did in the States! In a little bit, we will go see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 as well! It is kind of nice not to have to wait for 6 months for the movies to get here – like we used to just a few months ago.