Time flies!

Well, we did not get to see President Bush. Bummer! We waited for about 3 hours before giving up and going home out of the heat, only to see the President crowd surfing in Fushë Krujë on our television a little while later! It was great to see the reception and respect shown our president - I guess it kind of made up for the lack of respect so much of the journalistic community showed/shows him most of the rest of the time. His reception was so good that now the word is that former President Clinton will now make a visit to Albania sometime in the fall! We'll see how that goes I guess. Albanians are very appreciative of all of the help that the US has given and especially the support for an independent Kosova. I think the Clinton visit is going to coincide with an announcement of Kosovar independence, since he was the one who ordered the intervention there.

Our time with the Northbrook team was fantastic, if a bit tiring. Much work was done for the kingdom and some great relationships were started too. We kept everyone busy going in three or four different directions most days, and endured heat, flesh eating plants, and dangerous traffic. Everyone seemed to really enjoy their experiences here and I believe we will see some of the teammates again!

After the Northbrook team left, our kids joined many other MKs for a camp especially for them, hosted by a team from Journey Church in Oklahoma. They all had a blast! One of the strangest things I think I heard about was them playing "Ultimate frisbee" with a cow tongue! (Yup - a real cow's tongue!) I dunno if the kids have posted photos of it on their Facebook pages, but they ought to I guess! OH - you can now find most of us on Facebook - excepting Emily of course since she is still a bit young for it. Look us up if you have not found us there already!

This weekend we are going to head up to Montengro for a dual purpose trip. One is to relax a bit, show Turner a bit more country, and re-charge before starting the next big campaign on Tuesday, and the other is to check out the hotel where we will be having our AEP Conference in October and to finalize a contract for its use. I hope to be able to do a little bit of snorkeling as well as get the work done!

Last week I went out to our vehicle (parked on the street in front of our apartment building) to take our kitty over to get a shot (he had been "it-ified" - Erin's term for neutering - the day before) and found that someone had slashed two of our tires! Apparently someone did not like where I had parked. I was able to get one of the tires patched, so with it and the spare, I was able to go buy two new tires. We'll need to get the other two replaced soon, but it will need to wait until next month I think.

Next week starts the big evangelistic campaign, "Life for Tirana". We will be very busy over the next two weeks with program for all ages, free car washes, trash pick-up, water distribution and many other things. Keep us in your prayers! All of this high level activity tends to be pretty draining, both physically and spiritually. We covet the prayer support!