Jul

Hello Again,
On Sunday night we met for church services at 6:30 p.m. in our building. We had fellowship time for 30 minutes and started the Albanian service at 7:00. We had the windows open and the fans blowing but it was still very toasty in the room. There was a nice turn out for the service. The singing sounds really good in small room especially since there is no carpet or curtains to dampen any sound.
For the English service at 8:15 I led singing and Quinton (big Quinton that is) gave the lesson about Jesus' prayer in the Garden. At the conclusion of the service we chatted for awhile more then all the Americans and Alfred's family went to a favorite restaurant of Alfred's -- the Perla (Pearl). The restaurant is upscale for Albania and right on the Adriatic Coast -- very nice. It took us quite a while to order and we got our food well into the 10:00 hour. Most of us had a sea food spaghetti which included all sorts sea creatures. It was a good thing the lights were low or our kids (and Darin for that matter) would not have consumed much of the meal. It was really quite tasty. We finally got back to our apartment around 11:30 p.m. Quite an evening! Thankfully our kids went to be quite easily and rested well.
On Monday morning we met for our 9:00 devotional and some had lessons at 10:00. Amelia and Hallie sat in on the last part of the children's English class taught by Alfred. Our family and Helen and Quinton ate sandwiches in our apartment for lunch and then our family walked down to the Adriatik Hotel. This is probably the nicest hotel in this area and for $10 our family reserved a poolside umbrella and two chairs. The hotel has a large pool for adults (5 feet deep) and a smaller kiddie pool which Quin really enjoyed.
Jill and I have our lessons coming up soon. So far was have been pleased with the progression of our English/Bible lessons. We are praying for more Albanian students as a couple of our OC students still have some spots open on their teaching schedule. Please join us in these prayers.
More later...God bless!
Darin
p.s. Amelia wants everyone to know that she ate octopus.