July 12

Howdy,
Jill and I both had a study on Wednesday evening. One of my students did not show up but this gave me an opportunity to have an extended discussion with Myfit. I extended an invitation for him to join us at our Friday evening fellowship night but he will not be able to attend because he has to prepare music and other things for his cousin's wedding on Saturday. I hope to have both of my studies this evening and Jill is scheduled for a 6:00 class.
On Wednesday night at 7:00 we had a Bible study at the building. Our attendance was much larger than last Wednesday night. Alfred led the study of Jesus' parables. He is a really good teacher. He started out the lesson by translating back and forth from Albanian to English; however, as the lesson progressed the English dropped off.
Following the church service we ate sandwiches and hot dogs at our apartment. As we were entering our apartment a group of Albanian children met us and followed us up the stairs. Two girls invited Amelia and Hallie to play with them on the driveway on the back side of our building. After supper Jill took our girls down and Helen, Quinton, Quin, and I soon joined them. Jill and another girl had our long jump rope in action and about 5-6 Albanian girls were jumping at one time. All in all about 15-20 Albanian youngsters were playing with us until almost 10:00 p.m. We did a lot of jump roping and counting in English. Jill and our gals chatted with some of the girls who spoke English. A few of these children attend Alfred's English class on Mon. and Thurs. We hope to invite these children to VBS and I'm sure we'll play with them again.
It is cooler today. We appreciate the cloud cover and breeze any time we can them!
Quinton just returned from a 4-hour field trip with his student. They traveled to the mountains east of Tirana for some special mineral water. (Dad's student is an interesting man. He threw the javelin, does yoga, been in a Hindu monastary, and combines the best of several religions into his own religion.) Quinton said the water didn't taste bad; perhaps he is healed of all his ailments!
Alfred, Helen, and my family took a walk to the post office this afternoon. Alfred showed us an outdoor market where we bought bananas and grapes. We then ate at an Italian restaurant close to our apartment. The pasta was quite tasty but took a good hour to arrive at our table. Oh well, we had time to visit.
More later,
Darin