new year's dinner with the baraku family in korce

For both Christmas and New Year, I was blessed to be able to be with the Baraku family and our church in the city of Korce. In this picture from the front moving clockwise are: Mariela (mom), Tani (son), Mondi (brother of Efti), Sean (me), Kristiana (daughter) and Efti (Tani's fiancee). For the past several months I have been travelling almost every weekend to help pastor their church. I always love being with the Baraku family so it was a very enjoyable time for me but also a challenging time as I was stretched to do something (preach) that I haven't much experience in. I believe we were all blessed through the time we spent together.

Currently another American missionary is helping pastor the Korce church and will be serving there for the next few months. In the meantime I am back here at the Stephen Center in Tirane.

christmas albanian style

This is a picture of Bledi and I after we had returned from his village where we purchased some fresh live turkeys for Christmas dinner. Bledi is our day-time guard/parking assistant here at the Stephen Center. About one month ago I began teaching Bledi English. It has been a great time where he has not only been learning English but I have been learning more Albanian. Bledi is very open to learn about Christianity. We have had several great conversation about Jesus and recently I had the opportunity to give Bledi an Albanian Bible as well as a childrens Bible that is in both English and Albanian languages which will help him to not only learn the Bible but learn English at the same time. Please continue to pray that Bledi will understand Jesus' love for him and will choose to live his life for Him.