Leaving in an Hour

Wheee, I'm leaving in an hour for Greece :) Pray for us as we travel for safety, easy use of ATM or credit card acceptance if we run out of money. And pray for the weather--it's supposed to rain several days and we don't want to have to run around in the rain.

Thanks all, love you, expect pictures Thursday or Friday!

On Our Way to Greece!

Well, we're not quite on our way yet, but we have a flight and a hotel! Yay :) I'm not sure exactly how we get into the Benny Hinn event itself since the guest passes get sent to America--I'm assuming we can just get them at the door, but maybe we'll end up calling, I don't know. The hotel we're staying at does not have internet, so I haven't decided yet what to do about bringing my computer. I may bring it anyway so I can offload pictures everyday onto it. We also have a plan--there are about 17 museums that are reasonably close and would be good to go to, so if it rains we will still have plenty to do.

Pray for us to get done with work here before we leave and for going to Tirana tonight--there's a concert that a group from the church is going to (probably myself included) and so we need protection again while we're there and in transit.

Thanks for reading!

Decisions and stuff

So, I've decided that I am going to go through with the Italy thing--everyone seems to think it's a good idea, and I should be able to work some when I get back to make some more money. Not that I'm really going to need that much, unless we go to Greece in the spring (we might do that if we can, we'll see how finances are then. Thanks to all who responded--it's nice to know that others are behind the idea.

In other parts of my world, thing s are going well with having new roommates and I'm glad to have them. It's nice to have company (I'm sure the dog thinks the same thing). They seem very nice and I think we'll get along well.

School is going on track, so I think we'll be able to get done by January, providing that Christopher's reading keeps improving. So, please pray that it does and that he works even harder, since I think I'll need to push him a bit more for it to all get done.

I'm learning more, and people tell me I've learned a lot, but it's not a huge amount, so I'm going to be looking at getting a textbook to help me. Pray that that will work out reasonably well.

Thanks all for reading and praying!

Brent&Carol and Italy

Brent and Carol's flight got cancelled (something about the company going bankrupt) so please pray for them! They're supposed to be driving down to Bari, Italy and then coming on the boat, so it will be a very long trip for them.

I, however, have been thinking about going to Italy with Valbona and it appears the Benny Hinn thing is not going to work, but we're just going to go for fun. So I'm polling my readers: if you were me and could spend almost a week in Italy for $500, even though you don't have much in the bank, would you do it? That's basically what I'm looking at, and I'm thinking that I'll just use my savings to go, but that's a significant chunk of it, so I'm sure. What do you all think?

August in General + Weekend

This weekend was a pretty good one, I'm still frustrated with some things, but overall I got to rest a reasonable amount but also to be helpful a reasonable amount. I went to another wedding reception the Sunday afternoon, gave the dog a haircut, and generally did some hanging out with the Pennoyer family. The kids are very amused by the southern accent I can put on--I think I had them laughing for about a half an hour just telling them what "y'all come back now, y'here" meant :)

August, of itself, I think was a good starting month for me. I can't believe it's already over, but it is and so here is what I think: I hard some really hard moments, though they were few, and there are things I have discovered will be hard for some time, but there were also some very good times. I have not needed much here, as most of my needs are supplied, so I spent in total, about $85 American. People have been incredibly friendly, but it's hard to get to know them and feel like I have real friends since I can't always communicate well--that's one of the hardest things. I still feel like I don't have anyone (other than God) here to turn to yet, and it will probably be that way for awhile.

More later about August, but for now I have devotionals.

Okay, I'm back now. Back to what I was saying: I am learning quite a bit of Albanian, I suppose, but it's still difficult since even when I can understand what someone is talking about, I still can't really understand the specific content. It'd be nice if the Albanians made anime that I could watch subbed into English, but I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon. We'll see what happens when my new roommates get here--they may have a tv they'd be willing to let me use sometimes (there are a reasonable amount of American movies subbed into Albanian, so I could get some reading practice in).

In terms of my actual work:
School, however, has been great. Christopher is an easy one to teach and now that we have his desk, he seems to be focusing better and doing a great job of it. Every now and again he tries to rush through his work and makes goofy mistakes (hmm... never heard of a smart kid that did that before) but otherwise he does very well.

Worship team is good, but not easy. I really have to rely on God because we've only had one practice in the month I've been here and most of the time I don't even know the song order before the first service starts. But, I seem to be doing okay since people have said that I did well.

Therefore, praise God that things are going well--it's good to feel like I belong here because of God, I just need to feel like I belong here in terms of getting to know people. Please continue to pray for me--September looks to be slightly hot again and the mosquitoes seem to have revived!