Newsletter April 2008

Summer Campaign:
We will be having a campaign this summer, and we still have many open weeks. If you are interested in working with us this summer, we would love for you to come. If you are interested please reply to this e-mail and we will be more than happy to give you information or answer any questions. If this summer is not an option please think about the summer of 2009.

Aurora Attended Worship:
We were so excited to have Aurora (Kevin’s WEI student who was baptized in February) in worship this month. She did not go home for one weekend, so she was able to attend worship. She loved it and wanted to make it a habit when she is in college next year. She hopes to “win university” in Tirana the capital and we promised to attend with her, if this happens, and introduce her to the Christians there. The amazing thing is that there are churches in all of the cities where she may go as a student. Please continue to pray for her as she grows in her faith.

Kid’s Class:
This month we had many more kids attending Sunday morning bible class. During the winter, we had about four children, but on the second weekend in April we had fourteen. This was a real encouragement. On the next weekend we were down to eight, but this is still a doubling of our numbers. This core group seems a though they will continue coming. Most of the kids are from the neighborhood or are relatives of our landlord, but some of them attend beginner’s classes for WEI. We hope that this is a sign of larger numbers for the summer. We were also blessed with another translator for this class. We can speak to adults Albanian, but with children, we use a translator. Adults can understand and correct our mistakes, but because children are learning the language themselves, they cannot understand us as easily. The interesting thing is that both of Allison's translators are Muslim. We hope they are learning along with the children.

Trip to Greece:
This month we visited Greece with Roger Michael. Roger treated us to two nights in a hotel in Kastoria, Greece. This is a small city close to the boarder of Albania. We were very blessed to have a couple of nights in this city. Kevin was able to find shoes (It is hard to find his size in Albania), and we also found corn syrup something else that is not used in Albania. The city reminded us of Albania and Macedonia. It has a lake and lots of walking paths. It was peaceful because we were not in tourist season. Allison looked for a new winter coat, but has some “sticker shock” when the coat she tried on was about 1000 dollars. Needless to say, we did not find a coat. This city is known worldwide for furs and leather jackets and there was nothing like a Wal-mart or a Kohl’s. We have heard for furs it is really cheap, but far outside our price range.

Youth Day:
The National Youth Day was April 26 in Tirana, Albania. We went with a group of 16 teens from Pogradec and Korca. It was a blessed but very tiring day. The “teens” ranged in age from 22 to 11. We are practicing being flexible because some of the teens have never learned about deadlines and sign up sheets. We thought that it would be a good introduction to the church for the teens and a way to peak interest in a youth class we hope to start this summer. Kevin drove seven of the teens, 6 coming from Pogradec, in our car and Allison rode in a van we rented with the rest of the crew. We are learning how to organize vans and did not pay any above the normal fare for the trip. This was a real outreach opportunity. The teens from Pogradec were children of Christians there and cousins, none of these teen attend on a regular basis, and some not at all. We wanted to show them that there are kids there age who believe. Out of the group from Korca, none of the teens is a Christian yet. Only Ola, a Muslim high school student who helps translate for kids class, attends church regularly.

Easter:
There is a challenge in Albania to decide how and when to observe Easter. This year Catholic Easter was at the end of March and Orthodox Easter was on April 27. We decided to observe this holiday this year on April 27 because on this date most of the people of Korca were thinking about Jesus.

We remember Jesus’ death and resurrection every Sunday with the Lord’s Supper, but we wanted to recognize the celebration with the people of the city and welcome our visitors, so we had a small party after worship. We had visitors from the church in Athens. Sonila Leka, wife of Beni Leka, and their son were able to attend on Sunday. Kozeta was also here because she was back from Tirana for the weekend. One of the teens Armando, who attends the kids class, also stayed for worship which was encouraging. We had 13 in attendance, and it was a lot of fun to have that many voices singing and praising God.

Songbook:
Our long awaited songbook is finally finished. This is a combination book that has songs from Korca, Durres, and Tirana. It was a lot of work because Kevin had to re-type the songs from the Korca book in order to bring these books together. We are so happy to have all of these songs in one place.

Pictures:
If you would like to see some of our April pictures just click on: http://www.korcachurchesofchrist.com/gallery.html

Prayer Requests:
This has been a blessed month and we are certain that is because of your continued prayers for our work. Thank you so much.

-We ask that you keep our Albanian language study in your prayers. Our teacher wanted to teach us for about another month or so. She wants us to get through the second grade. We hope to encourage her to continue, but she is really busy. It does seem like we are taking one step forward and two steps back sometimes, but we know we are improving.

-Please pray that we will have an impact on the community and see ways we can help.

-Pray for Rosa and the church on May 24th because that is the one year anniversary of Mira’s death.

In Christ,Kevin and Allison Morrill