This month saw the end of summer vacation and the beginning of the new school year. Our summer campaign was over so we took on new students from the summer. The first two weeks of the month were quite busy because we were teaching our old and new students and everyone wanted to get as many hours in as they could before the school year began. We are actually the opposite of our students: when they are in school, we have more free time. When school began on September 15, most of our teaching hours moved to the afternoon, which gave us time to catch up on things we had neglected around the house. Because most activities just take longer here, it was nice to have some time again to run errands, pay bills and cook meals. We make everything from scratch by necessity, so it is not uncommon to spend two or three hours in the kitchen for a meal.
The weather is getting colder so we, like most people in Korca, have winter on our minds. We brought our wood stove in from the balcony and have prepared for our wood to be delivered. The days are getting shorter. When it gets cold, many families stay in around the fire and do not venture out after dark.
Movie Night:
We had a movie night to celebrate the end of the summer holiday with our students. We wanted to watch another Veggie Tale but all of them seemed to have the same problem of pixilation when projected, so we watched “Nanny McPhee” instead. The students all seemed to like it. We hope to continue activities even during the winter months.
Albanian Leaders/Workers’ meeting:
On September 13, Kevin and Virgil Mitka from the church in Pogradec, attended a meeting in Lushnje. It was a wonderful meeting with preachers and members from many churches in Albania. The meeting focused on James chapter 4 and talked about possibilities for starting a new youth camp in Albania. These meetings are a real blessing and encouragement for us to see fellow workers from all over Albania. There was added an blessing for Kevin to get to spend time with Virgil and talk about the work in Pogradec. Allison usually attends with Kevin but was recovering from a bad cold, so she stayed home.
Vacation:
After an action packed summer and the first two weeks of September, we were exhausted. We thought it was best to take a few days and celebrate our wedding anniversary and Allison’s 30th birthday, so we went to Greece. We took a bus to Thessalonica. This was made a little interesting by a strike of the Greek boarder police, but we did finally get across the boarder and to Thessalonica. This is usually a four-hour bus trip but took about 8 hours. We saw a lot of the Greek countryside because the bus was by no means direct. After spending the night in Thessalonica, we took a bus to Kavala. The Apostle Paul entered this port when he visited Philippi. We stayed three days in Kavala before returning to Albania. The weather was nice and we were blessed with sunshine. We had time to relax and spent a day at the archeological site of Philippi about 45 minutes from Kavala. This was very interesting. Living in Albania, we have seen many ancient walls, amphitheaters, Roman baths etc. but it was truly amazing to be in a place described in the Bible. On our return to Albania, we took a few hours to look around Thessalonica before our bus left. This new city is built over the old city so there are not as many visible ruins. We were able to see a Roman bath, amphitheater, and some other building. We also got to eat at a Chinese buffet. It was a nice change of pace. Over all it was a nice and relaxing trip and we returned to Albania refreshed. The boarder police strike had ended the day before we left to return home, so we spent only an hour at the boarder that time.
Prayer Requests:
Students- Please continue to pray for the summer/school year transition for students. Also pray that our students will have the desire to attend worship.
Rosa- Rosa was given notice at her job. She had been working as a dishwasher at the local university. The kitchen was privatized an all of the workers lost there jobs. Please pray for the family as she is looking for a new job.
Albanian Language- Pray for us in the month of October, as we will begin Albanian language study again after a summer off. We have learned so much but still have so much to learn.
Thank you so much for continuing to read our newsletters we really appreciate your partnership in our work. Your prayer helps us so much.
Campaign:
If you are interested in helping us with our work, we always love fellow workers. It is not too early to start thinking about next summer. Extra teachers are great anytime of the year. If you are interested in working with us next summer or another time of the year, please send us an e-mail and we can give you further information.
Pictures:
If you would like to see some pictures from this month. You can access pictures at: http://www.korcachurchesofchrist.com/pictures If you click on the word “details” above the picture, there is more information on many of the pictures.
In His Service,
Kevin and Allison Morrill
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Newsletter August 2008
This was a very eventful month. Every day was filled with students and every weekend filled with activities. Many of these activities seem like so long ago. We are sorry it has taken so long to share, but our first two weeks in September were very busy with transition from campaign. Now we have made the transition from our summer to our school schedules and have a bit more time. Everyone here is preparing for the winter: getting wood, buying onions, making pasta, pickling vegetables, and making jam. Although these events seem so long ago, we are happy to see and wanted to share how God blessed us through the month of August.
Roger Michael:
Roger Michael left Albania to return to the US on August 2nd . He is always such a great help to us and we will miss him. He knows so many people in Korca as he has been working here for more than ten years. We are always blessed when he is here to work with us. He will be returning to Albania in January of 2009. He usually spends about six months of the year in the states and six months in Albania.
Movie Night:
On August 7th we had a movie night for our WEI students. We projected the Veggie Tale movie “Jonah” on one of the walls of our school. We were getting a bit nervous that day because we had a power outage all day (in fact, our power situation has greatly improved and this outage was a real surprise), but wonderfully the power came back in time for the movie. There were about 20 students in attendance and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Mother Daughter Tea:
Lizz Schallert and Danah Nelson organized a mother daughter tea for our students. We had food, games, and a devotional thought from Lizz. The evening was very successful and there were about 30 in attendance. We hope that is the beginning of further parent child activities. We really want to get to know the parents as well as their children.
Kamela:
About a month ago Diana and Allison began working with Kamela, a little girl from the neighborhood, who is going into third grade and is illiterate. Kamela had been attending Sunday morning kids’ class, and really needed some help. Our hope was to help the family and to encourage Kamela’s family to learn more about God as well. Kamela’s mother and sister attended ladies bible class on Wednesday August 20th and we hope that this can become a habit. Kamela’s mother is very busy, but she seemed to really like it. We do not know if Kamela will continue learning, but we will put forth our best effort.
Tom and Pat:
We were blessed to have a visit from Tom and Pat England during the last two weeks of this month. They are such wonderful people from our sponsoring church in Maryville, Tennessee. Pat and Tom were that final teachers for our summer campaign. We enjoyed spending time with them and they were a big help with students.
Bible Bowl:
On August 29, a group of three students from the church traveled to the annual bible bowl in Durres. Interestingly, of the three only one professes to be a Christian, Eri Pellumbi, and the other two are Muslims who are searching, Bruna Coti, and Ola Semija. Eri Pellumbi is a student at the Bible Institute of Albania and was home on summer vacation. Ola and Bruna have been attending church regularly and Ola has been translating for children’s class for over a year. The group went a day early so we could get settled and spend so time with the church in Durres. We met them in Durres because we were in Tirana dropping Pat and Tom off at the airport. We attended the teen class together and the students stayed at the home of Suela Kurti, a wonderful Christian from the church in Durres, who works as a secretary and teacher there. We have the opportunity to spend the night at Cimi and Anila Kafexhiu's home and meet with some other Christians from the church.
The team from Korca took first place in the team competition which was really encouraging for the group and Eri Pellumbi tied for first in the individual competition.
We were very proud of this group. They worked very hard including multiple four-hour study sessions during the week before the competition. They are self starters so we did not need to help much in their studies. Lizz had illustrated the chapters of Luke to have some pictures to remember and place with each chapter, and Kevin found bible quizzes on the internet and we helped the students study and translate them. Allison worked as a fourth member of the team in competition, but she was only really there for moral support; every other team had four members and we had three. The students answered the questions so quickly Allison couldn’t always keep up on the Albanian. We pray that Ola and Bruna will make the decision to become Christians. They are very hard workers and have wonderful hearts.
Prayer Requests:
Transition from Campaign- It is always a challenge to transition from teacher to teacher and summer to school schedules. Please pray that this transition continues to be a smooth one.
Church Growth/ Male Leadership- Please continue to pray for the church to grow in faith and numbers. We will loose another male member this month, Alket will be leaving Korca to pursue a master’s degree in Business. He will find out this week if he will be studying in the capital Tirana or in Italy. This is a big blow to the church because Alket was the only male Albanian Christian who was able to meet with us on Sunday mornings. This puts many of the leadership responsibilities on Kevin’s shoulders.
Edi- Edi (Rosa’s son pronounced Eddie) got married at the end of this month. We hope that this will begin a new chapter of his life since his release from prison in June. He has talked to us about his struggle to remain drug free in the midst of many temptations. We have continued our weekly visits to Rosa’s home. Rosa has told Edi and Elena (Edi's new wife) that all she wants is for them to follow God’s way. Elena has been attending worship and helping with children’s classes for the past three weeks. We hope that this will continue and that Edi will want to come with her. Unfortunately, we have trouble getting entire families to attend together. Right now we have three wives that are attending without their husbands.
Eva- Eva is a teacher who helps us teach beginning students. She is not a Christian and is not currently attending worship. She is very interested in new ideas and is currently studying through a book that we had on the gospel of John. She is a real student. We were blessed have so many wonderful campaigners who shared their faith with her. This made a real impact. It was nice to her to meet Christians of various ages and walks of life. We pray that she will continue to grow in her interest and knowledge of God’s word.
Pictures:
We have made more changes to our website. We hope you like them. You can access pictures at: http://www.korcachurchesofchrist.com/pictures If you click on the word “details” above the picture, there is more information on many of the pictures.
In His Service,
Kevin and Allison Morrill
Roger Michael:
Roger Michael left Albania to return to the US on August 2nd . He is always such a great help to us and we will miss him. He knows so many people in Korca as he has been working here for more than ten years. We are always blessed when he is here to work with us. He will be returning to Albania in January of 2009. He usually spends about six months of the year in the states and six months in Albania.
Movie Night:
On August 7th we had a movie night for our WEI students. We projected the Veggie Tale movie “Jonah” on one of the walls of our school. We were getting a bit nervous that day because we had a power outage all day (in fact, our power situation has greatly improved and this outage was a real surprise), but wonderfully the power came back in time for the movie. There were about 20 students in attendance and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Mother Daughter Tea:
Lizz Schallert and Danah Nelson organized a mother daughter tea for our students. We had food, games, and a devotional thought from Lizz. The evening was very successful and there were about 30 in attendance. We hope that is the beginning of further parent child activities. We really want to get to know the parents as well as their children.
Kamela:
About a month ago Diana and Allison began working with Kamela, a little girl from the neighborhood, who is going into third grade and is illiterate. Kamela had been attending Sunday morning kids’ class, and really needed some help. Our hope was to help the family and to encourage Kamela’s family to learn more about God as well. Kamela’s mother and sister attended ladies bible class on Wednesday August 20th and we hope that this can become a habit. Kamela’s mother is very busy, but she seemed to really like it. We do not know if Kamela will continue learning, but we will put forth our best effort.
Tom and Pat:
We were blessed to have a visit from Tom and Pat England during the last two weeks of this month. They are such wonderful people from our sponsoring church in Maryville, Tennessee. Pat and Tom were that final teachers for our summer campaign. We enjoyed spending time with them and they were a big help with students.
Bible Bowl:
On August 29, a group of three students from the church traveled to the annual bible bowl in Durres. Interestingly, of the three only one professes to be a Christian, Eri Pellumbi, and the other two are Muslims who are searching, Bruna Coti, and Ola Semija. Eri Pellumbi is a student at the Bible Institute of Albania and was home on summer vacation. Ola and Bruna have been attending church regularly and Ola has been translating for children’s class for over a year. The group went a day early so we could get settled and spend so time with the church in Durres. We met them in Durres because we were in Tirana dropping Pat and Tom off at the airport. We attended the teen class together and the students stayed at the home of Suela Kurti, a wonderful Christian from the church in Durres, who works as a secretary and teacher there. We have the opportunity to spend the night at Cimi and Anila Kafexhiu's home and meet with some other Christians from the church.
The team from Korca took first place in the team competition which was really encouraging for the group and Eri Pellumbi tied for first in the individual competition.
We were very proud of this group. They worked very hard including multiple four-hour study sessions during the week before the competition. They are self starters so we did not need to help much in their studies. Lizz had illustrated the chapters of Luke to have some pictures to remember and place with each chapter, and Kevin found bible quizzes on the internet and we helped the students study and translate them. Allison worked as a fourth member of the team in competition, but she was only really there for moral support; every other team had four members and we had three. The students answered the questions so quickly Allison couldn’t always keep up on the Albanian. We pray that Ola and Bruna will make the decision to become Christians. They are very hard workers and have wonderful hearts.
Prayer Requests:
Transition from Campaign- It is always a challenge to transition from teacher to teacher and summer to school schedules. Please pray that this transition continues to be a smooth one.
Church Growth/ Male Leadership- Please continue to pray for the church to grow in faith and numbers. We will loose another male member this month, Alket will be leaving Korca to pursue a master’s degree in Business. He will find out this week if he will be studying in the capital Tirana or in Italy. This is a big blow to the church because Alket was the only male Albanian Christian who was able to meet with us on Sunday mornings. This puts many of the leadership responsibilities on Kevin’s shoulders.
Edi- Edi (Rosa’s son pronounced Eddie) got married at the end of this month. We hope that this will begin a new chapter of his life since his release from prison in June. He has talked to us about his struggle to remain drug free in the midst of many temptations. We have continued our weekly visits to Rosa’s home. Rosa has told Edi and Elena (Edi's new wife) that all she wants is for them to follow God’s way. Elena has been attending worship and helping with children’s classes for the past three weeks. We hope that this will continue and that Edi will want to come with her. Unfortunately, we have trouble getting entire families to attend together. Right now we have three wives that are attending without their husbands.
Eva- Eva is a teacher who helps us teach beginning students. She is not a Christian and is not currently attending worship. She is very interested in new ideas and is currently studying through a book that we had on the gospel of John. She is a real student. We were blessed have so many wonderful campaigners who shared their faith with her. This made a real impact. It was nice to her to meet Christians of various ages and walks of life. We pray that she will continue to grow in her interest and knowledge of God’s word.
Pictures:
We have made more changes to our website. We hope you like them. You can access pictures at: http://www.korcachurchesofchrist.com/pictures If you click on the word “details” above the picture, there is more information on many of the pictures.
In His Service,
Kevin and Allison Morrill
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