Newsletter December 2008/ January 2009

We are sorry for not sending a newsletter for December. We traveled to the US at the end of the month and got caught up in visiting with our family and friends. The past few months have really flown by. It is hard to believe that it is already February.

Prayers Answered:
After many years of prayer, God has truly blessed us. Allison is pregnant. She is in her 5th month (19 weeks) and will deliver in the US. Her due date is July 5, but she will be returning on April 7. She plans to be in Wisconsin close to family. Kevin will be in Albania until the second week in June. This is a real blessing for us. It has been a little hard logistically though (plane tickets, travel, passports, etc.) We plan to return to Albania in early September. Please pray that Allison will continue to have a healthy pregnancy. We still do not know if it is a boy or a girl because we were unable to tell due to the position of the baby during our ultra sound on February 9. The doctor was able to see that the baby is healthy. Lord willing, teaching will continue while we are gone because Roger Michael, our fellow teacher will be in Korca during these months.

Summer Campaign:
We need your help. This is going to be a somewhat different summer for us and we need your help now more than ever. We have had many interviews of those who can speak and understand English without any kind of translation (5 just this week), and we just don’t have the time in our schedules to accommodate them. Although Allison will not be here this summer, Kevin will be for the start and Roger for the rest of the campaign Lord willing. We have students who want to study on there summer break. If you would like to be a teacher in this summer’s campaign please e-mail us and we can give you
further information.

Pot Luck:
The women who attend services organized a meal for the church the last Sunday before we left. The food was delicious and we were really encouraged by the participation of all of the ladies young and old. They did not want us to bring anything. It was such a blessing for this group to organize a party and take the initiative for everything. Since there is only one Christian attending morning worship, most of those who participated are Muslim, but searching.

Worship:
While we were gone, Christian men from various cities led worship. This was such a blessing to us because we do not have any males attending morning worship right now. One of the men, Beni Leka, is a preacher in Athens and is originally from Korca. He preached while on a visit to his parents here. It was such a blessing for the church members to hear so many different perspectives, and we are so grateful to those who
came to preach.

Our Trip to the States:
We left on December 19th from Tirana and travel by plane to Chicago. Then we got on a two hour bus to Waukesha where Allison’s mother and her husband picked us up. Kevin felt like he was back in Albania; due to the bad weather the driver actually let some men stand up in the isle of the coach bus. This was a real blessing because we would have had to wait about two hours to find another one headed to Wisconsin. The snow had shut down the airport in Milwaukee. We were grateful that we had planned to ride the bus because there was not a rental car to be found. We had the pleasure of spending a little over a week in Wisconsin with Allison’s family. It was so nice to see them and to celebrate Christmas together. It was wonderful to see family that we had not seen in a year and a half. We also had the privilege of worshiping with the Southside Church of Christ in Milwaukee on the Sunday we were there.

Then it was off to California. We flew to San Francisco which is about two hours south of Kevin's parents' home in Upper Lake. We spent a couple of days adjusting to the time change and relaxing from our trip and then we went to the Pacific coast. Kevin’s parents had rented a house for a few days so we could have family time. We were met by Kevin’s aunt and uncle from southern California and a close family friend and her daughter. We celebrated New Years there. When we got home Kevin had the privilege of speaking to the church in Lucerne. Kevin was taught about the gospel by the members in Lucerne
and was baptized there. This congregation holds a special place in his heart. It was nice to see so many familiar faces.

From California we flew to Maryville, Tennessee. In fact, we flew into the Knoxville Airport, but it is only about 10 minutes from Maryville. We were able to make a visit to
Wednesday night bible class in Maryville before heading out to Virginia on Friday for the Albania Romania workshop. We were so blessed to attend this event. This was only the second time we have had the chance to go and the last time there was an ice storm that prevented most of the participants from coming. At the workshop we were able to meet many new people, but were surprised to see so many familiar faces. One of the biggest blessings was meeting Xhumert Nuro, who was the preacher in Pogradec before he moved to the US with his wife and daughter in 2007.

From the Conference we flew to Nashville, TN and drove with Pat and Tom England to Killen, Alabama (only a few hours). We attended Sunday morning service there and met with the elders. We always feel so welcome. From Killen we drove back to Maryville. We spent the last week of our trip in Maryville,TN. Kevin spoke at evening services that Sunday.

Home Again:
On Thursday January 22, we arrived back in Korca, after some errands in Tirana including a trip to the US Embassy to get our passports renewed. We were so happy to be home. We spent our first days back making visits and having coffees. We have also met many people on the street. The transition has been a smooth one except for the plumbing in our bathroom which left us without water in the house for a few days. It reminded us of the old days, and made us so grateful that Korca has 24 hours running water and 24 hours electricity. The plumbing problems are fixed and everything is going great. Now most of the pipes in our bathroom have been replaced so we should not have any more problems. We have been teaching our WEI and other bible lessons for a few weeks now and are happy to be back on a normal schedule again.

Prayer requests:
Campaign: We would still like to have a summer campaign because this has been shown to be a real benefit to our work. Please pray that there will be those who are willing to help out this summer. If you would like more information, just let us know.

Allison's Pregnancy: Pray that it will continue to go well.

Male Students and Members: This is our constant prayer.

In His Service,

Kevin and Allison Morrill