Albania ~ Day 15

I think it's time I caught you up on what I've been doing.
Last Thursday evening we had our weekly Bible study and prayer meeting which I went to. It was all in Albanian so I didn't understand much, but it was on the Tabernacle and Enris has a model so I could see what he was talking about.

On Friday I was back at GDQ doing more circuits in science; fractions, decimals and percentages with a student and P.E. with Kindergarten and Grade 1. Mrs Pearce the librarian also showed me how to put new books onto the system so that I'll now be able to help her with that too. I also found out that there was a non-pupil day on Monday, so I got the day off too.
    Later I went with Sylvia to their church's craft group where they're currently making things to sell at the 'National Sisters Conference' in May. It was really interesting and some of the things they've made are lovely.

On Saturday we had our kids club again, this time it was in the church, where we had about 15 children come. We played some games and then had a story, which had pictures on a power point, so I was able to understand what was going on! The children all seemed to enjoy themselves and they all got sweets at the end for answering questions on the story.
    I then had the afternoon for my study time and had a great time concentrating on prayer. It was fantastic, though challenging. The main verses from the Bible that came up a few times were Philippians ch 4 v 5-7, which were the verses I wrote on my first blog entry after arriving in Albania.

On Sunday we had our Breaking of Bread service, followed by what I would call the family service. I'm starting to recognise some of the hymns in Albanian, and hopefully by the time I get home, I'll know a couple of them. Enris was kind enough to translate the family service for me as one of the other people was taking the service. It was a good time and I got to meet a lot more of the Church.
    We then went and had a BBQ at the house Enris and Sylvia are building. It's in such a lovely spot, the view was amazing, a fantastic reminder of God's goodness.

On Monday, as I had the day off school, I went out to lunch with the librarian from the school, and her daughter. We had a great time chatting and getting to know each other which was good because I'm going to be helping the girl with her piano.

One of Sylvia's university friends has been visiting for the past few day and so on Tuesday, which was my official day off, we went around to some of the different places in Tirana. We went to Mother Teresa square, where the Mother Teresa University is and then went to see the statue of Albania's hero Skanderbeg on his horse. We also went to 'Sky Tower' which is just a tall tower with glass windows at the top so you can take pictures. The top of it actually moves as well!

Me at Sky Tower

So many trees in the middle of Tirana!

Look at the mountains!!

Another picture taken at Sky Tower

Skanderbeg on his horse

Yesterday I was working on the Emmaus courses for Enris. He's hoping that he can get the website launched  next week, so I need to work quickly to try and get all of the courses on there! I feel so privileged to play just a small part in Albanians being able to get these amazing Bible study courses in their own language. Truly amazing work!

    In the evening Sylvia's friend treated us all to a meal out before she leaves. It was very kind of her, and the food was lovely.

Today I was at GDQ again, after being off on Monday. I started putting some of the new books that came in last week onto the school system, so that the children can get to read them sooner than they would with just one person working on it. I also had science and maths. In maths they were working with indices and as a starter they had 3 minutes to write down the first 20 square numbers! (they did a lot of work on this last year and they had to do it for homework too, so they weren't thrown right in at the deep end). I was also working on ordering fractions, with one of the students, putting them in order from smallest to largest. It was another fantastic day.

The weather here continues to stay warm although we did have rain, for the first time since I arrived, on Monday which made me feel even more at home. However, it seems to be starting to get even warmer now, it was definitely over 20 degrees today. Thankfully it's a lot cooler inside!


'“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' ~ Isaiah ch 55 v 8&9 (NIV)