Showing posts with label The way things work in Albania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The way things work in Albania. Show all posts
Monday, June 08, 2009
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Opening Day of Streha
Today after church, the entire church walked over to "Streha" (The Refuge in English) for a time of food fellowship and then prayer, giving God the glory for his provision of this center for youth.
It was a wonderful time, we had anywhere from 150 to 200 people there, the doors were overflowing on either end. The Lord provided so much, even in the last week as we were doing final preparation. Here is one example. In Albania we are still in the midst of an electric crisis, and so the government shuts off the entire city, portions at a time. However instead of letting you know when your electricity will be off, they just shut it off at random times during the day which makes it really hard to plan for a party or big gathering with people and have lights, like today.
However this past week, I was trying to figure out how to solve this problem, the best way is to get a generator, but the people I was working with on this had showed me some generators that were way too expensive and on top of that they would not run the entire room, they only could run half of the room. So we prayed that God would provide something, or at least keep the lights on for the party for us.
At the end of this past week, a student from our youth group, found a place that sold good brand name generators for a very good price. So on Friday I went with him to buy a generator that was powerful enough to run everything in our youth room with no problems. This was just the beginning.
Yesterday, I got a guy from church that works at the LC who is in charge of the up keep of those generators. He came over and helped me wire our generator. We spent the entire day, shoving wires through tubes in the wall and blowing up switch boxes and finally we got it to work last night. Praise the Lord that we did, because today during the grand opening we would have had no lights the entire time without the generator. This is just one of many examples of the Lord's provision for so many things to make this thing happen.
We are excited about the opening of Streha, and believe that today was a bench mark in the youth ministry out here, we pray that God would glorify himself in this building, and that many young people would come to know Jesus through the ministry and training that will happen here. Thank you for your prayers and support for this on going project! Praise God!
Here are some pictures from today.
The words below say why we exist. We take it from Psalm 73:28 that says, Psalm 73:28 "But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works."
It was a wonderful time, we had anywhere from 150 to 200 people there, the doors were overflowing on either end. The Lord provided so much, even in the last week as we were doing final preparation. Here is one example. In Albania we are still in the midst of an electric crisis, and so the government shuts off the entire city, portions at a time. However instead of letting you know when your electricity will be off, they just shut it off at random times during the day which makes it really hard to plan for a party or big gathering with people and have lights, like today.
However this past week, I was trying to figure out how to solve this problem, the best way is to get a generator, but the people I was working with on this had showed me some generators that were way too expensive and on top of that they would not run the entire room, they only could run half of the room. So we prayed that God would provide something, or at least keep the lights on for the party for us.
At the end of this past week, a student from our youth group, found a place that sold good brand name generators for a very good price. So on Friday I went with him to buy a generator that was powerful enough to run everything in our youth room with no problems. This was just the beginning.
Yesterday, I got a guy from church that works at the LC who is in charge of the up keep of those generators. He came over and helped me wire our generator. We spent the entire day, shoving wires through tubes in the wall and blowing up switch boxes and finally we got it to work last night. Praise the Lord that we did, because today during the grand opening we would have had no lights the entire time without the generator. This is just one of many examples of the Lord's provision for so many things to make this thing happen.
We are excited about the opening of Streha, and believe that today was a bench mark in the youth ministry out here, we pray that God would glorify himself in this building, and that many young people would come to know Jesus through the ministry and training that will happen here. Thank you for your prayers and support for this on going project! Praise God!
Here are some pictures from today.
The words below say why we exist. We take it from Psalm 73:28 that says, Psalm 73:28 "But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works."
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Team Retreat
From Monday to Wednesday we went up one of the mountains near our home for a little retreat with our team. It was the first time we all have been together since June. We had a wonderful time of fellowship, prayer, and planning.
We are grateful to God for those we work along side of for the sake of the gospel.
While we were up there we were once again threatened by another forest fire that was near by. Thankfully the wind died down.
We are grateful to God for those we work along side of for the sake of the gospel.
While we were up there we were once again threatened by another forest fire that was near by. Thankfully the wind died down.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Back to the Chaos of Tirana:
We are thankful for all our family and friends that have been so good to us while we were state side. The time flew by, and we are thankful for all the support that you have given and continue to give us.
Below is a little glimpse of our first morning back in Albania; I trust that you will enjoy it!
Well we made back to Albania Tuesday May 15th. Currently we are writing this blog entry without any Internet so who knows when this will be posted, hopefully tomorrow (May 17).
Currently we are getting the house back to normal around here. Today (Tuesday, May 16th) was utter chaos around here. It started at 8:00am this morning with the pounding of tools on the floor in our upstairs neighbors' bathroom. While we were gone they had developed a leak that has now soaked through our hallway ceiling. Because of that leak our hallway lights don’t work, in fact when you try to switch them on you blow the entire house worth of fuses.
At about 9:00am a plumber came over to fix another leak, except this leak was from the dishwasher pipe that runs under the sink. Well those pipes were covered by concrete, yes that’s right concrete, so the plumber proceeded to take a pick ax of sorts and break the concrete wall that covered the pipes. After breaking most of the wall under the sink, he found the leak. He took out the old pipes only to find out that the new pipes didn’t fit, so what did he do? Go down to his truck and get the right piece…well if he had a truck maybe he would do that, but he didn’t, instead of a truck with different size pieces he had a blow torch, yes that’s right a blow torch that he lit using a cigarette lighter and lit his propane torch. At this point the flame was at least three feet long and it was sitting on the kitchen floor with no one holding it or for that matter even watching it. The plumber had gone back under the sink to do something, I looked at Kreshnik and Arbi (the son of our landlord), they seemed to not notice the three feet flame on the floor, well I guess they noticed but didn’t pay much attention to it, so I proceeded not pay much attention to either, I mean come on this was Albania and three Albanians didn’t care about the thing, and for that very reason I assumed it was safe.
Well you might be asking what was he doing with the three-foot flame? Since he didn’t have a truck of parts that were different sizes, he just decided (or perhaps this is how they always do it) to take the part that was too big and well, melt it down to size. Don’t ask…
Finally at 9:30am the electrician came to fix an outlet in our bathroom that melted so bad our first night back it had oozed some plastic out. The outlet is for the dryer and the water heater, and apparently the dryer gets to hot for the extension cord that we use and it melted.
Enjoy some picutres...
Below is a little glimpse of our first morning back in Albania; I trust that you will enjoy it!
Well we made back to Albania Tuesday May 15th. Currently we are writing this blog entry without any Internet so who knows when this will be posted, hopefully tomorrow (May 17).
Currently we are getting the house back to normal around here. Today (Tuesday, May 16th) was utter chaos around here. It started at 8:00am this morning with the pounding of tools on the floor in our upstairs neighbors' bathroom. While we were gone they had developed a leak that has now soaked through our hallway ceiling. Because of that leak our hallway lights don’t work, in fact when you try to switch them on you blow the entire house worth of fuses.
At about 9:00am a plumber came over to fix another leak, except this leak was from the dishwasher pipe that runs under the sink. Well those pipes were covered by concrete, yes that’s right concrete, so the plumber proceeded to take a pick ax of sorts and break the concrete wall that covered the pipes. After breaking most of the wall under the sink, he found the leak. He took out the old pipes only to find out that the new pipes didn’t fit, so what did he do? Go down to his truck and get the right piece…well if he had a truck maybe he would do that, but he didn’t, instead of a truck with different size pieces he had a blow torch, yes that’s right a blow torch that he lit using a cigarette lighter and lit his propane torch. At this point the flame was at least three feet long and it was sitting on the kitchen floor with no one holding it or for that matter even watching it. The plumber had gone back under the sink to do something, I looked at Kreshnik and Arbi (the son of our landlord), they seemed to not notice the three feet flame on the floor, well I guess they noticed but didn’t pay much attention to it, so I proceeded not pay much attention to either, I mean come on this was Albania and three Albanians didn’t care about the thing, and for that very reason I assumed it was safe.
Well you might be asking what was he doing with the three-foot flame? Since he didn’t have a truck of parts that were different sizes, he just decided (or perhaps this is how they always do it) to take the part that was too big and well, melt it down to size. Don’t ask…
Finally at 9:30am the electrician came to fix an outlet in our bathroom that melted so bad our first night back it had oozed some plastic out. The outlet is for the dryer and the water heater, and apparently the dryer gets to hot for the extension cord that we use and it melted.
Enjoy some picutres...
