last days & home safe

This is the last blog from the Albania team as we all arrived home safe last night around 1am! so we are all shattered!

Our last days in Lushnje were great! The Daycare project "Way of Hope" continued well with our numbers rising a little to 9 with one little girl coming back to us.

On Thursday afternoon, however, the team were told that Marika, the 50 yr old lady who was in a wheelchair & had come to most days of the centre, had died very peacefully in her home. This was such a shock to all of us! The pastor spoke with her family & they said they were to grateful for everything we had done for Marika & they were so pleased she had the opportunity to take part in our program. Her sister described how she had been smiling & laughing a lot those past two weeks. For Marika our project gave her a glimpse of a better life as she was often left at home in bed while her sisters went to work. With us Marika took part in the activities she was able to but was also very happy to watch what was going on, she just loved being with people. Marika also came with us on our trip to Appolloni, where her mother came from, and so had a very full & happy two weeks with us! please remember Marika's family in your prayers & thank God for the testimony of this family!

Friday morning in the centre we did something a little different! We began the session with the usual lessons of arts or sports but then after the break we invited all their parents to a graduation type ceremony. At the service we sang some of the songs the young people had been learning & watched a film clip of the past few weeks & saw lots of pictures! It was wonderful watching the young people see themselves & see the joy that brought to their parents. We then awarded each young person a certificate to simply say thank you for taking part & gave each family a photograph of their child taking part in the activities!

After this Mervyn spoke to encourage the Church & the parents to pursue the local government to keep this project up & running in some form or other. Mervyn also pointed out that none of what we achieved in those two weeks could have been done without God's love & support!

The parents then had a chance to tell us what they thought about the project. Three parents shared & we were so encouraged by the kind words they said to us. The surprising thing was, though, that these parents are so passionate about keeping something going, they have seen their children have a better life & seen the improvements in each of them, growning in confidence & learning many new skills, and that is only in a short space of time!

Please pray for guidance for the future of the project, pray the Church in Lushnje will continue on this work, even if only once a month for a start!

Pray the government will see the need their is, not only for a Daycare facility, but for a school for these young people, where they can get the chances in life they
deserve!

finally, thank you for all your support & prayers!
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