Back from Ibe

What a wonderful village! The people are so friendly, and curious. We went to Ibe today with Luisa, a friend of Eli. Luisa and her husband, Memli, have been visiting this village for a number of years and have developed a group of new Christians there and have built a church. It was deliciously cool with its cement floor today, as we arrived in the humid heat. None of the women spoke English, but all were excited to do their first block! So, we set about doing it in teams, and they seemed to catch on. Children wandered in, so did a cat. It was all so friendly, and easy-going. The other residents are ethnically Muslim; perhaps they will share piecing, then quilting, with them. Luisa has told me she will see if she can use quilting as a tool for evangelism - and will send pictures of anything that comes of our visit.

Genta was unbelievably helpful - working hard to help the ladies with the tools. The pictures from this morning were from yesterday; the pictures with this post are from today. Tomorrow we go to Gerdec with Adi - google it and you will find it is the site of a disastrous munitions dump explosion in March, 2008. So, it will be interesting to meet the ladies there. The pictures don't seem to be downloading. Could it be that there is a glitch in the system during the late hours of the day? I'll try to send the pictures tomorrow.

It seems that there might be a future for quilting in Albania - wouldn't that just be wonderful?

sharon

Off to Ibe in the mountains today. It is still humid, so different from the coast. Please pray that we have enough fabric and quilting tools today. Also, pray that the women are receptive and quilting is attractive to the ladies there. We will take Genta, at least, and she will bring a sewing machine. We're adapting the format, I hope, to be a little more efficient.

Bill is having problems sleeping - I'm concerned for him today. Otherwise, we are doing OK with food, etc. We (I) are having a wonderful time learning about this country and its people - our brothers and sisters are so ardent for our Abba. It is encouraging to watch and help them with it.

We have met a missionary from Shkroder (I'm not sure of the spelling) which is in the north. She will take the idea of quilting to the mountain villages in the north. Since during the winters, the women are often home alone and looking for things to do, this may be a good tool to introduce the Gospel for the women there. I'm excited. Hopefully, I'll get a picture of her and include it with our next post as we are with her now.

Please remember us today as we go to the village of Ibe. This is really a step of faith as we are going with a woman who is a friend of Edi; we don't know if she speaks English, or how many women there will be, or what the conditions are. Hopefully, will make another post this evening.

We are remembering you in our prayers.

Our first quilting group

We had a wonderful morning walking around Tirana - visiting the National Museum of History, and remembering Albania's history. Then, lunch and off to Campus Crusade to join a group of women to present quilting as a potential evangelistic tool. Adi had hand-picked this group as being strategic for potential use of this tool, and they all seemed to enjoy themselves.

Adi chose the fabric last night, we had a set of tools for almost everyone. According to Adi, a 2 to 2 1/2 hour meeting is about the limit... they were there five hours! We almost finished the first block, and we had the opportunity to teach some of the techniques of quilting. What a blessing these women are - and, hopefully, they will be able to use quilting in their evangelism.

Well, I'm totally wiped out, so I'm heading to bed right now. Tomorrow we go to the mountains with a lady I have not met. Genta will go, and if there is room, so will Flori and Bill. We get home, then dinner with the Berhamis.

For reasons unknown, the blog doesn't seem to want to accept the photos. I'll try again in the am.

G'night

First Day

After breakfast, Genta and Flori helped us unload the cartons, reorganize everything (we don't have to worry about each carton containing less than 70# now), cut fabric and assembled our needs for our this afternoon with Genta's young girls. They were fascinated by the construction of the quilt - so it is good they are not all quilted so they can see the work. We checked out fabric stores while Genta took care of some business at her job - and finally found some fabric that could be used for quilting. The "shops" here are a little different - we went to a market with small stalls.

Then lunch with Flori and Genta and a taxi ride to pick up the young girls. When we arrived, one of the girls had her new parents there - they are a Christian couple from Nashville and are adopting an energetic young 15 year old. They have much experience with fostering kids, and saw this young girl's profile on the Bethany site. So, they came here to adopt her. There was much going on, and the girls we were to take with us to Genta's house were swimming, so we ended up taking a much needed nap back at the Stephen Center.

This evening we are finalizing plans with Adi and Berti for tomorrow and Thursday. Tomorrow we will see the young ladies, and then see Adi's group at her church. It promises to be a busy day.

We are HERE!!! It was so good to see a familiar face last night at the airport... Bertie picked us up. What an interesting adventure our trip. It was so good to see all of our luggage after so many hours and miles. The customs official saw our luggage, too, and his eyes got big, but more about that later.

We are in the coffee shop at Stephen Center, listening to familiar music, waiting for Flori and Genta. This afternoon we see Genta's "orphans," this evening dinner with Berti and Adi. Genta, Adi and I will try to figure out how to divide the fabric, etc.

We awoke at 4 - around 4:30 the sky lightened with a beautiful dawn. Now, it's raining, and the rain is becoming more persistent. Every so often we have the thunder, and we know we are in a different place.

How exciting to see the people at the airport, as they progressively became less and less American. First, Americans with a smattering of European languages but mostly Far Eastern languages in LA, then German and French spoken by tall men with shaved heads discussing business fervently over a beer and pretzel in Munich, then darker and shorter people speaking a new language.

Here are Flori and Genta! Later.

En route

Paul and Abbey Rainey were kind enough to take us to the airport yesterday, and helped transfer the 400 pounds of checked luggage. Although we had six bags, the computer did not charge us, and the supervisor told the passenger agent she didn't have to do so. So, God went before us - each "bag" was less than 70 pounds (one by 1/2 pound). We had a little lunch, then joined the other 2 passengers on our flight (it was a good thing because of all our luggage) and left and arrived early to LA, only to wait for 5 1/2 hours there. Trekked to the international terminal (United is the farthest away), had to go through security again (how many of you can get a month's worth of "liquids" in a quart size Ziplock bag?), and found our way to the gate. There, we waited.

The flight from LA to Munich was uneventful, but we were so grateful that our "miles" required the Business Class seats. We had plenty of room, good food, and we actually slept (sort of). Now we are waiting in the Munich lounge for the last leg - to Tirana. The trip seems kind of like a dream... we've talked about this for so long, prepared, and now we are actually almost there! It's 6 pm here, 9 am at home, so our bodies don't know what to do. It's warm, about 80, and muggy.

But, we are here in one piece, and excited. Thanks to all that have partnered with us. More when we get to Albania.

It’s Friday... 24 hours to go. We have finished the last errands, and will repack our checked luggage today, making sure each meets weight requirements. It looks like we may have more women participating than I had dreamed - we bought extra cutters and mats on faith, planning to have one for each participant. But, now it doesn’t appear that we will have one for everyone; we’ll let strategic friends decide who gets what. Pray for wisdom as they do that - and for stamina for everyone involved.

I think we have all we need for ourselves; we may have to use a shoe horn to pack our things in our carry-ons. Since we have some required needs - e.g., a cervical pillow - that means less room for toothpaste. This is a new adventure for me - am hoping to take just what I need and nothing superfluous.

The second block is above - called Garden of Eden - and is a traditional pattern. We all tried to put flowered fabric in this block, since it isn’t an obvious garden.