Being thankful

How was your Thanksgiving? Probably spent with family,
food, friends, football... This was our first one away from family.
We spent it in a village just outside of Lushnje. This was also
our first official ministry. We've posted pictures of the church
there just so we can all as Americans be thankful for the
luxuries and blessings we have. This is their church.
Their building is a house. This picture above is of the bathroom,
but it doesn't work, so they have no bathroom.

This is the first room you walk into.

Back wall of the sanctuary. The whole room fits maybe 20
people or so. We really made the rows tight and praise God,
it was a full house! There were even people standing outside
in the hallway, so there wasn't enough room for us (our team).

kitchen

Tim played worship with our leader for the service and
Jamie led worship for the girl's meeting in Albanian
for the first time! Before and after, we just try to converse
with the people - some believers, some nonbelievers, some who've
been away from the church. Since this outreach, the church has
been doing very well. We have prayed for the fruit
of this to continue on.

Sickness just will not leave our family alone! Our whole family
got a really bad bug, but we're better now. Although, now Kadence
has a bad ear infection and popped ear drum. We
discovered it yesterday. We called the doctor right away
and he came over (that's what we do here, it's different than calling
and going in an office like in the States). Then, he said she needed
to see a specialist, so we went there with him. It was at a
clinic right here in Lushnje... interesting. It's just different.
Smoking is allowed everywhere, so even in a clinic of sick people
you smell smoke. Then right in front of the room where Kadence was
seen was a circle about 6 feet around where the wall and ceiling
was just coming apart and you could see mold. After she was
seen there, the specialist said we had to go to the hospital.
So, we went there. Before this I had decided I wouldn't get sick
enough for the hospital after going to a lab to get a test for
an infection. When I (Jamie) went there, I walked upstairs to a desk.
Normally, in America, there's a receptionist and she takes your
name and you wait for a while and go in the back and so on.
Well, the doctor was behind the desk and he was drawing blood
from a woman. The room was small, maybe 20x20ft and the
"waiting area" was 5 feet in front of the entertaining blood drawing
episode. Then as my doctor walked in, the doctor who was already
there finished drawing the blood and stood up to shake my doctor's
hand with the syringe full of blood in the other hand.
Then, he waved it around while he talked and put it down on the
desk. This bit is for anyone with any medical training.
A little something called "universal precautions" is unknown here.
So, I had my concerns about going to the hospital, but didn't worry
about it. It turned out fine and Kadence is on medicine now.

Christmas time! Tim had bought a tree at a missionary's garage sale. Yay!

We had given away and sold all of our holiday decorations,
in America, so we made some paper snowflakes.
Way cheaper than any decorations we've seen here yet!