Kindergarten Class

The village kindergarten moved in last week. So far it seems to be working out well for them. I like the one picture of the gender segragation. It starts at an early age.

Genti also wrote news that one of the Albanian TV channels, Top Channel, was holding a news special featuring the evangelicals and their aid to the people in Gerdec, the village where the explosion took place. VUSH, the evangelical consortium, asked to hold this interview at our ministry center in Vlashi. We'll update you as to what went on with this meeting.

Just a Bit of News

Arjan sent some pictures this week of some of the clean up going still going on at the ministry center in Vlashi. The box that Mersin and Anselmo are carrying is filled with broken glass from windows and glass doors from inside the building. The broken slats of wood are off storage doors in the loft area on the second floor of the center. There are four doors that are going to have to be repaired.

Also, today I was reading from one of the articles listed on our side bar of "related articles" that said investigators that worked on 911 wreckage sites and also the team that worked at Oklahoma City are currently in Albania working at the blast site.

Lastly, in another article that I was reading, Albania was all excited since NATO has extended to them an invitation to join. Only now, they are in a mild panic because they realize they must clean up their "extralegal" affairs --where up to 90% of business and property assets are part of the black or gray economy.

Monday in Gerdec: location of explosion

(Notice the temporary housing in the background)

Today we received an email attachment from Genti showing what a group of them did and experienced in Gerdec, the closest village to the explosion of three weeks ago. Genti mentioned that Mandi and his family, Olti and Anselmo (from Vlashi), and himself went to help distribute aid to the families that experienced complete devastation from the blast.

Distributions

Today we found out that several families in Vlashi village have relatives that lived in the village that took the direct hit from the explosion. Their homes are completely gone and they are not going to be able to use their land because of the contamination. Genti and Shpresa took boxes of food to the families of Vlashi that now have the extra burden to house and to feed their relatives from Gerdec.

The other news is that the kindergarten in Vlashi will be moving into our ministry center on Monday. Their building was destroyed from the concussion. Next week hopefully we will have pictures to show you.

We talked with Mandi on the phone this week and he said that there was so much snow in the mountain pass that they were unable to go to Darshen this week. We guess spring hasn't completely come everywhere yet.