Monday February 2, 2009

We left Tirana at 7:00am and traveled 3 hours to Velore Albania to do the final training for World Vision.  This town is on the Adriatic Sea.  This is a town many come for vacation.  This training was for the Monitors who serve the families whose children are sponsored by people all over the world.  The monitors mostly live in the villages where the sponsored children live so many of them know them from the community as well.  What a incredible committed group of people.  Their work is hard because they see so many difficult situations in the families they serve.  

We met in a church for this training.  We spent the first day getting to know them and helping them learn about themselves.  This process is important so they can understand those they work with.  Some of the stories are hard to hear.  As we finished the first day, the pastor and his wife Darrell and Debbie came in to meet us.  They are Americans who are from Wooster Ohio.  Wonderful and great people.  

For lunch we went to this restaurant run by this very fun italian gentlemen.  He just says "what would you like, i will cook what you want".  The food was awesome.  And if you don't finish because you might be full, he almost offended, but fun as well.

After lunch we had met with the 2 primary mentors who were amazing young people.  We both fell in love with these two.  

In the evening we went to dinner with Darrell and Debbie and enjoyed getting to know them and how God brought them to Albania.  It was good to see how God is using them in the community of Velore.