Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Jewelry Fair & DIY workshops!

I am in love with DIY projects. I think two of my best gifts are creativity and patience. I could spend hours on those projects and never get bored. That is why I thought I could use this gift to reach some younger girls for Christ. So me and one of my best friends Fjori ( see her picture below :), decided to write a plan and call it Jewelry Fair and DIY workshops. This is what it is about:

Goals:

To reach high school girls for Christ. / To invite them to our youth group./ To plug them into our local church./ Involve some of the girls that are already part of our youth group.

Discription:

We ( some of the girls of our youth group) will get together and work on some jewelry. We will then go and sell them to one or two high schools, which would be our fishing ponds. We will try to choose the high schools where some of our Youth Group girls are attending so we could have a contact person that will make sure to invite them in our youth group and youth events. We will also have 3-4 workshops for all the girls who want do those things on their own. In this way we will be able to build relationships and share with them “Who we are” and “what we do”.

Workshops :

The girls who really want to learn how to do those jewelry by themselves will be invited./ There will be 3-4 workshops in total , 3-4 hours each with breaks in between./ We will have them pay a symbolic price for that just so they can cover part of the expenses but as well to give importance to our event. / There will be a 15 minute session where one of our leader girls will talk about the truths of the bible ( topics are still to be selected but it has to be something related to the event)/They will take place on Saturdays so we can have them stay at our Youth Group as well.

Challenge:

We bought all the supplies and actually tried to meet several times but it has been a challenge till now.
We are not finding the appropriate time since the school hours are different for most of the girls and also because of the private courses they take up.

Prayer requests:

Please, pray for commitment from the youth group girls./ For a certain time that we could meet and that would be good for all of us./ Pray that this project would attract new girls to our youth group and that we would introduce them to the Gospel and Christ!

Thank you! :)

Fjori and I

Surprise!!!

I love surprises! It doesn't matter how big they are. I always enjoy them! And this morning i had the greatest surprise ever. We were at church today and in the middle of worship my dad showed up! My dad!!! When i left home, i left him there! Never in the world i would have thought that he had planned to visit our church! My brother and I were ... (i just can't find a word to describe it).. amazed, surprised and shocked! This was the first time that i saw my brother in tears while we were singing the songs (for he doesn't like to show his emotions). We set together, my dad, my brother and I for the whole service. Now, my dad is a Muslim. He had listened to some of the sermons but outside the church while he was working and never entered the chapel. I know this is a big and huge step for him and he had to fight a lot of other principles to do this.

You know?? This was one of the situations where you wanna know somebody's else thoughts. I so wanted to know what was he thinking when our pastor was preaching from 1 Peter, what where his feelings and what was going on in his heart. I am so glad that God knows all of these things and I pray that He will use all of these for my dad's salvation.

I just realized, that we worship a God of surprises. That whenever we feel down or sometimes loose our hope on something, this is the moment that God decides to surprise us! Maybe, this situation for someone its not a big deal ,to me is an answer to prayer and can't wait to see what other surprises God has stored for me! (maybe my mom would want to visit next Sunday ;)

Please, join me in worship and prayer! :)

FACES I LOVE! :)

Some of the girls from the English Club (in Babrru). These are the faces i see every Saturday and the faces that are very dear to my heart.

These were the girls that came last Saturday! Missing those who were not able to come!

friends :)

Denisa

Melisa

Milidia

Esmeralda

Irini

Ina

Armela

Geralda

Linda

Lodi

Ueda

Jorinda

Kimete and Jorinda

Esterina

oops ... Jorinda again! :)

kimete

Nihal

Lies young women believe!

This is a second “English Club” with a girl, Ina who accepted Christ during the Camp. We go through this book together. It has very important issues that concern all the teenagers and what I like about it is that focuses on The Truth to change the worldly perspective of dealing with this issues. Now we are going to open it for everyone who wants to join. Please, join with me in prayers, as we want this time to be fruitful and help us grow.

Girls' Day

Since i had promised my girls (English club girls) to do something special this summer I planned a girls day two weeks before the school started. Almost a whole day all for us. We gathered together at Streha – our youth shack. We did fun thinds such as danced some songs, had a girly craft, had lunch together, did our nails, had a fashion show with clothes made of newspaper and toilet paper, and most of all we talked about the standarts that the world has set about external beauty and how God measures beauty, focusing our discussion in the importance of our hearts and to the only ONE who is able to change them: our Lord Jesus Christ.

( These are the only pictures i have left because the camera broke :(

Camps

The Josiah Venture camps were great. The theme was Reedem. We had two JV camps this summer. (I am really sorry for the late update)

Camp 2 - The second camp we had was the Greace Church of Tirana together with two other churches. This was located in a BEAUTIFUL city down south Albania near the Ionin sea. Sorrounded by such beauty just makes you praise the Lord more for his creation. The theme for this summer was: Redeem and it had stories of redemption from the Bible. 10 people accepted Christ from the 3 churches , and some more became believers a couple of weeks after the camp was over. One of them was Ina Levanaj. Such a sweet girl now a dear sister in the Lord. She is coimng in our church and in our youth group. Here are some pictures:

Ina levanaj






The Albanian and American Team

Camp 1

Lord provided in so many ways. Our fear or better say MY main concern was that the English club girls wouldn’t be able to go because it was outside Tirana and many parents wouldn’t allow them, but actually we went in their houses and talked with the parents personally and most of them were able to come. They had a great time together spending time with each other, listening to stories of redemption but also thinking of the things that were discussed in the small groups. They asked very good questions. It wasn’t God’s time for any of them to accept Christ but God has placed some of us in Babrru to continue loving them and to keep sharing the gospal.