In the mean time, here in Albania we recently experienced the long-awaited arrival of our new "intern", John! He will be with us for the year 2018 and we couldn't be more excited about having him!
Evidence of the kids' excitement about his arrival -- Reni has set up a welcome station on his bed with signs, including a package of cheese Lay's potato chips, 2 KFC hand wipes in packets, some Albanian coins, and one of each flavor of Jolly Ranchers.
John arrived during church on Friday night and was almost immediately pulled out to the basketball court for some hoops afterwards. Thankfully he loves basketball because the boys just assumed that at 6'4" (which is like 6'8" in America), he'd want to play basketball with them.
The next morning he was at two kids' clubs, getting acquainted with what we do. Below, this is us after putting away all our supplies from an afternoon in Metalle.
The next morning we took him to our local shopping center to stock up on supplies for his room at the Hope Center, his home for the next five months. That afternoon they had a welcome reception for him and helped him move his belongings in. He will live on the boys floor as a resident assistant, of sorts.
John and Reni pose on one of the two beds in John's room.
A few of the guys presented John with a welcome sign in English!
We are letting him ease into life here. Since moving into the Hope Center he's come back to the village nearly every day and helped out with rec time and other activities. Next week he will start Albanian language class in Tirana three mornings per week and we're sure in no time his confidence will grow as his ability to communicate increases -- not that he's not confident now, in fact, he's really embracing all that Albania has to offer and we're so glad! Looking forward to this next year!
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