Kris speaking in Albanian

Well, we are coming up on our 2 year anniversary of arriving in Albania. We are so thankful to God for these past months of language learning. We have been stretched and challenged in ways that we never imagined in this endeavor. It has been humbling, oh so very humbling, to stumble along and "butcher" this lovely language again and again.

June 14th was a historic day for Kris. He was asked to preach the Sunday message at a local church here in Tirana, and he did a portion of his introduction in Albanian! Even though this is just one small step for him, it is a huge encouragement to know that we are progressing in our language acquisition. God knew that we needed this milestone to encourage us to press on in this long and arduous process of learning the language of our new home country.

Enjoy listening to Kris as he begins his message speaking Albanian.


We appreciate your continued prayers for us to be diligent in studying and practicing Albanian. Even though we are done with our official language classes for the summer break we continue to work on maintaining and improving our vocabulary and grammar usage by meeting with our language coaches and visiting and having coffees with various neighbors and shop-keepers in our area. We are looking forward to having a bit more flexibility in our schedules over the summer to make impromptu visits for relationship building and language practice.

Pray for me, Chelle, as I have been interacting and having coffee with our local seamstress, named Reti. I told her and her two workers (Adi and Dita) that I am translating and working on my testimony (history of my life with God) and that when I am done I will share it with them. This is a very unique concept for them. They were quite interested in what I was talking about. My goal is to be able to communicate the gospel in the context of my life testimony by mid-July.

Praise the Lord that He gives us the ability to learn and use this language for HIS glory and the building of HIS kingdom.