Sorry it's been so long

There's been so much going on! I'm really sorry I've not been more faithful at updating this. I'm sure you've given up on me by now. I hope to be more consistent at updating you all via the blog. I'm also working on a newsletter which will give a more detailed look at what's been happening with us and the church plant over the past few months. For now, I'll give you some highlights.

• Conversational English with Students: Roger and I meet with 4 (and now there's 3...one got a job) girls who are college students at the University of Zagreb twice a week for conversational English class. We started with just some get to know you topics like "favorites", "family", "marriage", "future/career", etc. From the very first weeks, we hit it off and became friends. It was a real blessing. Later, Roger and I started working through "The Purpose Driven Life" with them hoping we could find out more of where they were spiritually. Boy...did we find out! They are all over the place. Some hate the church (meaning the Catholic Church in their minds. For most Croatians, that is there only concept of church). Others believe in a God of some kind but not a personal God. Others believe in a new-age form a God attainable through meditation of various kinds, etc. Since then, we've stopped working through "The Purpose Driven Life" and started discussing social issues. Anyway, through all of this, we have had many opportunities to share about who we are and why we love Jesus. Some of them are unaffected. Others have been very curious and always want to hear us say more. We'll continue these relationships more through the summer, but stop the formal class at the end of June.
  
• Prayer Movement: Man...there's a lot to this one so I'll expand on it more in our newsletter. Bottom line is, we've noticed a trend here in Croatia. For many years now the small struggling church has been faithful at witnessing on the streets, to their friends, etc. and little fruit has been produced. There has been a general realization among us and among many others in the country that we need to back up and start to pray more. We realized we were primarily throwing our seed on to rocky, awful soil. We need to start working the soil over with our prayers. We also work the soil over with our actions...we continue to witness to our friends, we do random acts of kindness, we give abundantly, etc. All these acts of the Kingdom sow into the soil, but we realized one of the main ways we needed to help get the soil ready was through prayer. So, we've started to pray...a lot...and it's been wonderful. There's much more to this, but I'll stop here for now.
  
• Our Girls: Lizzie and Bekah are growing so quickly. Lizzie looks like a little girl now and not a baby. Bekah is growing completely out of her newborn look and is (as we like to call her) a "chunky monkey". They keep us tired and laughing. We LOVE being parents and despite all the exhaustion, we wouldn't have it any other way.
  
• Visit from Laura's Mom and Aunt: Laura's mom (Rae) and aunt (Yvonne) came to see us in mid May. Their visit enabled me to attend Kenny Kon & Zeida Rojas' wedding in mid-May as well. When I returned from my quick visit to the States, we immediately headed north to Salzburg, Austria for 4 days. It was a really enjoyable vacation with family. Lizzie and Bekah loved the attention.
  
• Kenny and Zeida's Wedding: What a stinkin' blast that was! Tim and I went golfing. All the guys played paintball for the bachelor party. We had lots of time together just sittin' and enjoying. Most of all, we saw Kenny Kon, the eternal bachelor, finally tie the knot. What a blessing and it was truly a celebration! We all partied like it was 1999. :-)
  

I believe that hits all the major points over the last few months. Like I said, a newsletter will be coming out soon which will cover some of these events and more in more detail. Forgive the quickness of this entry. I just wanted to get back out here bloggin'. Much love to all of you from the Albright family!