This morning, I have finally received my first case of a dodgy tummy. Sorry readers for telling you this, but I thought it was a historic event worth noting. To be honest, I don’t think it will be the last time I will have dodgy tummy while I’m here, but I promise from now on I will spare you any details :o)

Today I was awoken early (again)… There’s only so much pokemon in italian you can take before I got *very* fed-up and decided that it was time to get up.

I sorted out my washing this morning. This was because I’d left my clothes to dry on the roof for about 3 days. Yes – my pants were out for all to see for 3 whole days. Oops!!

Kids church was at 10. This involved me generally making a total idiot of myself, not knowing all the words to the songs, and doing all the gestures in a… well…. idiotic fashion. It’s a great laugh, but more importantly – the church was much fuller than last week, and I felt that the kids enjoyed it far far more (probably cos they didn’t have to put up with me on guitar!!!) During the talk bit, one of the leaders took the younger kids to a little side room to give them an easier lesson. Having tried to listen for about 10 minutes to the big kids talk, I was fed up of totally not understanding a word, that I went to play with hand puppets and try and understand the little kids talk. Now these kids are 4 or 5, but I didn’t really understand their talk either, so I was completely at a loss. I felt as though I was making headway yesterday (by learning a whole heap of new verbs), but today felt a step backwards.

We visited Cukë (the gypsy camp) at 3pm. Well – we picked up some food parcels for them, which consisted of bread, flour, oil, a frozen chicken and some biscuits. I believe this is a contribution from the church for every family there. This must be a costly operation. I would hazard a guess that each pack would cost around 1000 lek (about 5 pounds) and there was about 20 in the back of the jeep, which for each family I would estimate a monthly cost of around 100 pounds. I’m sure the church here would love some contributions, and if you’d like the details – please email me.

Before leaving the shop, we all took timeout for a quick drink of Fanta. Hmmm – this was probably a bad move. A whole can of fizzy fanta, my dodgy belly, a back seat in the jeep and the state of the roads on the way to cuka don’t make for a happy Sion!!! Man – I felt ill when we arrived!!! :o)
The Cukë people were on good form when we arrived. They thought for a second we weren’t coming, and some were on their way back to the second camp, so we turned them around. I can honestly say that i have never had so much fun when I’ve visited these guys in church. There was a bigger congregation than last week, but the heart of some of the ladies truly is astonishing. One of the women gave a testimony of how she prays every day, and really encouraged the others to do the same. Another told of how her knee was healed after she had prayed for it. It was fantastic, and that coupled with more crazy singing….

The only problem with visiting Cukë is that you never know what else you come home with. I’ve had the warmest shower in the world, but I’m still not feeling clean. Ah well – S’ka problem.




Busy day tomorrow, so I probably won’t post, but please do keep your comments and thoughts coming in – its good to hear from you.