We have some wonderful news Yesterday we found a house, not an apartment, or part of a house that was being let, but a Villa We are very excited about it. The small villa is more or less in the center of Tirana. It is just in our price range, has a great out door area for Jonathan to play, a bedroom, nursery for the babies, a guestroom/office, 2 bathrooms (no tub but two showers at least!), a small kitchen dinning room area and a nice covered patio where we can enjoy the cooler summer nights and spring time/autumn days. The owners are very nice people and experienced landlords. We will be inheriting a tortoise with the property… we hope that Londy and he/she/it will get along! Our contract starts on September 1st, so in the meantime we will be looking for the few items of furniture etc. that we will need to make it home and getting it ready to move into.

Regarding Londy, now that we have a house to live in that will accept the dog we will be trying to bring him over in November. There is a problem though… when out walking with Londy, Karen was pulled over and she broke her shoulder This has meant that they will not be able to keep him until Doug comes to pick him up! Londy is currently in a kennel in Bel Air, MA. If anyone can give him temporary housing until November we would appreciate it! Otherwize we may have no option but to adopt him out. I know… you are thinking as I am… who would take a dog that has already broken one persons shoulder?! He is a good dog and as long as you are either a man or a strong and experienced dog handling female you and Londy would do just fine!

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers as we have gone through the house hunting process. We are VERY happy with what we have found and it has a lot of potential as a place where we can entertain friends and develop relationships with those in the surrounding area

You may have been wondering what is going on in the lives of Doug, Jen & Jonathan Mann since we left Peru just over a month ago. As you can imagine, transition is a busy time, and as we don’t have our own home and internet connection yet. Thus, it is hard to get updates on our website!
The short of it is that we are doing great. We are melting in the heat, but we are enjoying exploring our new city and meeting new friends. We immediately liked what we saw as we came into Tirana just over two weeks ago. The contrast between the size of Lima vs Tirana is incredible. We have moved from a city of 10,000 000 people to a country of less than 3 000 000! Doug and I are still marveling that we can drive across the city in less than half an hour! From most points in Tirana it is possible to see the surrounding hills and mountains that ring the small city. The summer heat has produced hanging grape vines and other fruit trees throughout the neighborhood where we are currently living. All of the Albanians that we have come across both inside and outside of the church and the circle of friends that we are entering have been very helpful and friendly. Thankfully there are enough Albanians that speak a little English that it is not too difficult to stop someone on the street and ask for directions or get help in a grocery store.
Our second full week was spent at the Albania District Family Camp in the eastern border of Albania. We spent a great week getting to know around 100 Albanians, enjoying the cool breeze from the nearby lake and experiencing some of our first tastes of Albanian food and culture. It was a great way to start our time here.
Thinking about language, we started lessons this week. Our teacher, Mira, speaks no English so it will be a tough but necessary challenge over the next few weeks to understand what she is saying! She seems so patient and sweet that I am sure we will get on just fine. We are itching to be able to communicate with some of our new friends that don’t speak English. One couple in particular is Rroku and Violetta. We will be living close to them and helping them to start a church out of the cell group that they have already formed. They are a lovely couple with three kids, the youngest of which is a 9 month old who will fall right between Jonathan and our next baby in age. We already have many dreams of what may be to come… I would love to start a weekly outreach ‘Mums and Tots’ group… We met a friend today who would, along with his family, love to engage in the group of believers… However language must come first! We will be having daily lessons for the next year… please pray for us!
The final urgent prayer request is our housing. We are eager to find the right house and move in before we need to leave for the UK at the end of September. We will be in the UK for the birth of the baby and we would love to be able to bring her home to a home!! Our shipment is scheduled to leave Peru today, please pray that it actually leaves as this is the second scheduled departure date that we have received. If it leaves today we should have it before we leave for the UK. We are trying to remain positive and patient and remind ourselves that we were not brought to Albania to be homeless… we just feel a lot of pressure because of ‘Mom’s urge to nest’ and the desire to have a functioning home to come back to after the birth.
Thanks for praying for us and coming alongside us as we make this transition!

If we were to sum up the month of June in one phrase it would be ‘a whirl-wind’. As we prepared for our international move we also had the responsibility to train those who would take our jobs at the office along with the leadership of 2 work and witness teams. We felt like we had never been as busy in all of our time working in Peru!

The time with the work and witness teams was wonderful. The Love Works team saw a group of 12 Point Loma Nazarene University students spend 3 weeks evangelizing in Peru. They spent 10 days in Lima painting and cleaning 3 churches in poor areas of the city. The impact was amazing, with people from the communities wanting to know what would bring American students to their neighbourhood. Their last 10 days were spent in Cuzco where they were involved in door to door evangelism and Jesus Film showings. They witnessed 8 people giving their lives to the Lord. The second team came from Bel Air, Maryland, our stateside home church. The time with them was personally renewing for both of us as we were able to spend time with our pastor Russ Long and friends form the Bel Air Church. Their impact in Pisco, the area most severely hit by last years earthquake, was tremendous as they lead a children’s bible club and prepared and poured the roof on the new district center for the church.

It was a truly satisfying task for both of us to be able to train Peruvians to take over our responsibilities in the Field Office. You may have heard one or the other of us saying that it is the dream of a missionary to support the handover of the church to nationals and then move on. We have not only been able to participate in this transition with the appointment of Rev Segundo Rimarachin as Field Strategy Coordinator, but we have also been able to pass on our individual responsibilities to Peruvians. Doug trained the first national field finance & office manager and Jen trained the first national Child Sponsorship coordinator. Now the Field Office team is made up completely of Peruvian staff! It feels like perfect timing to be moving to another assignment as we feel a sense of accomplishment in our part of the transitions that have taken place in the past 3 years in Peru.

As we completed our work, hosted teams and once again packed our home into boxes we did have the opportunity to get together with friends for baby showers, parties and farewells. One of the most memorable days of our last week in Peru will be the trip that we took to Iquitos. Hermano Segundo Rimarachin and his wife Lourdes took us to Iquitos in the jungle as a thank you gift. What an amazing day it was! We had dreamed about going to the deep jungle and thought that we would not make it. The day was filled with traditional food, boat trips up the Amazon River to visit tribes and jungle animals, and tours of the city and the surrounding jungle.

Peru, and specifically the Peruvians will always hold a place in our hearts. We have experienced a myriad of emotions during our 3 and a half years serving in Peru. We have faced some of the hardest days of our lives along with some of the most joyous ones. We leave not only with a sense of accomplishment but also having learnt many valuable lessons that we will take with us to South Eastern Europe. We leave not only feeling a sense of sadness and loss as we say goodbye to friends, but giving thanks for the wonderful relationships we maintain and the memories that will last a lifetime. We thank God for all that he has done in our lives in Peru, all that he has taught us, all that he has done through us and for all that he is doing and will continue to do in the Peruvian Church.

We will we back one day and we are looking forward to it… we do after all have a Peruvian son

Today has been a sad day for us as a family. When we arrived in the USA last week with Londy, our dog, we started to encounter problems with his travel from the USA to Albania next week. After making many phone calls to different airlines we discovered that the only carrier that would take Londy is Austrian. So we made the tentitive plan to leave Londy here in the USA until Doug can return on Austrian to collect him. Then began the task of finding him a suitable foster family! Thanks to our pastor and friends at Bel Air Church of the Nazarene in Baltimore, Karen Hanze and Linda Manning offered to ‘foster’ Londy until Doug can collect him We are very happy and relieved to have some dog loving people to take care of him over the next few months… but we will miss our Fur Baby! It will be strange to start to set up our home in Albania without him… but it will give us time to prepare and make sure that he will be able to to live in Albania comfortably

Here’s Jen and “The Bean” at 25 weeks pregnant at Nantaskett beach.

We are here in the USA staying with Doug’s folks in the Boston area for some vacation. We left Peru at the beginning of the week with a sad farewell. We left many great friends and our first ‘family home’ but we are left with many great memories.

We move to Albania on the 21st of July. We will initially live in the Beiler’s house (the missionaries currently working in Albania who we will be working with) and we will start to look for our own home. Please pray that God will provide something that will provide a good home for our growing family! Please pray that our shipment will arrive before the birth time of the baby! Please also pray that we find a short term home for our dog Londy, here in the Boston area. We cannot initially take Londy with us, but Doug could return for him at a later date. If we dont find anyone suitable, we do have friends that will adopt him here in the states… but we would obvioulsy like to keep ur family together

Getting back to “The Bean”… all the arrangements have now been made to have the birth in the UK. Our regional and field leadership recommended that we did not have the baby in Albania due to the quality of health care services. So we have arranged to go to Jen’s family home for the month surrounding the birth. It obvioulsy is not ideal to have a baby away from home. Jen would have preferred to have a little Albanian to add to the international family that we are becoming… but it is a blessing that we have the oppertunity to share this special time with Jen’s family…. Jen never imagined that missionary life would permit her mum to be around at the birth of one of her children!!

Well, as you get the chance over the next weeks please pray for our move. We are excited but obviously a little nervous about our new venture!