One of the church's ministries is providing "food bags" once a week to certain needy families. I helped with the distribution on Wednesday, and got a crash course in Albanian!

The families on the list line up at the door to the magazine (with a variety of empty bags and a little pushing and shoving), where the church stores pallets of flour, sugar, oil etc.

They sign in, and one of the church's staff members, Mirayla, calls out the items allotted for that specific family, while others (including myself) grab the items.

So Mirayla calls, "Nee vigh, nee spaghetti, doo meel, tray biskeet, cauter sauce, nee reece..." etc etc, all in ten seconds. And we scurry to gather one bottle of oil, one package of spaghetti, two bags of flour, a bag of cookies, four jars of tomato sauce, one bag of rice...

It was a good challenge!

You would be amazed at what these women can carry. There was one lady, a widow with nine children, so you can imagine the amounts of flour, sugar, oil, etc. that she needed. And she took it all away in two big bags. Who knows how long of a walk she had to get home.

You would also be amazed at how few of the recipients said thank you for their food. Not because they were proud, but because they've come to expect free things from Christians.