Easter Blessings!

Our Easter Celebration!

He is not here! He is Risen!
Luke 24:6

Hope your Easter was blessed, we enjoyed a neat time with the church in Malisheve!

It was a wonderful time to remember the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to think upon the new life God has given us in His Son. What an incredible testimony of God's LOVE for us...Jesus was crucified for our sins and buried in a grave yet, the POWER of God raised Him from the dead....We love and serve a living God, One that is alive and active in our daily lives, and the One who we will spend together with in eternity...Our Creator, Our God and our Redeemer!

Here are some highlights of our time together

We had a beautiful Easter Day!
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork
Psalm 19:1

Spring is here! The flowers are blooming on the hillsides

Looking toward Malisheve
The cows even enjoy the beautiful weather!
Taking time in the sunshine: Sam and Kim
Jen being cute!

The kids put on a Easter drama..it was the best! They memorized verses from the bible and shared the story of the Resurrection

He is not here, He is Risen!

We went to Prishtine for an Easter celebration with all the evangelical churches in the area, it was so neat to see so many Kosovar believers gathered together!
The believers met their friends and enjoyed sweet fellowship



We had a nice lunch out with Sam, his friend Liroc , Hana, Sherea and Fatmir...

The Girls!

The Guys!

God gave us a beautiful sunset on our drive home...You can just see the power and glory of God in His creation!
Our God is an awesome God, He reigns in heaven and earth, with wisdom, power and love, our God is an awesome God!

Happy Spring and New life in Christ!
May your hearts draw nearer to the incredible LOVE of the Lord
He loves us with an everlasting LOVE


Prayer Requests:

**The believers: Their hearts as they walk with Jesus

**Randy and Lycia: Preparing to return to Kosovo

**Jen and Kim: Continued direction in serving the Lord

Overdue update

Hi Everyone,

Forgive us for this overdue update! We are doing well, and it has been a very busy month for us.
There is lots going on each day just being in the midst of the believers daily lives here, although we are enjoying being a part of it all. We have certainly felt the spiritual oppression here, as we see the discouragements that can come along. This has also been mixed with physical sickness and many of us have had another round of colds and flu which is commonly known as "The Grip"
Jen was sick for a full week in Feb. Now we are all doing much better and stronger.



Life is also just normal living here, and watching the church struggle with basics areas of Christian growth, as we all do! We are here to encourage them in these areas, like leadership, servanthood, and just simple decision making however, like all of us, growth can be slow yet steady. We pray the church grows more and more in HEART knowledge, rather than just head knowledge.

It's been wonderful to see God's hand through the time we have been here. Although the trials come, we have also seen the victories! We praise the Lord for His constant care and faithfulness and answered prayer!

Your prayers have helped us abundantly, and we are so thankful for being with us in this way!

Sherea is doing well, We have had times of discipleship with her and she seems sincere with a desire to change and grow in the Lord. It has been a very hard time for her, now facing the consequences of not finishing this year of school, but, God has helped her keep focus. She was turned down by two other schools, for this year, however, found out that her old school will take her back next year. Meanwhile, she is in English classes. This will help her learn more English and also develop her studying skills. Sherea has expressed her gratefulness for the love and care she has experienced...thank you for being a part of her life in your prayers!

Please keep Sherea in your prayers for growth in the Lord as well as in practical decisions she will make for her life.

We pray our morning devotions with the girls are encouraging their hearts in the Lord, we have also had opportunities to share with them through some of their struggles and it's a blessing to watch God knit our hearts together. Currently, we are learning about Jesus, our Good Shepherd as we study Psalm 23 at Sarah's home. We enjoy our Friday bible study group!

We are enjoying sweet fellowship with many of the people:
Here are some of the ways!

Jen makes wonderful scarfs for the girls

Mira visited from Albania
(It was a wonderful time!)

Wash Day in Kosovo

(This is how they shampoo their living room rugs!)

Kim and Burim being silly

Jen & Emeria enjoy a cappucinno together!

We play wild games of "UNO" with wild rules!

Jen and Ilir fix lunch after church

Sam and Sheptime help do the dishes

Serious Missionaries!

Ha! Taking a break from the stress of the day



Please PRAY for Kim, Jen and Sam
We have 5 short weeks left here in Kosovo, and the days are flying by quickly!
We have really enjoyed serving together here, and we are seeking the Lord as He leads us individually in our call and direction for the next step in life.

"He who calls you is FAITHFUL, Who also will do it "
1 Thess. 5:24

Last Week...

{Sheria & Abnora}

"And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has commited sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." James 5:15&16

Wow...thank you guys all so much for your prayers...we can't stress enough how we require them of you in order to serve here in God's strength. For those of you who don't know last Wednesday on of the girls living with us, Sheria, tried to take her own life. She had been kicked out of school and consumed with hopelessness of her life situation she drank soap. Her cousin Emria was worried because she had locked herself in the bathroom, she got in and found her unconscious. We rushed her to the clinic behind our building and they sent her to Prishtina via ambulance for treatment. Her stomach was pumped and she is OK, praise God. We have had some good time to talk and pray with her and are excited at what God will be doing in this new chapter of life. She no longer imagines herself to be alone and has seen the body of Christ here become her family during this time. Both her parents are deaf mute and her brother (probably early 20's) provides for the family. Please continue to keep her in your prayers as she has agreed to change her school and communication habits so as to still live with us. Monday she will be attempting to register at a school 30 minuets away to finish out her 12 year in high school. She is 17 and has 13th year left after this. Also please pray for the body of Christ here as they learn to reach out to one another and to be open with one another about their struggles. The leading guys in the church are already talking about making a point to reach out to the younger believers. Please pray that there would be greater discipleship one with another here. Also please pray for our home as we serve the body and the girls living with us. We will be holding them more accountable for their school and time. Please pray as we endeavor to love them through accountability :o) Please pray for Burim as he was accompanying Sheria in the ambulance he was thrown against a chair and hurt his rib. He doesn't know if he has only bruised it or worse as the medical attention here isn't the best. Also he has been sick for almost a month with a bad cough which adds more pain to the rib situation. He is also going to be counseling some with Sheria as he is a leader (they call them Deacons) in the church here. None of have ever dealt with anything like this so please pray for God's wisdom and leading in our words and actions. Also the interview that Kim had with the police on Friday went well and they even said that they do not consider the church or English school related to the incident (PRAISE GOD..that was a fear or ours). They have proven relatively easy to deal with which is a huge praise report! Thank you again for all you prayers and know that they "avail much"

Zoti ju Bekoft (God Bless you)

Kim & Jen

PRAISE REPORTS

• Sheria is safe and sound and growing in her understanding of God's love for her as well as the love of the family of Christ


• The church and Deacons are being challanged to be responsible for one another


• The police - our dealings with them have gone well


• Yeah! By God's grace we made it through this week!!!

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Sheria-continued healing


• Burim-rib and sickness


• Deacons-wisdom in leading the church


• Us-wisdom for our home


• The church-greater discipleship with the older leading the younger


• The church-A greater openess with one another and increased prayer for one another
  

Village Visit

Fatmir & Gezim asked us to visit their families in the village of Ladrotz this last Saturday after our church service.
We went to Gezim's house first where we met his Mother and his seven siblings, four under the age of six. It was a very busy house. Kim got to share some from the bible and we prayed with them. Unfortunately our camera wasn't working too good so mostly we have pictures of Fatmir's family who lives right next door. Fatmir and Gezim are cousins.

Ever helpful Fatmir & Gesime helping jump start the Toyota so we could go visit their families in the village. Thankfully now we think we know why the battery has been acting up though and should have the problem fixed soon :o) Life in Kosovo! Ha!

Fatmir with his baby brother Genc. Please pray for Genc as he has been sick for almost a month now with a bad cough and trouble breathing. We brought him to the hospital in Prishtina yesterday and they have him in the intensive care unit. From his x-rays it seems that he may have pnemoinia..not sure with translation and all. Please pray for him as he is only 2 months old.

Group picture with Fatmir's family. We had a very sweet visit with them. Fatmir and at least one of his sisters are believers. Please pray for his parents who do not yet know the lord.

Fatmir's dad..when Fatmir was out of the room he was still determined to communicate with us so he used lots of hand motions to try and make us understand. We were all laughing :o)


Fatmir's little brother Lek-so cute! Named after a king.


Kim had a great conversation with this visiting Muslim girl (17 years old) who had lots of questions about the differences between Christianity and Islam. Please pray for her, her name is Ariana. Lycia has been witnessing to her. We are praying she comes to the Valentine's night.

Pray Requests...

• Fatmir & Gezim as they Provide for their households
• Fatmir's baby brother Genc: for strength and health
• Gezim's Mom: grace to handle all her kids and her poor health
• Ariana's Salvation
• Wisdom for us
• Toyota & Van...Lord keep 'em runnin'!

God bless you all..we think and pray for you often!

Love

Kim & Jen

Love is in the air!

Hi everyone!
Valentine's Day is almost here and we are preparing for a special girls night this Wednesday. We will will be sharing on God's love and hope to have some unsaved ladies attend. Please pray for this evening that the girls would be allowed by their families to come and that they would see how precious they are in God's eyes.


Here we are making the invitations (L-R Sheria, Emria, Shpetim & Xhemile) Thanks Lynn for letting us borrow the pretty stamps :o) They loved them and got very creative even making some little cards for themselves.

Inside the invitation says "You are invited to join a small Valentine's day celebration" in Albanian.


Awwww So Sweet!!! Shpetim got so into it that he made his fiance a valentine!

Shpetim & Xhemile (Jim-ee-lay) run the English school that we have been teaching at and are preparing to get married this summer. Please keep them in your prayers as the are abandoning the traditional wedding for a Christian wedding. This will be one of the first Christian weddings in Kosovo and they have a heart for it to be a testimony to their families and other Christians. Please pray that their families hearts will be softened, that they would attend and that God would be glorified in this celebration. I am excited to help them plan as they don't have any point of reference for a Christian wedding. Pray that I (Jen) can divide between what I know of "American" vrs "Christian" aspects of a wedding. Also please pray for their finances as their family won't be helping them. Weddings are a very big event here and can easily get VERY costly.

There has been a lot going on so stay tuned for more posts soon!
Thank you all as always for your prayers!

Zoti ju Bekoft,
Kim & Jen

National Day of Prayer For Kosova

Hello everyone,
I pray that this message finds you all well and focused on Jesus.

Today is the national day of prayer and fasting for the nation of Kosovo. (As established by the 39 evangelical churches here) We are about to go up to the hill overlooking Malisheve to pray with some of the believers.

If the Lord would put it on any of your hearts please join with us in praying for the people and governing authorities of this "almost country". Next week we are supposed to hear if Kosovo has been given its independance from Serbia. A historical day and we are blessed to be hear to witness it. Eveyone seems to think they will get some independance but really a partial independance with lots of supervision from the NATO. Some recognize that this is a good thing...that they need help to establish a democracy. That is good.

Here are some prayer requests...

-Please pray for the church of Kosova to stand strong amidst persecution from their own friends and family and to have the courage to share Jesus with them.

-Please pray that the people of Kosovo would be freed from the bondage of Islamic traditions

-Please pray that there would be raised up just leaders who have more of a concern for their country than their own position

-Please pray that people would resist corruption on all levels and seek to do things rightly for the sake of their future

Thank you for your prayers. Prayer changes things not because of we who pray but because of whom we pray to. How GREAT is our God!!!
God Bless! Zoti ju Bekoft!
Kim & Jen

Video of Kim Dancing :o)

To see a short video of Kim attempting traditional Kosovar/Albanian Dance with the girls follow this link...

www.kimandjenkosovo.blogspot.com

Zoti ju Bekofte!
Kim & Jen

Pita for dinner!

"Taste and see that the Lord is good." Psalm 34:8

Anybody for some Pita (Pee-tah) ? Yum!

Everyone had a break form our sad attempts at cooking the last two nights as the housemates made dinner. Lavdi Zoti! (Lov-dee-zo-tee) Praise the lord!

Here are a few shots of Xhemile (Jim-ee-lay) and Emiria (Em-ear-ree-uh) making Pita for dinner. Burim and the girls join them for a photo-op. Pite is flaky layers of thin dough filled with a cheese and Leek-onion mixture. We wrote down the recipe if anyone wants to try it :o) Similar to Greek Spinicopida but much tastier.

Brothers are brothers no matter where you go! Burim AKA Mr. Bean is always a blast to have around.

While the other girls were making dinner Abnora and Sheria pass the time dancing. If I can figure out how to put video on the blog we will post video of them dancing with Kim joining in the fun!

Earlier today we took some pictures of our English classes.

This is Jen's 1:30 class

This is Jen & Kim's 3:00 advanced class. A bunch of spirited boys and one sweet girl.

Playing Hangman and showing our trusty english books which were actually written by one of the missionaries, Kathy Church, who has been attending out Albania retreats each year. Great job Kathy! We love them!

Ahhhh!!! Lord help! Kim after our 3:00 class today. They are a blessed challenge :o)

Please pray for us as they are almost out of their books and we need to come up with much of the class time ourselves. Today we played hangman and made acrostic name poems. They had fun with that. Tomorrow we are going to try skits which should be VERY entertaining! Ha! Please pray for us as we do our lesson plans for this class.

Thank you so much for your prayers and thank you for those of you who are now inspired to get Skype! Yaye!!! A good time to catch us online is between 8-11pm our time which is 11-2pm California time. But check whenever you are online. One prayer request we have is to find an adaptor we need to help with the Internet connection. We are having trouble finding it here.

Zoti ju Bekoft! (Zo-tee you bee coughed) God Bless you!

Kim & Jen

Prayer Requests...

-Lesson planning for our advanced class

-Blessed morning devotion time with the girls

Skype us!

"Good news from a far country is like water to a thirsty soul" Proverbs

Hey everyone!
We just wanted to drop you a line and say that driving went well today, Lavdi Zoti (Praise God)! Kim and I both had a turn driving to and from Prishtina without incident! Yaye!

Also we wanted to let everyone know that we are using the internet site www.skype.com to make calls to the US as the internet here allows :o) If any of you are on skype already you know that skype member to skype member its free. That is calling computer to computer through the internet. Siging up for Skype is free you just need a microphone for your computer.

Our Skype ID's are as follows. You can use those to find us...
jennifer.mellor
kimbojo1

Also as per some of your request we now have a way to make contributions to our time here on our blog...just click on the "donate now" button which is powered through paypal.

God Bless you all and thank you as always for your PRAYER!!!
Jen & Kim

Hi From Kosova!

“He who called you is faithful, who also will do it.”
1 Thessalonians 5:24

Hi Everyone!

We are so blessed to be here! The trip over went well and we are just about over our jet lag :o) We were immediately accepted into the fellowship here as family and already love the body of believers here in Malisheve. Kim and I were just commenting yesterday how we feel like it has been longer than 5 days.

Just to back track a bit here is a picture of the us with Randy & Lycia Harvey. They are the missionaries who are on furlough in the US that we are house-sitting for here in Malisheve. Also with us is Shpetim (Shpit-eem :Salvation) who was in the US at a student conference but is now back here with us. He is one of the main guys here and leads worship and runs the English School. We are exceedingly blessed by him and Xhemile (jim-eel-ay) his Fiancé who lives with us in the apartment.

Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment :o)

Here is the view out our living room balcony. The weather here has been warmer than that in California! In the 50's and blue skies! Wow!

We are grateful.

Kim and Xhemile in our living room. We have cushions instead of couches and eat all our meals in here.

Just like Jesus right? :o)

Left to Right- Hanna, Emria & Abnora. Xhemile & Abnora (sisters), Sheria & Emria (Cousins) all live with us. The three younger girls are in High School from 1:30-7pm then we all have dinner together (very much on Kosova time here!). Starting next week we will be having devotions during breakfast with the girls. You can be praying for us for that and that we figure out more meals! The food here is different for us :o)


Burim and Sam fixing the dryer by faith! They had 2 wires and 6 choices and no idea what they were doing. We are happy that they didn't blow themselves up! That night when we were sharing testimonies of God's faithfulness this was a highlight! Ha! Such is life here in Kosova...we walk by faith because we have no other choice!

Kim and I each teach an English class Mon-Wed and are LOVING it! Kim has kids and I have high school/college age! How fitting is that! God is good! We also help Shpetime with a more advanced class.
There really is just too much to tell, God grace is showered on us. We are so privileged to be serving here and can tell that we are being prayed for. Stay tuned for pictures from around Kosova and our English classes. Please pray for us tomorrow as we will be driving for the first time tomorrow to attend and other church in the big city of Prishtina. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support.

Zoti ju Bekofte (God Bless You)
Kim & Jen

Kim emailing and Jen Blogging

Prayer Requests...
-Driving in Kosova!
-English Classes
-Learning Sqip (Albanian)
-Continued Unity with the team and the believers here
-Pray for David. We hope to see him here soon.