Once again I returned to Albania in the summer of '99, with the support of so many wonderful people who generously gave to make my trip possible. This voyage would prove to be quite different from my trip in '96; for one thing, we were going to Tiranë, the capitol city, rather than a small town. For another thing, we were arriving right on the heel of the huge refugee crisis from Kosovo.

Our team this team was led by Dan and Mary Hess (from Virginia) and also had me, Steve (from Virginia), Toby (from South Carolina), Bill, Troy and Naomi (from Missouri). We had only spent a little time together as a team, but right away we meshed with each other. There were so many unique gifts and personalities, yet we got along like we had been friends for years. God definitely brought this team together.

We expected that we would be doing a lot of work with refugees directly, but by the time we arrived most of those living in the camps were returning. There were still many refugees in the city who were living with families, but of course they were much harder to identify. Just to make sure, one day I went out to look at the camp that had once been overcrowded. It was like a ghost town.

Instead, our trip consisted of other tasks. We worked some on the Yoders apartment (the missionaries who live there). We painted the living room, installed a fan and a water purifier. We also packed many boxes of supplies to send to Kosovo. Since the refugees had left

so quickly, many aid agencies were scrambling to move their operations out of Albania and into the province of Kosovo. That meant a lot of packing food and other supplies.