My last day, in real terms, in Macedonia and the end of the Sabbatical. Mirco takes me out to a Drug and Alcohol rehabilitation programme which they fund, run by "Teen Challenge". There I met a group of young men who are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.

I notice that a couple of them are reading, "The Purpose Driven Life" in Albanian and I tell their leader about Saddleback's "Celebrate Recovery" Programme for addiction. I am asked to "share" with them rather than preach and so for 15 minutes or so I share Galatians, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free". We sing and pray together, drink tea and coffee, (not a choice, both!) and then leave.

On the way back, Mirco brings me to another church, which appears to me on the edge of a dump where Gypsy children are sorting through the garbage and loading the best bits onto a cart. This is how they make a living. Luckily we were in a 4 wheel drive Toyota Landcruiser as not only did we have to drive through the dump but we then ran out of road and had to take to the fields, driving up and down some pretty steep banks! Eventually we found our way back onto the road and back to the office. After a quick lunch of "Veal soup" I thought he said "Whale soup!" I had a couple of hours to go through some sermon material as I was preaching again that evening in a church in a town called Negotino an hour or so South West of Skopje.

Arrived in Negotino in the dark, found where we were looking for and had coffee with the pastor and his family who live above the church.

Then we went downstairs where 30 or 40 people were gathered for a Midweek meeting. We sang a few hymns in Macedonian, (I don't sing Macedonian but I hum it a bit!) and then I was on, with a translator. After I preached they sang another hymn and then Mirco preached! Afterwards we went back to the pastor's house for a short visit and then left.

It was sometime after 8pm and I was looking forward to an early night because I needed to be up at 3.15am to catch a flight from Skopje to Budapest. I could then catch a plane in Budapest to take me to Heathrow and from there to Belfast! However when I got into the car I was told we were going to a birthday party!

Arrived at the party sometime after 9.00 and there were a number of people from the church whom I knew and some that I didn't. Had some pizza and chips as I had had nothing since the "Whale soup" at lunchtime, and some birthday cake and eventually we got away. Mirco left me back to the room in the church where I was staying, set both my alarms for 3.15 and crashed into bed!