Sorry about that! You must have thought I had vanished from the face of the earth!
All that happened was that the laptop crashed and I was unable to use it! I am using a PC in a church office in Skopje, Macedonia at the moment and I'll try and bring you up to speed.
So here's the story so far.
After Canada I left for Albania on a study visit organized by the Bible Society of Northern Ireland. The group comprises of John Docherty from the Bible Society, John Finlay, who is the Presbyterian Moderator this year, Roy Cooper who is the President of the Methodist Conference this year, Stephen Lowry who is the Dean of Dromore Cathedral and little me!

We are staying in the Stephen Centre (the orange building in the picture) in the middle of Tirana, the capital of Albania. Our visit has been timed to coincide with the launch of a New Testament in Albanian by the Bible Society of Albania and we have been having long meetings with the translators and church leaders as well as seminary students and others who will be using it. It has been a very educational experience!

Albania is still emerging from many years of a very oppressive Communist regime which virtually persecuted the church out of existence.
Today Islam is strong followed by Greek Orthodox, then Catholic then Protestant and of course, following many years of Communism, Atheism is very strong!
We have been doing quite a bit of travelling around and it has given us an opportunity to see a little of the country.

Tirana is a fascinating city with ultra modern buildings and ugly run down buildings from the Communist era mixed in among beautiful buildings from the 1920's and 1930's. Compare these beautiful buildings with the view out of my bedroom window!
The exciting thing is that this new Translation in Albanian gives the Bible Society the opportunity to introduce it to both the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches. In fact we visited a Greek Orthodox Seminary and presented copies to the students. It was thrilling to hear the Bishop who leads the Seminary, Bishop Nicholas, recommend this New Testament to the students and quote the Apostle Paul, that "What is important is that Christ is preached!"
He also invited us to lunch with the students and afterwards they sang to us in Albanian. We responded by singing to them the 23rd Psalm (in English!)

The evidence of the former Communist regime is everywhere including thousands of army pillboxes. These three were on the beach between the deckchairs!

Another fact of life in Tirana is that the electricity keeps going on and off. Everybody has generators but you can find yourself suddenly plunged into the dark at any moment. However this picture from the top of "Sky Tower" is Tirana at night with the lights on!

Albanians love to eat, drink coffee and talk. (In a former life I must have been an Albanian!) You can really put on weight here. Just as you think the meal is over you discover that those were just the starters and the main courses are starting to arrive! I have probably put on a stone!

Obviously with a Presbyterian, a Methodist, an Anglican and a Baptist all living and eating together for a week every theological subject has been discussed to the point of exhaustion! Throw into that mixture, conversations we have had with the Catholic Archbishop of Albania and the Orthodox Bishop of the Seminary and you really have plenty to talk about!

On Sunday we attended an evangelical Church in Tirana where I was the preacher. (All my Christian colleagues had stitched me up and voted me as the preacher, as I was in California when they held the meeting in Belfast!) Flushed with our success in the seminary we sang again, this time, "Amazing Grace". The congregation displayed amazing grace by staying for all four verses! Afterwards we had lunch together and then they left for the airport while I set off for Macedonia. That's a story for another day!