It’s been a long and busy few months! The missionaries have come and gone from their Fall Training CARP centers in the US. As they looked upon their recent work, thirteen of them swiftly moved into their next steps. Most of them reconvened to fundraise and train with GPA while a special mission was given to a lucky few. In the middle of October the call was given for thirteen brothers and sisters to head to foreign lands to pioneer a path for the other CIGs to walk in January. This “First Wave” has already started work in three different cities across Albania and Kosovo. Miae Iwasaki leads a team of five in Elbasan, in the center of Albania. Toshio Barber leads a team of four in Shkodra, a lakeside city in the north of Albania near the border of Montenegro. Semoon Nakama and three brothers explore new territory for the CIG missionaries -- Kosovo. They will work in the capital city of Pristina. These three teams are fortunate to contribute to connected CARP centers, and will occasionally do different events together as all of CARP in Albania and Kosovo. The missionaries were given an orientation workshop at the beginning of November and recommitted their oaths to Heaven before splitting off to their respective centers. Until March of 2022, we’ll look at the experiences of each team week by week.
Elbasan (left to right): Akihiro, Tetsukuni, Adelina (CIG staff), Marjola and Julian (Center Leaders), Sunhwa, Lisa, Miae
Shkodra (from left to right): Valmira (CARP member), Akifumi, Toshio, Isaac, Preston, Senarda and Arnold (Center Leaders)