Weekend Recap -- Starting the Goodbyes

The other night I was on Facebook and saw an Asbury friend counting down the days of school remaining.  Turns out, moving across the Atlantic we do the same thing too.  The kids are looking forward to the end of school.  Thanks to careful planning, Abby and Anna have completed the kids' curriculum and tomorrow marks their last day.  But in the joy of 'checking off' another school year, I don't think the kids have fully grasped how different life will soon be!

Ever since we arrived in Albania as a family of four, we have really been a family of six!  For most every big event and many small ones too, we have had the blessing of Abby and Anna with us this year!  From school, to church, to holidays and weekends in the village, we have had an extra set of hands and the kids have had extra love and attention.  (Check out Abby's creative post of photos from Spirit Week last week -- hilarious!).  That will be changing soon as the girls move on to the next things in their lives.

I am immeasurably blessed by how much they have fallen in love with this country and culture.  I wasn't worried that they would be miserable here, but I don't think I could have anticipated how much they would embrace Albania, from the Turkish coffee and stone ruins, to the children in the village and bike rides in the park with their Vlashaj girlfriends.  And I don't think we'll ever host more adventurous purveyors of local cuisine!

So we have been counting down the weekends we have left with them.  Last week marked our last weekend altogether in the village.  This weekend we are leaving on a much-needed spring break.  We are closing the books, closing the kitchen, leaving the familiar behind and taking a trip as a 'thank you' to Abby and Anna.  Over Christmas we ventured north for a few days, this time we are headed south for a whole week!  We will be visiting parts of Albania that Nathan and I have never seen before, even crossing the border into the northern part of a neighboring country in hopes of finding treasures like McDonalds or IKEA!  (I'm not holding my breath!).

But back to this past weekend... Nathan had the joy of providing the message for Friday evening's church service.  We followed that with a little slideshow retrospective for Abby and Anna.  There may have been a few tears.

At youth group we said more goodbyes and shared memories. After a special time of prayer, one last group photo was in order..

The next morning was Kids' Club. Mr. Shaggy has a 6th sense when I have my camera out... and I can't resist snapping his pic.

The kids with their favorite friend in the village...

The lesson was about Elijah, so the craft on Saturday was construction paper ravens, naturally.  With googly eyes. Another photo with Abby and Anna... and some really cute ravens.

Arjan decided about a month ago that a great way to clean out some extra stuff in the store room was to give a 'prize' to the best made craft.  Below Mersin has the un-enviable position of 'judge'.

Yeah, these boys have worked their way into my heart, little stinkers.  They are usually the first folks to greet us when we arrive and always help us carry our bags in.

You know what they say about "April Showers"... for the 2nd Saturday in a row it rained and ruined our plans to go hiking and track down a few more local ruins.  Then, the rain continued throughout the afternoon and cancelled our plans for an end-of-year cookout at the Hope Center.   But wouldn't you know?  Even though the girls are leaving, God has raised a replacement to join us in our visits there!  Our friend Eda (ponytail, center), a product of the children's ministry in Vlashaj, wants to come with us!  She joined us for the first time during A&A's last visit.

So what do you do when it rains?  Play table games!  I'm always up for that -- and it's amazing the Albanian I learn in the process!  (sorry for the fuzzy camera phone pics).

Finally, we capped off the weekend celebrating our dear neighbor Vera's 59th birthday.  We took her out for bagels for breakfast (her first time ever eating a bagel, thanks to a relatively new business in Tirana) before church, then after church we ate lunch by olive trees at Era Piceri, and then enjoyed a long coffee by the lake in the park.  For someone who's been like family to us, it was a joy to celebrate her and make some special memories.  She told us having grown up in communist times, she didn't have childhood memories of celebrating her birthday quite like that.  Plus, in Albania, the tradition is, on your birthday, the birthday person picks up everyone else's tab, so the tendency is not to advertise the occasion! ;-)  It was a wonderful way to spend a beautiful spring day and the rain was kind enough to hold off until evening!