Kristi was here

For the past week we've had a friend from home!  On the spur of the moment she offered to come to Albania when my parents couldn't and she came bearing gifts.  Awesome, sweet, tangible tastes of love from home.  

She played legos.  She scrubbed mold.  She reconnected with old friends (this is her 4th visit to Albania in 16 years).  She did a mean Donald Duck impersonation (repeatedly, once our children learned she held this special talent). We stayed up late and talked.

She visited homes while we took photos and delivered canvases (including to her partner family in the village -- how cool is that?)

She tried new fruit (ftua, anyone?) and drank cups and cups of Turkish coffee.

Our time flew.

As I type she's no doubt buckled in her seatbelt preparing for take-off.

Come back again, Kristi!  It was wonderful to have you here!

Good for 5 more...

In the busyness of the mundane, I neglected to share the good news.  We are good for five years in Albania!  Thanks to all who lifted us up during our paper chase.  We have residency!

1 year (officially)

One year ago today we were re-united as a family, starting our new life in Albania. 

What a difference a year makes!  As you know, we are now officially fshataret (villagers) and proud of it!  The kids are catching critters and using their appropriate Shqip names when they can. 

This week we are enjoying the company of a friend from the States, giving her a glimpse of village life with the Waggoners. She's been gracious to jump in and help, rolling with schedule changes due to things like, oh, a visit from the Pope today (in Tirana, not the village -- but all the roads into Tirana were shut down, so we opted to stay in most of today). 

Tomorrow we're off to Pogradec for one final adjustment on Reni's new legs, then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled week of homeschooling, programs, and volleyball.  Lots and lots of volleyball!

The Faces of Our Village

Meet some more of our neighbors!

Little Miss P below was SO excited to wear her brand new school clothes for her photo on Saturday night.  School started on Monday.

There's much I'd love to share about their lives and stories.

It's such a privilege to take their photographs.

I thought some day I would really treasure these images, but I already do.

As I deliver their canvases, I wish I had a wall big enough to keep a copy for myself too!

I started a hashtag on Instagram (#lovemyalbanianvillage)

Keep praying for this project!

A Taste of Home

Until this summer, Albania had no western chain restaurants typically found in most first-world countries.  This summer Tirana got a Cinnabon, and we have enjoyed their sweet sugar bombs on more than one occasion.  (This mom is secretly relieved since Reni has declared cinnamon rolls are his favorite breakfast and this mom has yet to ever make them herself -- dough scares her).

It's kind of charming, in some ways, to live in a land untouched by McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks or a TGI Fridays. (Goodness, even Honduras has had a Burger King for years). But other days, charm means little and it would be really nice to eat something familiar.

We have learned how to make a lot of our favorite foods at home, or adapt our recipes based on what we can find here.  We have learned how to make our own pancake syrup and barbecue sauces (kind of), or how to make Mexican food in a land without black beans or cilantro (or presently, without plain tortilla chips either).  There are some American foods/brands that have broken into this market, but can be difficult to find and sometimes be extremely expensive.  We wait for sales at the bigger supermarkets and stock up our pantry with things like Hellman's mayonnaise, Philadelphia cream cheese, and large bags of nacho-cheese Doritos.

One staple that was usually never a problem to find was Heinz ketchup.  Back in the States, we ate just about any kind of ketchup on the shelf, but here, ketchup (if not Heinz) just tastes different.  Most of the time at restaurants I prefer salt and vinegar on my fries to the pink (yes, pink) stuff they try to pass off as ketchup.

Then last week on the Facebook Expats board someone who had left the country for the summer innocently asked where the Heinz ketchup had gone.  Others saw her question and looked at their local markets and posted that their shops were out of Heinz too!  After a few more inquiries it was discovered that "The Warehouse" which supplies all the grocery stores in this area (if not the country) was completely out.  Soon, folks were combing every back alley convenient store shop buying up bottles of Heinz and reselling them to panicked expats.  

Sunday we found ourselves in Tirana and had to drop some things off at our old apartment.  While there, Nathan ran over to the new little market that opened in our neighborhood this summer to pick up some detergent.  It's on a quiet one-way street, and we sometimes feel like we're the only ones who have found it.  He returned with a victorious smile on his face and four Heinz ketchup bottles in his sack. He said he left four more bottles on the shelf.

When we shared the account with Nathan's Dad later that night Nathan jokingly asked if we should tell anyone about the four bottles we didn't buy.  He then reminded us of 2 Kings 7.
I shared the good news on Facebook. : )

What is in your hand?

In our previous life, we got to hear a lot of inspiring missionary testimonies.  We hosted a missions fellowship every Sunday night at Asbury and over the course of an academic year we hosted nearly 3 dozen missionary speakers.  One of our colleagues in Uganda said something I never forgot.  He said many people operate under the misconception that to answer a call to foreign missionary service requires one to sacrifice dreams and opportunities. 

I wrote in my previous post that we were startled to learn around 6PM Wednesday that a friend of ours would be marrying the next morning.  Wanting to photograph her family for the Portrait Project before she moved to Kosovo, we went up to her home.  Her mother was still at work with her livestock (even as it was growing dark) so we asked if we could come back in the morning.  She told us we were more than welcome, the party would be starting around 10AM!

When we arrived, it was evident that anyone in the village was welcome to attend.  I snapped a few photos, wanting to remain discreet.

It then became evident there was no one else with a camera.  So when I offered to take some photos of her with her family members, as well as her by herself, I was excited when she nodded enthusiastically.

Below with her very sweet, hardworking parents.

She looked stunning, and I couldn't imagine her not having some photos to remember this last day at home with her family.  I don't know for certain, but I think I have heard the custom is the groom usually pays for the bride's hair, make up and gown rental.

About an hour later, the groom's entourage arrived, cars carrying the Albanian and Kosovan flags.
The men visited outside, while the women of the bride's family visited indoors.

Eventually the time came for her to leave.  There's nothing more 'final' about the event than young men carrying all of your earthly possessions out in a few bags and suitcases.  The women of the groom's family (all, tall, blond Amazonian-women) started singing about their joy to add a new member to their family.  Meanwhile, the bride and her family and struggling to hold in their emotions.

 Gifts from the groom's family: a gold coin, euro bills, chocolates and a K*ran.

 Out of respect for the family, I didn't photograph their goodbyes.  It was too heart-rending.  Her mother didn't even come outside.

While I really came to get this photo, I came home with a lot, lot more. So glad to share yesterday, with what was in my hand.

Wake Up, Go to Work, Eat, Go to Sleep, Repeat... NOPE!

Our days have been following a pattern, which after summer's slow down, I love right now.  I think we were created for structure! 

Our's looks something like this: Wake up, start home school by 8, wrap up around 11,  clean up, make lunch, do office work and/or home project, prep for home visits which start at 5, visit a house or two, return home, make supper, eat around 7:30, bathe children, edit photos, go to bed!

A few days a week we'll make the odd trip out for errands, but we're more than happy to stay in the village if we can so as not to get behind.  We're gearing up for a busy fall in a couple of weeks, so we're trying to get our ducks in a row to enjoy and make the most of everything on our plate!

Because every update is more interesting with pictures, here's some photos from the last few days to fill in the blanks...

Ellie and Elio on our neighbor's motorin during one of our home visits.  Don't worry, it's parked.

In thanks for their service and help to us this first year, we celebrated our 'one year in Albania' with the Planters staff over lunch this weekend.  It was a treat and rare thing for us to all be together at the same time!

It has rained every day this month except yesterday.  It makes it kind of challenging when I'm trying to take outdoor photos every day!  This is really unusual weather.

We bring the kids with us to every home visit.  They are consuming an inordinate amount of candy and getting their share of cheek pinches, hugs, and kisses, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

As expected, we are learning a lot through meeting our neighbors and collecting their prayer requests.  Would you pray with us as we assimilate our observations and translate that into practical ways to serve them? We have a new idea for ministry here, but need prayer to see it through. Would you also pray with us that we would have boldness in sharing why we have come?

______________________________________________________

I should know by now that to post about life being mundane and falling into routine is probably writing prematurely.  No sooner had I reached what I thought would be the end of this post and the electricity went out for 3.5 hours.  It went off promptly at 8:30 and resumed at noon.  We have lost power nearly every day this month in the mornings, but never that long.  This does not bode well for the winter! (people must not be paying their bills!)

Then, an hour after the power comes on and we've eaten lunch, Nathan and I decide to embark on a project to install some shelving in our one real storage space in preparation for company coming next week.  It's lined with thick tile so the work was hard, in spite of having a really good drill.  We got the brackets in place for the first shelf and were starting to drill holes for the upper shelf brackets when Nathan started yelling.

Here's a very short video I shot while he ran outside to try to turn off the water.



Nathan had inadvertently hit the line from the hot water tank to the shower.  As soon as I turned off the video, I was mopping as fast as I could to keep the water from seeping into the adjacent rooms (no floor drain in this bathroom).

Meanwhile, Ellie was outside and had decided to exercise her grasshopper (whom she had caged in one of her many bug boxes).  Naturally, it hopped away but for whatever other reason, it triggered a full blown meltdown.  So Nathan's scrambling up the tower on the side of our building to turn of the roof-top tank and Ellie's howling in the yard, in an indistinguishable language to our neighbors and Nathan and I are yelling at each other through open windows about the status of the water situation.

No sooner had we gotten the water situation under control and a brigade of boys show up at the center to borrow our stools.  Puzzled, I wondered who had died (because wasn't wedding season over)?  To our disbelief, one of the girls in our village was announcing her engagement and that she would be marrying the next day and moving to Kosovo!  She's 18 and has never left her family for even one night!  Announcements like those are like a punch in the stomach to me.  A reminder that we are working on borrowed time.  For as slow as life moves in the village, situations can change this dramatically.  It makes relationship building with young women here challenging for my heart because just like that, they can be gone.  This particular young woman was one I had been drawn to, in spite of the fact she wasn't a regular, we respect her hardworking family and their sweet spirits.

Thankfully, in this situation, because her family was borrowing our stools, we learned about the impending nuptials and were able to go visit her after women's group.  I was able to pray for her last night and later this morning will be returning to her home to take her family's photo before she leaves.  As we ate a late supper (well past the kids' bedtimes), the familiar strains of traditional music and accompanying drum beats filtered in our open windows.

Another day in the village coming to a close.

1 Year

Can it really be?  Was it really 1 year ago we were saying goodbyes, stuffing carry-ons and departing for Albania on an unbelievably hot September day?

Was it one year ago today that Mom Waggoner suffered her first stroke? One year ago when we literally stopped on the side of the interstate, minutes from O'Hare and decided that our departure for Albania would look vastly different than we could have ever imagined as Nathan rushed to Ohio to be at his family's side?

I have pondered how to recognize this milestone as I struggle to find words to express my heart.

Our desire is to bring glory to God in what he has worked in and through us. To show how he has provided for us and prepared a way for us.

We have had some struggles this past year.

• By far the most difficult aspect of living in Albania is being far from family, particularly away from Dad and Mom Waggoner, and being unable to help during this season of struggle with Mom's health. 
• Watching Ellie experience moments of homesickness and missing the ability to express herself and be understood in this new-to-her context. 
• Experiencing multiple incidents of vandalism to our vehicle as we learned the unspoken rules of acceptable (and not) places to park in our neighborhood.
• Navigating multiple transitions and the stress of adjustment which revealed a lot of ugliness in my heart.  Nathan and I had one of the worst arguments of our marriage.  Over butter, of all things.  So glad we can laugh at it now!
• We felt somewhat prepared for cultural differences, but moments like the accident (and being ticketed for an event which was not our fault) reminded us that some aspects of life here just won't make sense or ever feel 'right'.

But we also had some great provisions...

• Wonderful pre-field training that prepared us for the inevitabilities of this year and how to deal with them.
• A fanstastic sister-in-Christ who dropped everything to stay with Ellie and I in Tirana until Nathan and Reni could join us.  She not only helped us in the practicalities of setting up life, but also kept me from loneliness and discouragement right off the bat. We'll never forget her service.
• An excellent teacher in Anila and a lovely language helper in our neighbor, Vera. While we still have a long, long way to go, we give them credit for not letting us grow discouraged (and MTI for reminding us to regularly make note of what we 'couldn't say 3 months ago.') They are not only still our friends, but we are much, much closer to them!  Those of you considering ministry in TESL -- it's a wonderful relationship builder!
• Abby and Anna came to teach the kids.  One major biggie off our plate so we could focus on language studies. They were a built-in community right off the bat, understanding just about everything we experienced the first 8 months here.
• Wonderful Albanian colleagues who have dropped everything to come to our aid in emergencies.
• Village neighbors who make us feel loved and appreciated (and gift us generously from their gardens!).
• A reliable vehicle that has suited our transportation needs perfectly.
• An orthopedic clinic in country for Reni's prosthetic needs.
• Opportunities to exercise our gifts in ministry - this brings great joy and fulfillment in what we do!
• As I write this, Ellie and Reni are playing with two village friends.  In our house. I hear some fierce pirates and lots of giggles. My heart is happy.
• YOU!  Our family and friends who read this blog, pray for our family, send us cards and care packages so that we know we are not forgotten, and support us generously from your finances. Because of you, we can keep our eyes on our purpose for being here.  Because of you, we feel far from 'alone'. Because of you, we can partner together in seeing God's Kingdom spread, even in this tiny corner of the world.

We count this past year a gift and look forward to the next. Thank you, Lord, for walking with us and filling us with your joy in service.

Come Forth!

This week marked the resuming of programs at the center after August 'pushim'.  See if you can figure out today's story!  

Nathan has a stoic face as he asks for volunteers, but doesn't tell them what they have just volunteered to do!

We had to switch 'Lazarus's" as the first one started to panic!

Who looks better?

Anna had a retreat this weekend so I wrangled our friend and neighbor from the next village over, Pam, to pick her crafty mind for ideas for today's lesson.  This is what she brought!  She's got MUCH more experience in children's ministry than us and it shows!

Memory Verse posters

coloring page craft

 You'd be amazed how much these kids enjoy craft time.  I really don't think they have many creative outlets at home or in school.  They are the quietest in craft time!  Arjan started giving prizes (as a way of cleaning out our storage room) and we're continuing the tradition as they kids enjoy it so much.  I'll just say I'm happy to let Mersin continue to judge!

All in all, a great first club of the fall!