John's Here!

Oh what a month January has been!  I can hardly believe we are staring at the last day of the month! It feels like we just took down our Christmas decorations last week.  I hope that February allows me some time to journal here what January brought, and in doing so process a major transition that my parents recently experienced as they officially retired from running the family farm business. It was a big milestone that I want to share about.

In the mean time, here in Albania we recently experienced the long-awaited arrival of our new "intern", John!  He will be with us for the year 2018 and we couldn't be more excited about having him!

Evidence of the kids' excitement about his arrival -- Reni has set up a welcome station on his bed with signs, including a package of cheese Lay's potato chips, 2 KFC hand wipes in packets, some Albanian coins, and one of each flavor of Jolly Ranchers.

John arrived during church on Friday night and was almost immediately pulled out to the basketball court for some hoops afterwards.  Thankfully he loves basketball because the boys just assumed that at 6'4" (which is like 6'8" in America), he'd want to play basketball with them.

The next morning he was at two kids' clubs, getting acquainted with what we do.  Below, this is us after putting away all our supplies from an afternoon in Metalle.

The next morning we took him to our local shopping center to stock up on supplies for his room at the Hope Center, his home for the next five months.  That afternoon they had a welcome reception for him and helped him move his belongings in.  He will live on the boys floor as a resident assistant, of sorts.

John and Reni pose on one of the two beds in John's room.

A few of the guys presented John with a welcome sign in English!

We are letting him ease into life here.  Since moving into the Hope Center he's come back to the village nearly every day and helped out with rec time and other activities.  Next week he will start Albanian language class in Tirana three mornings per week and we're sure in no time his confidence will grow as his ability to communicate increases -- not that he's not confident now, in fact, he's really embracing all that Albania has to offer and we're so glad!  Looking forward to this next year!

New Beginnings

It was a bittersweet day yesterday when we dropped Luli off at DTS (discipleship training school).  We kinda felt like proud parents dropping him off for his first day of college.  He's been looking forward to this day since last spring and worked very hard to make it a reality, working 12-hour night shifts, 7 days a week, to save up the funds.  In spite of operating on little rest, he nevertheless found time to continue helping in church, doing a lot of things behind the scenes that most people never saw.  His gifts of service, not to mention his contagious joy have been a tremendous source of blessing to us and our little church!

Reni remarked that he wants to go to DTS too if that means getting snack on your bed, like chips and candy bars! :-)

We took a tour of the YWAM facilities to see where he will live and study.

Ellie standing at the lecture podium!  No computers or cell phones during lessons!

Luli joins a class of students from the US, Ireland, Egypt, Montenegro, Denmark and Albania!

We have loved Luli's enthusiasm for learning -- devouring books, training videos on world views, and sermons.  He regularly tells us something he's read or learned recently!  I had to get a photo of him by the bookshelf.

All of the participants take turns in daily chores from cleaning to cooking and washing dishes!

When it came time for us to leave, he asked us if we could stay a little longer. :-)  We prayed and then said our goodbyes!

Fortunately, it won't be so long.  He has Saturdays free and hopes to come a few times a month to continue helping in Met@lle.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for him and sent him words of blessing and encouragement!

Luli -- we look forward to having you back in Vlashaj this summer, Lord willing!

December 2017 Highlights

Happy New Year!  It's a big week here in Albania.  In the days leading up to NYE the grocery stores have been packed and bored school boys have burned fire crackers at regular intervals.  The acrid smell of fireworks hung in the air hours before the clock struck midnight and the sky REALLY lit up with fireworks and celebrations.  

Everything is closed now and family and friends are making personal visits, pushing pause on life's regular demands. School won't resume until next Monday.  Meanwhile, we Waggoners are preparing to take down the Christmas tree.  But while the fire burns warmly, I will join my neighbors in pausing for a moment to procrastinate and enjoy one last hour by the tree and draft one more post for the blog before we put the holiday decorations up in storage for another year.

As I scan my photos for December, I see that some noteworthy events transpired that have yet to be posted... Get ready for a real assortment of highlights from last month!

Earlier in the month we were pleased to host our friends Len and Lynne Benson again.  They come each year and are a tremendous help with the Christmas Bazaar at the Sheraton. 

It's hard to explain how nice it is to have friends who come repeatedly and know our co-workers and the folks we serve.  I think you can tell in the photo the kids were glad to welcome guests they know and remember too!
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This fall Nathan and I stepped out into a new area for us -- teaching conversational English.  Our first group was huge.  Like, really too big for what we had in mind.  Due to variety of factors (primarily a lack of transportation on the day of the week we meet), our group turned into this little friends circle of 11-year old girls.  They are absolutely delightful and faithful to come each week.  I love getting to know them a little bit better each time we get together and can't wait to see where this goes.

Once every 5 or 6 weeks Reni and Nathan have their 'guy' time and get hair cuts in Maminas. Reni definitely prefers one of the "berber"s over the other and last time requested we start buying his hair gel at the shop because he preferred the scent, ha ha.  All I can say is that Reni never looks more Albanian than when he comes home from the berber with his hair styled (and smelling like cologne). Nathan caught this image on his phone a couple of weeks ago.  He liked the shadow on the floor... I liked the glimpse into this men-only zone of which I've only heard about but never seen in person.

The 10th of December found us manning a table at the Sheraton Hotel selling knitted goods for the women in our www.HandmadeInAlbania.org project.  It has turned into a fun social event for us as well with a plethora of homemade goodies for sale, face painting and Santa for the kids, and seeing lots of friends and acquaintances in the missionary and expat community, many of whom were also manning tables for their own projects and endeavors.

One night we had the fun surprise of gifting families from our church with scores of lightly-used quality shoes from Germany.  Mandi brought us boxes upon boxes of shoes (from a warehouse in Tirana) which we sorted by size and set out on the table (there were a lot more before I snapped the photo below!).  When the women arrived, we gave them plastic bags and told them to find shoes for themselves and anyone else in their family who might be able to use them!  It was so much fun!  One woman in particular had larger feet than everyone else who showed up that night.  Fortunately for her, it appeared that her size was an average size for most Germans as she left with a very large, full sack of shoes that didn't fit anyone else but her!

Another highlight in December was getting to celebrate the birthday of their friend Caleb with a play date at his home in Tirana!  This was a real treat for Ellie and Reni!

Another highlight was Ellie's involvement in her first piano recital!  She played two duets with her teacher, Luli Alizoti.  We were quite proud of her!  She seemed cool as a cucumber!

The recital consisted of students and their teachers from all over central Albania.

Much of last month we enjoyed views of snow-covered mountains.  They are especially a lovely shade of purple at sunset!

The kids bought each other Christmas gifts and enjoyed getting a gift-wrapping lesson from their Dad. 

My birthday falls two days before Christmas.  In the midst of all that is going on with Christmas programs, planning something for my birthday is rather low on my list.  At the last minute I decided to have the youth over for popcorn and games.    It was a lot of fun!  And I discovered that chips and salsa are universally loved!

Eda brought me the amazing cream birthday cake below.

I don't know why, but I just love this image of the kids coming out to spy the gifts that appeared under the tree while they slept.  Reni looks pretty pleased with the sight of his stocking, doesn't he?

Christmas morning, reading the Christmas story, huddled under blankets, waiting for the stove to warm up the room.

After Christmas we spent some much-needed family time laying low, but went out to see the new Star Wars movie.  Or, as we say it in Albanian, Lufta e Yjeve (Loofta ay Ooyayvuh --War of Stars).

Reni bought Ellie a magic knitting loom for Christmas and with it she has mastered the art of knitting headbands.  Her first recipient was our friend, Vera. I think everyone she knows would have a headband by now if she hadn't used up the three small skeins of yarn it came with.

For new year's eve Vera gifted the kids were their own pyrotechnics.  They were quite excited.

Finally, as we prepared to put up the decorations for the next 11 months, it wasn't difficult for Ellie to feign a sad face.  Sweet girl frequently told us all month that she couldn't wait for Christmas, yet she wanted to enjoy all the moments leading up to Christmas day.  And when the big day finally arrived, she savored every moment and sought us out repeatedly to tell us what a good day it was for her.  We are so blessed by her!

Thanks for tuning in and staying with this long post!  Blessings on your 2018!

Christmas Recap Pt 3 | Sharing the Good News! (And a lesson in honor and humility)

While missionaries serve to share the Gospel all year round, Christmas is one of those special opportunities we get each year to share the Good News of our Savior's coming to earth to a broader audience.  To most of our friends and neighbors, the Christmas story has something to do with two people named Jozefi and Maria and that's about it. We have found that most are curious to know more of the story and  we are eager to share it.

On Friday, the 21st we held a program for all the students and their parents who come to the center for English instruction.  We were able to show the short film, The Shepherd, that shares the account of the first Christmas from the perspective of a shepherd.  It's very moving and you can imagine our joy to be given permission to subtitle the film in Albanian and share it with our friends. 

Below -- some of the refreshment plates we made for our approximately 70 guests, including some of the homemade Christmas tree cookies we made with the youth earlier in the week.

Following the program we got a big group photo...

About an hour after the English program concluded, we held our Christmas service for church.  We had a packed house! (It was so full, I spent the service in the foyer to free up space for others).

The youth prepared and performed an original puppet show.

We showed The Shepherd again...

And we made up more plates of refreshments -- this time include candy canes from America. Following the sermon,  Nathan explained the symbolism of the candy cane and why they are shared at Christmas time. So much of the symbolism of Christmas traditions are misunderstood, unrecognized or have been misappropriated to New Years, so it's a joy to explain the connections to Jesus.

We gifted every family who came with a 2018 calendar of scripture verses in Albanian.  These are always eagerly received!

Of course, the highlight for most is receiving their Christmas shoebox.  Most of these kids do not ever get wrapped gifts like these and have been anticipating this box since early November (at least that was when they started asking us when they would get their "pako").  We were grateful for some colleagues in other parts of Albania who provided us extra boxes so we could supply one for all of the kids we serve (there was a big decline in donations of boxes to the organization that supplies our region in Albania -- so at first we were in a panic as to how we would decide who 'deserved' a box and who didn't).

On a side note -- if you participate in supplying boxes for projects like OCC, would you consider supplying more boxes for boys?  The organization who gives out the shoe boxes can only give us what they are given and that was 4 girl boxes for every 1 box for boys.  You can imagine the excitement of our boys to get a box only to find that it was filled with items for girls... A quick google search can send you to some excellent list ideas of things for boys. Thank you!  These continue to be an excellent tool for us to bless our neighbors and share Truth.

When it was all over and the plates and cups cleared and the floors swept and mopped, we celebrated as a staff with a quick pic around our center's Christmas tree!

But the night was not yet over! From here, Eda, Luli, Endri, Nathan and I went to a wedding of an older sibling of one of our students in Met@lle.

As is tradition, the bride's family hosts three nights of dancing at their home to celebrate their daughter's marriage.  We wanted to pay our respects to the family so we joined their neighbors on improvised benches in the courtyard to watch the dancing festivities on the third night. To be honest, we were quite surprised at the size of the crowd (we estimated more than 100).  Given that we were unknown to a lot of the folks gathered (those over the age of 14, anyway), we garnered a lot of attention and I didn't feel like I could take photos like I would have liked to, so I apologize that I have just these two.

It was so cold (temps were hovering around freezing) that Luli was itching to dance, just to keep the blood moving, but given that it was the last night, the dances were reserved for various groups of family and friends closest to the bride.

After an acceptable amount of time, we got up to leave, but the father-of-the-bride insisted we get a chance to dance.  Luli eagerly put in a request for a song from his native Kukes region (bordering Kosovo), while Nathan and I were secretly relieved to let Luli and Eda fulfill our obligations as guests.  

I want to insert something here in case you don't know us well.  While I appreciate dancing, it's not something I have much experience doing.  The culture in which I was raised just didn't dance. On top of that, I utterly lack rhythm (which was sort of a challenge those years I studied piano -- not even a metronome could help me).  

Albanian folk dancing is beautiful.  I love watching our friends gather in a circle and move to all their traditional songs (which we can now hum along to with familiarity).  But Albanian dancing is deceptively complicated. Remember when step aerobics were all the rage?  I couldn't master that move called the grapevine. While the grapevine looks more sophisticated, it is tremendously EASY compared to Albanian dancing.  There's a reason Albanians start learning the steps to their dances shortly after they learn to walk...

But back to the story -- just when we thought we were 'off the hook', the DJ announced the presence of some special "American guests." He then proceeded to play a song in Italian that repeatedly used the word "Americano".  There was no question, they were playing that song for us and to NOT dance would be a huge insult.  We gulped and stepped into the dance area.  Immediately all 100 plus guests appeared to whip out their cell phones to record us dancing.

All of a sudden I was thinking how nice it would have been for our pre-field training to have included dancing lessons. The skill suddenly seemed right up there in importance after language acquisition.  Here we were, being honored at a special community event and I never felt more foreign.  I wanted to share in this occasion and express our shared joy but instead, I felt like an awkward, uptight huajt, layered up in my down vest under a down coat -- so thick my arms didn't even fall naturally at my sides -- with a camera around my neck, and feet that felt stuck in cement.  It felt like a lose-lose situation.  I could refuse to dance and insult them or I could try to dance and risk looking like I was mocking the entire occasion (we are really that bad). I felt like a giant black penguin who could only manage to rock from side-to-side.

Thankfully, the DJ sensed that this popular Italian song was unfamiliar to us and quickly switched over to "Hit the Road Jack".  In my head I knew they didn't understand the lyrics, but I couldn't help laughing inside thinking that our dancing was so bad the song was a polite way to encourage us to leave the dance floor and turn it over to those who were more gifted than we. :-)  It really was the oddest assortment of emotions -- my own sense of humility and discomfort mixed with the understanding of the honor they were showing us, virtual strangers.

Eventually, the 'foreigner' music ended and those familiar Albanian tunes returned and we were released. Maybe one of my new year's resolutions should be to try to learn Albanian dancing (or at least some kind of dancing)?