To call this a June "recap" may not be completely fair -- I posted a few pics from the first week of June in my May re-cap, and I shared Ellie's birthday and piano recital in another... so this will fill in a few of the in-betweens! The biggest event by far was hosting our friends from Texas!
Funnily, before they arrived, Reni was pretty put-out that it was an all-female team. Of course, within hours, that was completely forgotten and he had a lot of fun with all the beautiful teenage girls. :-)
We always have an orientation and child-protection training seminar with all of our guests. It's important that we set every guest up for success during their time here!
We also ply them with lots of drinks and sweets to keep them awake as generally jet-lag is in full force.
We divvy up household chores when groups visit and work is always more fun when there are friends to share it with!
Of course with a group full of girls we had to do a spa night.
We had a great turn out for facials and manicures!
We held a VBS with a packed house every day. So much fun with a super-hero theme! The team from Texas brought nearly everything from the snacks to the artwork on the walls! The kids thoroughly enjoyed it!
One of the lessons was on the great catch of fish (Luke 5, when Jesus calls Simon Peter to follow him). We were able to review the story during snack time by showing an excerpt from the fourth episode of The Chosen. If you haven't see that yet, check it out at www.thechosen.tv. (My cousin, Dallas, is the creator/director, and we're super proud of his work. They are currently filming episodes 5-8 right now and you can follow that on their Facebook page).
One morning the group split into two and we visited some of our neighbor friends who gave us cooking lessons on making a few traditional Albanian dishes. It's a wonderful opportunity to visit a local home, meet a family, hear their stories, and learn about new kinds of foods!
Here Merita is soaking dried pita (almost like a big cracker or flakey tortilla) in a mixture of milk and eggs. These are layered atop each other and then baked in the oven.
The pita rises up and gets puffy as it cooks and browns. This is a staple evening meal in our community!
We are so proud of Ellie's involvement in much of the kids ministry through helping with music. Her confidence and skills continue to grow!
This young friend lives just three doors up the street from us. During music he whispered in my ear that it was his birthday. Of course, we then had to sing to him! :-) Nathan threw him on top of his shoulders so he could be seen above the 50 heads of kids!
The snacks were theme-appropriate, including this class of blueberry jello. It was so funny to see the various reactions as most of the kids in attendance (if not all) had never tasted jello before. The oldest were most reticent. The youngest gulped it all up!
Last summer our friend, Jessica (below in black shirt), was sitting in our living room in Vlashaj when she received a phone call from the States from her doctor informing her that she had breast cancer. I won't ever forget that moment! She was already a widow and mom to five boys. After nine months of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation she has been given a clean bill of health! It was a treat to see her while she was back in Albania for the Kay Arther Conference in Tirana. In fact, we saw each other unexpectedly at the airport as she was leaving with her travel companion, Amanda!
Our schedule has been to go back to America every-other-summer, however for a variety of reasons, chiefly that our residency permit to be in Albania expired in mid-August and we could not start the process to renew it until June, we decided to postpone our bi-annual visit to the States until the fall.
However, Nathan has been appointed area team leader for WGM and was requested to attend some leadership meetings with our agency at the end of June. It didn't make financial sense for our family to fly over to America for two weeks, then return to Albania to finish up our residency process for 7 weeks, then go back to America... so we got permission for me (Cydil) to attend on Nathan's behalf. Ellie and I had airline credit in our names from some cancelled flights last year when we went home to say goodbye to my dad. It was expiring at the end of June so the trip didn't cost us any extra money out of pocket.
Below, Ellie sits in the Vienna Airport during our 5-hour layover. She's becoming such a good traveler! And sweet girl always suffers from significant ear pain when flying. We discovered "ear planes" and they made all the difference! She said it didn't hurt one bit!
I know this is probably a really random photo, but this is what my mom asked me to bring her from Albania. Decorative/printed toilet paper for her guest bathroom. I guess America doesn't have everything!
I stopped at Mom's for a few days to drop off Ellie and get over jet lag before heading to Indiana for my meetings. My sister and brother-in-law flew in from Vermont for a day to drop off their girls too for a week with Ellie and my mom. This is the only photo I have. My brother-in-law pressed into service rearranging furniture... with nary a complaint.
When the kids were younger I used Twitter to record Ellie and Reni's best quotes. Apparently my dad kept of my sister's and my quotes too! Mom found this gem while she was sorting through his belongings. Jenny's is the best.
Jenny (age 6): Daytime
While in Indiana I got to see our dear friend, Charisse! Her family hosted me for an amazing cookout of hamburgers on the grill, root beer, salad and water melon!
Proof that I was in meetings, ha ha. Lots of interesting information! Great to reconnect with old friends. Hard to believe that this summer marks 20 years of service with WGM!
Of course, on the return to Illinois, the sign one is getting close to home... all the windmills.
Not in order, but before I left for Indiana we were able to see the tombstone that arrived this spring to mark Dad's grave.
Mom chose the verse that we used at Dad's service in Vlashaj to be engraved on their stone.
I also love her choice to go with Dad's 'rebellious' choice to 'lower case' the 'v' in a sea of "VanOrman" tombstones with capital "Vs". :-)
Albanian tradition is to mark the one year anniversary of a loved-one's death with a special meal and family gathering. I never really understood the significance until this visit transpired. I hadn't been 'home' since Dad's funeral last year, and the timing of this return trip was so close to last year's journey home to say goodbye to him, I was surprised by the emotions that overcame me that first morning over breakfast with Mom.
But when Ellie and I flew back to Albania two weeks later, it felt like I had walked through a door and entered a new season. The previous 18-months had been full of so many complex emotions but I was able to return to Albania this time with some closure and a sense of being more settled. Of course, I will always miss my dad and mourn the loss of so many things we could have shared together had he lived longer, but it felt like something finally shifted in my mind and heart, that this is how it is and will be going forward. I don't know if this is normal or just a side-effect of living so far away and removed...
Looking forward to sharing about July soon!
