Ellie Turns 15!!

Wow!  15!

Each year with this girl just gets sweeter.

And her life is a testimony to the miracles God has worked in her life to heal the broken places brought by her challenging start.

Covid/Quarantine sort of zapped my creativity when it came to planning a special day for her.  I had planned for visitors from America to bring a few special gifts, but obviously that didn't happen.  In a panic, I put out a plea on Facebook the night before for special birthday messages we could read to her throughout the day and WOW did our friends deliver! 

With roughly 300 personal messages from at least 8 different countries, she had lots to smile about all day long. Her heart was filled up with so many sweet messages of affirmation from people who have known her (and even some who have only known her from afar) at various stages throughout her life.  Their memories were sweetness to my soul as well!

Her birthday cake design was a surprise -- she only requested the flavors:  chocolate and pistachio.  Her dad outdid himself, though the design inspiration was swiped from the internet.

Her dress was supposed to be for a piano recital this month which will not happen... but her birthday was an equally fitting occasion!

Some of our closest friends in Albania joined us for lunch at Ellie's favorite restaurant -- our first indoor restaurant experience since February!

"Aunt Vera" has known Ellie from the beginning!  She loves telling the story of Ellie's first bath in Mom's kitchen sink.  She had never seen such a thing before and thought it was marvelously practical.

Miss Pam -- Ellie's teacher here since 2014!

For Ellie, it is all about waffles and bananas... and Nutella, of course.

And Nathan, burning the midnight oil to continue his tradition of a personalized cake for one of his kids. His best yet, I do believe!

Ellie, 

We can hardly believe where the time has gone!  Lest we forget, the fact that you now wearing adult-sized clothes should remind us you are growing up!  And you are growing up into a beautiful young lady!  We are so proud of your desire to help around the house with chores, to love others well, to please the Lord in all you do, to be a good sister to your brother... Your heart is our favorite thing about you, thus we pray Proverbs 4 as you navigate these teen years: Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
We love you, Ellie girl! 

Lift Us Up! Challenge

There's no doubt that having a child with mobility challenges has opened our eyes to the barriers faced by those in wheelchairs. And I don't mean just in Albania -- even modern, European airports have presented struggles for Reni, as recently as our layover in Vienna in January.

Our own accessibility challenges pale in comparison to some of our local friends whose families rely on public transportation or live in a multi-story apartment complex without an elevator. Even then, assuming a building does have an elevator, most building entrances are above street level and lack ramps.

Barriers to accessibility mean fewer opportunities.  Fewer opportunities mean less growth and poorer quality of life.

That's why, when we started designing our new community center, we envisioned a fully handicap accessible facility.  We included an elevator shaft in our building plans for a future elevator installation, when finances permitted.

When our 15-year-old friend Seanan H. heard that the Valdete Trust would be moving into the center for school this fall he was concerned the elevator be installed as soon as possible. As someone who was born with cerebral palsy, he knows the value of accessibility and gets nervous when someone has to navigate him in his wheelchair up or down even a few steps.

He and his mom went to wgm.org and started an online campaign to raise the $25,000 needed to install an elevator in the Center so that the students from VT would have access to the entire building and their current stair-climbing wheel chair can be retired!

In addition to launching the campaign, he started a online challenge to climb 25,000 stairs and donate $25,000 in the month of June!

Would you join the challenge?

1. Carry someone or something you love up as many stairs as you can and either give or find a sponsor to give $1 per step climbed.
2. Have someone video your last few steps and declare that you have just completed the Lift Us Up Albania challenge and nominate 3 others to keep the challenge going.
3. Post your video and tag your nominees.
4. Use the hashtag #liftusupalbania
5. Go to www.LiftUsUpAlbania.org and donate. Don’t forget to comment that you are completing the challenge and list the number of steps you climbed!

Other ways to help!
Maybe you aren’t able to climb stairs with someone on your back, or you are in quarantine and don’t have any stairs close by. You can still join the challenge!

• ‘Virtually’ climb the 25,000 stairs with us through a direct gift!
• Share the challenge with your friends with a personal note.
• Offer to cover the donation for someone who can climb, but can’t give.
• ‘Like’ or comment anytime you see a new Lift Us Up video on your news feed. This will ensure more people see the posts!

The video below gives a virtual reality experience of riding the current stair climbing chair.  While we are grateful for the access it provides, you can see how scary it might be as a strapped-in passenger, the higher it goes!  You can change your perspective in this video by turning your phone, or dragging your finger on the screen of your phone or tablet.

School is out!

Friday marked the last day of school for Ellie and Reni!  We actually didn't let them know until the final day.  Needless to say, there was much excitement at the news and Nathan overheard Ms. Pam say to Ellie, "You can stop squeezing me now!"

We will continue some typing practice over the summer, and finish up some books we are reading aloud together, but we are ALL glad for a break from classes.  We plan to continue a similar mode of school for next year, with the difference that Reni will take an English grammar and writing class online through The Potter's School.

It was fitting end to the term that Thursday we joined four other home-schooling families in Tirana for a field trip to Mt. Dajti. We hunted for fossils and enjoyed a picnic together in a pasture amidst sheep and goats.  The weather and countryside were lovely, but it was even nicer to see people from outside our village again. :-)

"R" for Reni!

We learned this girl needs some better hiking shoes in her collection.
(Thankfully, I think her feet have finally stopped growing!)

Rivers of slate rock run down the mountainside and rains reveal new discoveries all the time!

I think Ellie found the coolest fossil of the day!

Reni's new legs never cease to amaze me.  Combined with his determination and natural athleticism, they have taken him places I never imagined possible!

Yes, I now have a sack of rocks in my entryway, lol.

What kid doesn't love pounding rocks with a hammer?

We drove to a nearby pasture for lunch... Anyone want to sing "The Hills are Alive" with me?
On a side note, we discovered we were a tad close to the prime minister's residence when police officers showed up to check on our activities. :-)  We must have appeared harmless because they didn't ask us to leave.

We had to duck out a bit early for Ellie's orthodontist appointment (the first since February!) and wanted a group photo before we left so we missed a good number of the high schoolers and a few parents who had gone exploring some nearby rock formations. I am including the photo here because the view...and the sheep.

Happy summer!