June 2022 | Interns, a Birthday Girl, Piano Recital and Camp!

Week 1:

June brought the end of school, and the end of an era with Ms. Pam as Ellie and Reni's teacher.  We are so grateful for the years she invested in our children and their personal and academic growth. Next fall she will have more time to invest in the growing work at the Hope Center where she lives with at-risk youth.  As for Ellie and Reni, Reni has been enrolled in some classes online. We packed up the classroom and turned it into a second guestroom for summer visitors!

The women from our circuit training classes decided to have a friendly volleyball match between our respective villages. 

When some of your colleagues hail from Argentina, you join them at a restaurant to watch them wallop Italy in the Finalissima at Wembley.

I have no traditional airport arrival pics to document the early June arrival of our three recent university graduates!  My first photo record is below... where you can see Mari-Grace (rear) and Hannah (fore) helping students in Friday's English class. 

After kids club our team took a collective hike at the Cape. You can see our third guest, Jake, bottom left (below) with the sunglasses and hat.

Funny how hot we thought it was that day!  We have been so many times, I took very few photos. Thankfully, Nathan grabbed me for this selfie at one of our favorite spots. 

Week 2

As Jake was in Albania only a week, we decided to spend Sunday in Tirana, stopping first at one of our favorite little castles, Petrela. 

Kids, you're standing at the wrong end of the canon...

Public school was still in session so we continued "Study Hall", though most kids didn't have homework.  We did coloring pages instead and I enjoyed the happy chatter around those.

Though the basketball/volleyball court was poured and a majority of the debris cleared, a fair amount remained in the corner so we spent an hour or so one morning salvaging bricks, separating wood, and pulling out recyclables.

On Thursday, we took Jake to the airport!  I think he had a good time. :-)

Friday afternoon our new basketball goals were delivered.  The base was built to double as futsal goals, to add to the versatility of the space.

My friends in the Handmade in Albania project are working hard this summer to create new inventory for the fall.  This is a new product created by Roshi.  It's sooo pretty.  The dangerous part of my involvement in this program is my desire to buy just about everything they make! You can imagine that with this in my hands, I couldn't resist purchasing one for myself.  At nine feet long, it drapes beautifully on the curtain rod in the cased opening over our stairs to the loft, softening up the hard edges.

Every Friday night after church we have a Bible study over food.  Luis and Laura treated us to Argentina's version of pizza!  Reni was pleased with the thick, fluffy crust, and I think most of us enjoyed our first pizza topped with hard-boiled eggs!

Saturday after kids club I pulled out the trampoline for some of the kids to enjoy while others played football in the kalceto.  The weather was incredible and I had an incredibly enjoyable time with these friends.

Week 3

Sunday morning we took our new colleagues and interns on their first home visit.

We had a lovely time learning more about these neighbors and seeing improvements done to their homes.

Yeah, Nathan and Luis found THIS on the way home.  Ugh.

Sunday night we hosted a cookout to celebrate Ellie's birthday!  She had been begging to make s'mores for months, so we surprised her with that treat as a portion of the evening, thanks to marshmallows brought in April by the WGM media team. And our roasting sticks?  They may have been fondue sticks duct-taped to tree sticks, ha ha. 

We bought the firepit below second-hand from some missionaries returning to their home country.  This was the first time we used it.  We had such a nice time sitting around the fire that we want to make this a regular activity, provided it's just not too hot!

Luli enjoys the sweet yumminess of roasted marshmallows...

Of course, Ellie was celebrated with a music-themed cake!

Ellie's birthday fell on a Tuesday.  We started the day with her opening some small gifts.  They included some music flash cards and books on teaching music to young students.  This has been her dream vocation for some time and she seemed very happy with her gifts.

Next up was coffee and dessert with Mari-Grace and Hannah in Maminas!

We then went to Tirana and enjoyed lunch with friends, followed by more sweets at Ellie's favorite special occasion dessert shop where she ordered her favorite: waffles topped with bananas and Nutella.

As the days grew warmer, the water guns made their appearances more regularly!

If our electric bill is high this month, it will be from the village kids pumping so much water from our well for these games!

On Friday, Ellie had her first, in-person piano recital in three years.  Since she didn't have a formal dress to wear, I thought it might be special to have her hair done by our friend, Dena, who cuts our hair.  After we arrived, Dena also offered to do some simple make-up.  As Ellie has never shown any interest in wearing make-up, I was surprised when she agreed!

Dena kept her make-up simple, with basic foundation, mascara and lip gloss, but wow! Ellie suddenly looked all of her seventeen years!

You can watch her performance (3:35) by clicking here.

Ellie with her piano teacher, Luli Alizoti, above.

When it's just too hot outside, we play table games indoors!

Week 4

The first day of this week was Father's Day and we celebrated Nathan by bringing home Pizza Hut from the very first Pizza Hut to open in Albania.  It was our first time to try it and overall, it was pretty good! While Father's Day was the excuse, it was really Reni who had been pushing to indulge in this special treat -- he claims he is not a fan of Albania's interpretation of pizza.

On Tuesday, Tiffany hosted a special event for the village kids to meet and interact with the students from VT Albania.  As we were planning an integrated camp for these groups in the coming weeks, we wanted to host a 'bridge-building' event for them to become familiar and comfortable with each other.  She had the VT Students introduce themselves with their name and special personal information which would be used in a game later in the morning.

We played 'hot potato' with water balloons...

And then with water guns up on the basketball court.

Overall, we were very pleased with the success of the event and optimistic for day camp!

Below, when you see a car on the highway with Ukrainian license plates, you sit up!

On Friday afternoon, the soccer training program had a closing program for parents.  The kids demonstrated their skills.

Then they were recognized for their efforts with medals and certificates.

Week 5

Sunday morning Nathan and Luli spent nearly four hours power washing, taping out and painting the lines for on the court in anticipation of the start of camp..

Nathan reported leg soreness for days afterwards.  He said, he felt like he basically did squats in the heat for several hours.  Unfortunately the heat dried the paint so quickly that they ran out of paint!  They would use less than half the paint to finish the second half of the court the following evening!

Nathan's other project included running the tubing and installing the hood vent in the Jeta kitchen.  We are sooo close to calling this project finished.  We just await the installers to return to finish the countertop trim and installation of two cabinet doors.  In the mean time, I'm grateful for a husband who has the skills to tackle projects like this so we're not always waiting for the specialists to come!

We decorated Jeta for camp -- hopefully it will feel more fun and festive for those who regularly visit the space!  The classroom below will be the site of our camp craft room!

We have had over fifty different students participate in camp!  We split them into one of three teams which rotate through Jeta throughout the morning for lesson, crafts, and games. 

Below, Nathan shares a lesson with the red team.  Our theme for the first two weeks of camp is healthy living! Incorporating humorous skits, videos, games, simulations, magic tricks, team challenges and more, students are learning empathy while also having a good time, having their preconceived notions of disability gently changed through proximity with the individuals in VT. 

We are so happy to meet new friends in the vicinity -- Mandi is driving to four different villages around us picking up students who live beyond walking distance of Jeta.  Many parents have expressed gratitude for camp as this area lacks programs such as this in the summer.

These day camps are by payment, though we are trying to keep the price reasonable and recruit sponsors to underwrite the cost for students who cannot afford to pay.  The second week of camp will cover healthy eating, healthy teeth, and healthy emotions.  The third and fourth weeks of camp will be a virtual world tour, visiting six different countries (in anticipation of the World Cup). In the final week of July, a visiting team will provide a week-long VBS which will be free for all kids who wish to come.

Below, some campers are modeling the sunglasses they were given at the conclusion of our day dedicated to protecting our eyesight -- as well as what images and messages we consume with our eyes!

Below, Ellie made this beautiful mask in the craft time... she also helps by assisting one of the semi-mobile VT students.  We are so grateful for her help!

If you want to see short video re-caps of each day of camp, visit Jeta's Instagram page here!

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