It's the Best Time of the Year!

Saturday we had our Christmas party at the Hope Center!  These kids are a lot of fun to be with, and they LOVE to have their photo taken (and play with my camera too), so they requested that we bring back the photo booth like we did last year.  Plus a few props!

 

The best we could do with our family in the pic!  Sorry it's not in focus!

We had some leftover cookie dough from when Mom and the kids made cookies a few days earlier o we baked some up and brought over tubs of icing, food coloring, and sprinkles.

 

I think iced cookies are pretty unusual in Albania (American desserts are quite sweet by their standards, actually), but they loved the icing so much I caught kids holding an icing knife and repeatedly adding dabs of icing to their cookies with each bite, or just dunking their cookies straight out in the icing bowls.  I was tempted to give a little lesson on 'double dipping', but I held my tongue. :-)  As I also did when I caught some pouring our American carepackage peppermint sprinkles and eating them by the handful.  Oh well. I've got a soft spot for these kids, I guess you could say. ;-)  And we're probably not making any more Christmas cookies this year anyway.

 

 

Hungry yet?

And she's gone already... | a visit re-cap

[Editor's Note:  two days without internet feels like an eternity!  Happy to be online again!]

 

Our seven days with Mom/Gigi flew by quickly and before we knew it, it was time to be back at the airport again!

 

 

We grabbed a coffee to steal a few more minutes...

 

But the goodbyes were inevitable.

Reni refuses to feel hurt and pain by announcing he won't cry and won't miss her anyway. (A pretty typical reaction for TCKs, we've been told).

 

Ellie, on the other hand, was all tears, running through the litany of things she would miss or be unable to do until she saw her Gigi again.

 

 

Until next time we will remember fun memories like...

 

Making Christmas cookies in a warm bath of afternoon sunshine

 

Introducing her to the national park at the Cape... (so fun to take Gigi to a place in Albania she's never seen before!)

Forging new trails...

 

To see spectacular new views (this state-owned ground was closed to the public for decades as a military outpost and is just now being re-discovered)

 

 

We visited old friends and made new ones... (I've not been permitted to share all of our pics here just yet!)

 

 

Mom got to share a special Christmas message at our Wednesday evening women's gathering...

 

 

 

But mostly we just did regular life!  She shared the kids' room and helped with dishes and cooking and even wore the 'teacher hat' in our homeschooling one day (yah, we were spoiled).  Gigi, you can come back any day!  Just promised you'll bring Gjyshe!

Pay day

For the better part of the last month, the knitting project has consumed a lot of my time.  Photographing product, posting items online, creating accounting and inventory systems to maintain a semblance of organization to an endeavor that easily quadrupled in size over last year...

 

Then one of our two major retail events was bumped up three weeks earlier than expected (before my help could arrive from the States).  And the knitters kept bringing me more product.  I started to panic.  How in the world was I ever going to find buyers for it all?

 

But then my friends and family stepped to the plate.  You took the time to visit the site. You bought a scarf.  Or two, three, or four.  Then I started to panic about how I was going to get it to the States!

 

 Last night we double checked the balance of our inventory against my sales records.  I printed packing slips for the product going back to the States with Mom and the Bensons. We tallied totals. Nathan had to make another trip to the bank for more cash.

 

Tonight was the scheduled "payday".  I knew they were going to be surprised.  I made a bit of a scene bringing back the bags of unsold merchandise and apologizing that I wasn't able to sell it all.  Then I handed them their envelopes.  I wish I could have gotten a photo or video of their eyes.  They were wide at first, then one started crying.  Another just started giggling.

 

Their envelopes each held the equivalent of nearly two months' income.

 

 

 

When asked what they were going to use their funds for, they immediately replied, "Pay for our electricity!"

 

Just last week during Bible study we had ladies in tears about the financial stress their families are under.  Thanks to God's goodness (through many of you), there are three families in our village resting a little easier tonight, having just witnessed God's provision for their families.

OSAAB Christmas Bazaar 2014

Yesterday was the big international holiday bazaar at the Sheraton Hotel in Tirana!  This event is a highlight for me for a variety of reasons.  Traditionally it has been the primary avenue for selling the crafts made by the village ladies.  But since arriving in Albania, I've learned that it is the primary fundraiser for OSAAB, the Organization for Support of Albania's Abandoned Babies.  And OSAAB, I learned, has a very personal connection to our family.

 

OSAAB was started in the 1990s by an American woman, Claudia, who found herself in Albania because of her husband's work.  In her spare time, she decided to see where she might find herself a place to volunteer. That place turned out to be the ward for abandoned babies in Tirana's maternity hospital.  Appalled by the conditions and long list of needs for these little ones mostly forgotten by the world, with the help of her expat friends she started raising money for diapers, formula, then mattresses and cribs, and eventually an entire renovation of the ward.  She worked with the social worker who worked with the birth mothers relinquishing their children to develop systems for gathering information and filing papers to ensure the babies didn't languish in a no-man's land of waiting to be placed in loving families.  She brought in people to train the nurses in techniques like infant massage to facilitate proper neural development.  She bought swings and mobiles and brought in teams of volunteers to hold babies.  One of those babies was our Ellie.  Thanks to Claudia's efforts, Ellie spent her first 7 weeks of life sleeping on a comfortable mattress instead of on a thin blanket on a plywood board in a metal crib with peeling paint (I've seen the 'before photos'). Thanks to Claudia, we have polaroid photos of Ellie as an infant and a photo of her birth mother -- a special, special gift.  So, for obvious reasons, we look forward to every opportunity to support this cause when we can.  A portion of our table fee to display at the Christmas bazaar went to OSAAB.  OSAAB volunteers also ran face-painting and cookie decorating stations for kids, which Ellie and Reni enjoyed.

 

But if Nathan and I had to prepare and run our table by ourselves, we could have been quite overwhelmed! We have been blessed to have the Bensons in Albania this past week to help us prepare and run our booth!  Lynne helped start the crafting project with our ladies in the village and got us into this Bazaar several years ago so this wasn't her first rodeo.  This past week she has tagged merchandise and separated orders.  And on Sunday morning she and Len got up super early and got in line for us to get a good table location.

 

Here she is setting up the table...

 

Len and Nathan assemble our display rack (which Nathan created by modifying shoe rack from our local "dollar store".

We put a dent in our inventory, but still have some for sale!  I updated the website if my friends in America want to place an order before Mom returns to the States at the end of the week! (Click here)  (and maybe I might throw in a fun surprise as a little 'thank you!')

In addition to the scarves, I sold some canvas prints of some of my favorite scenes around Albania (for $20-50, depending upon the size).  The proceeds from the canvas sales will be used to buy sports equipment for the ministry center (because we go through balls like crazy!)

Looks like someone took my camera!  We were happy when Vera came by and helped us for a little bit during the big rush.

It was a great time to reconnect with lots of friends from Tirana that we don't see as much anymore and get in the Christmas spirit!  We were also encouraged with sales and the opportunity to share with others about our community in the village and the wonderful, hardworking folks who live here.

She's Here!

It's been over 9 months since her last visit.

 

We've been counting down the days.

 

Then we started tracking her flights.  (We had a brief scare when we heard of a Lufthansa pilots' strike today!) 

 

 

Finally we pulled up at the airport and saw the tell-tale blue and gold airplane tail!

 

I knew photos were frowned upon in this part of the airport, so I tried to be quick.  Evidently I was a bit too quick and captured some camera shake as well!

 

Looking forward to 7 busy, but meaningful days with Gigi in town!

Liberation Day...

 

While our friends in the States were making hand turkeys, over here in Albania we were making double-headed eagles (see the kids' hands above) ... in honor of Independence Day (November 28, 1912) and Liberation Day (November 29, 1944).

 

If you didn't catch the significance, this year marked 70 years since the Allied forces liberated Albania.

 

Someone more astute than I noticed that it was 23 years after Liberation Hoxha declared Albania's official religion to be atheism.  Roughly 23 years later, communism collapsed, and here we are 23 years later, Albania is poised at another crossroads.

 

The leaders of the Albanian evangelical church wanted to take the occasion of Liberation Day to declare Albania's utter dependence upon God, so an event was planned in Tirana for a time of corporate prayer for the nation.

 

I had the pleasure of attending with a small group of women from our village church.

 

My poor attempt at a group selfie in our over-crowded furgon (mini bus) coming home 3+ hours later!

 

 

Happy 70 years!

Today we did something a little unusual... we closed our homeschool books and attended a celebration for our local public school!  This month marks 70 year since the school opened its doors. What makes this remarkable is that this school opened on the heels of the departure of Axis forces from Albania (the 70th celebration of Liberation Day was Saturday, November 29).

I was looking forward to the event because I've never been to the school before (Nathan visited earlier this fall for a meeting about a possible Christmas shoebox distribution).  And as the school comprises children through grade 9 from our village as well as two other villages, it's a major part of our community's life.

It was fun to spot "our kids" as well as kids we recognized from English classes here at the center.

It was a very patriotic celebration with a lot of singing as well as poetry recitations.  From what I gathered, they were honoring teachers past and present and sharing the successes of graduates who have gone on to successful careers.

We sat in the 2nd row, behind all the beloved retired teachers.

I'll close with a little video clip of some traditional dancing as performed by some of the older students...

Thanksgiving Re Cap



I have a confession to make.  I have yet to finish Ann Voskamp's book, 1000 Gifts. 

 

 But that hasn't kept me from recommending it to (and even buying it for) others.

 

In spite of that, I've never forgotten what I took away as the foundational premise:  that perhaps the first, original sin of Adam and Eve in the garden was the sin of ingratitude.  That eating the fruit was a manifestation of their hearts' position that what God had created for them wasn't good enough.

 

It's a thought that comes to my mind whenever I'm tempted to complain about my status or situation. 

 

That brings me to Thanksgiving.  The older I become, the more I appreciate this holiday.  Just this past week I learned that we only celebrate this holiday on an annual basis is because a concerned citizen of the United States petitioned her president. Every year.  For forty years. Finally, in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln designated the last Thursday of November to be a day of  "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens".

 

Thanksgiving generates praise.  Praise reminds us who we are in relation to Him. In right relation to him we orient ourselves properly.

 

We celebrated the day by talking with family back in the States.  After about 30 minutes of trying, Nathan, Stephen, and Dad were able to negotiate a 3-way Google video Hangout.

 

 

But though we weren't able to be with family in person, we were glad to share our Thanksgiving Dinner with some American friends who came out to join us from Tirana.

We enjoyed everything from Turkey to mashed potatoes, stuffing, and specially imported cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie!