Baking up sweetness for Christmas!

This is our FIFTH Christmas in Albania!  I can hardly believe that.  That's long enough to develop some traditions that mark the time of year in meaningful ways and give us events with friends to anticipate.

Some traditions were not intentional but just become that thing you 'have' to do (in a good way) because that's what you have become known for -- like homemade Christmas cookies!  In anticipation, this last summer we stocked up on some special goodies to bring back to Albania like sapphire sugar sprinkles and silver sanding sugar to give our treats that special unexpected sparkle.

This year our group of friends who helped us grew significantly -- and we were grateful for the help!

We serve these cookies after our Christmas program at church, as well as distribute small bags to our neighbors and dispense at kids club.

This year we made Christmas trees, stars, and snowflakes -- some for their symbolism and the snowflake because, well, it's just pretty and I wanted something blue to make our little collection more colorfull

Above, Nathan, Kimberli and Albania are adding a special marble technique on the stars with two colors of royal icing.

The Christmas trees used a ton of icing but Nathan made JUST enough!

Oh, and can I add here that since our first Christmas in 2013 you can now buy powdered sugar in Albania which makes it possible to even make icing?  (We still bring over Karo syrup from the States for this particular recipe).

These were our only two helpers last year -- so glad they brought reinforcements in 2017 because we had more than 350 cookies to decorate!

We played lots of Christmas tunes through Alexa, which turned into an unexpected form of entertainment.  We learned that Alexa does NOT speak Albanian, ha ha.a

Friends -- thank you SO much for all your help!  We can't wait to share these in just a few days!

Our budding performer

This girl has a piano recital on Friday! (Hence the occasion for a portrait with the fancy camera -- the organizers requested a head shot!)

 This is another first for us Waggoners in Albania.  I took part in my share of piano recitals... more than thirty years ago...in the friendly, familiar confines of little Forest City Community Church, and I still had my share of resident butterflies.

  

She doesn't seem nervous yet in the least -- we will see how that changes when she's got the fancy clothes on and is surrounded by other young musicians in the heart of Tirana.  In the mean time, her mom covets your prayers. :-)

November, Part 2 | All About Thankful

I love Thanksgiving and the focus on gratitude.  We wove it into several activities in the days leading up to Thanksgiving!

At the Hope Center we played a game where drawing a certain-colored bead required you to respond with a certain question thing for which you were grateful. 

Then we did the Thankful Tree craft project... I love this printout and the water color/collage look of the leaves.

Nathan made pumpkin bars to share!  The Albanian language has one word for all types of gourds and that is what we translate as "pumpkin".  Since most gourds/squash are used in savory dishes, the thought of using pumpkin in a dessert usually requires a bit of courage to sample at first.

It is much colder now!  My used dishwater is still steaming after morning dishes...

For girls night we repeated the Thankful Tree craft...

For English conversation group we found these great BINGO cards to teach some new vocabulary.

We had a good-size crew turn out for our first class!

November 28 was Albania's 105th Independence Day!  The Boulevardi is always festooned in red and black for the occasion.

Thanksgiving was a "regular" day here but we pushed "pause" for a few hours and enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving lunch at the Stephen Center restaurant (founded by American missionaries over twenty years ago).

Reni devised his own way to eat pumpkin pie!

We were joined by Pam, but I forgot to get a table shot!  This is us on the street walking back to where we parked the van. 

Thursday evening back in the village we Skyped with family in America.

In Metalle we shared the story of the raising of Jairus' daughter.  Once again the internet provided a wonderful craft idea the kids were really excited about!  And bonus -- we spread it out over multiple weeks!

Wanting to spread out the Christmas activities, we hosted our homeschool group for a Christmas party the last Sunday afternoon of November.  In typical fall fashion, it rained and the power went out during singing Christmas carols.

Thankfully, we are blessed with a generator and back came the lights!

We made Christmas cookies up in advance and had a cookie decorating activity for the kids.  It was a hit!

November in Review, Part 1

November started off with a visit from our WGM colleague, Lisa!  She is exploring a few possibilities for future missionary service (she has served in Bolivia, Uganda, and done short stints on the Tex/Mex border as well as in Argentina) and considering possible service with us!

Above we are visiting a village neighbor.

One of the fun bits about hosting guests is the opportunity to play tourist.  We were excited to finally see the improvements to Skenderbeg Square in the center of Tirana.  The center was closed for months, then finally opened during the summer while we were away.  It's now an enormous pedestrian zone.

The kids are learning their US currency with play money they earn for certain activities during school.

One evening I came in the kids' room and discovered that just about every figurine or Lego man/woman had been commissioned into a giant battle!  #lifewithboys

One evening during girls fellowship we made our own dry-erase boards...

We cut scrapbook paper and put those in photo frames.

What's life in eastern Europe without scaling enormous cold-war era monuments?

Reni nearly gave me a heart attack.  He's completely fearless.

And when one is in a former amphitheater, one must strike a gladiator pose.

Nathan couldn't resist bringing back this light up volleyball.  It's quite the novelty here!

Nathan and a small contingency from our village church attended a reception honoring the 125th anniversary of the founding of the evangelical alliance in Albania.

Luli's testimony will be featured in an upcoming WGM publication.

Here he is skyping with a portion of the communications team.

Last spring we visited this family in Metalle.  Mom was expecting child #3.  I just had to go and meet the new baby!

And I was the lucky one to pass on this home made quilt made by our friend Bonnie during her stay in Albania last summer.

Nathan and Luli led the kids on a demonstration of searching for 'good soil' to scatter their seeds after teaching the parable of the Sower.

A coloring page reviewing the four places the seed fell.

And tying in the theme one more time through games where the balls represented 'seeds.'

Next post -- Thanksgiving!