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!
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?
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.
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.
Post your video and tag your nominees.
Use the hashtag #liftusupalbania
Go towww.LiftUsUpAlbania.organd 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.
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.
Somewhere in the midst of this quarantine, we found our new 'normal.' And then, things started to loosen!
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The quarantine has been good for the Waggoner family's reading life. I am ashamed to say we haven't read as much as we should, but with evening ministry programs cancelled, we can eat supper at a more reasonable hour and then let the kids read in bed before going to sleep. I was thrilled to catch this photo of Ellie reading her Bible unprompted one afternoon...
And speaking of reading, I meant to include this in our last post about Easter... I have been trying to purchase more picture books for our family library and ordered this for our family's Easter reading.
The illustrations, typography, and language are all so beautiful. I love that each page spread can be appreciated and studied as its own work of art, or you can read the entire book in one sitting. These kinds of books are right up Ellie's alley (she doesn't have a long attention span for lengthy chapter books, yet most picture books have sophisticated language that is good for her). What I loved about this particular books is that it made for great discussions with both children -- from the design to the author's personal choices in conveying the Biblical text.
I know we're all doing it (vegetable washing). But even in my post-grocery shopping cleaning, I just can't resist can't resist ROYGBV...
Spring time means weeds! Grateful for Luli's help one day in scraping flaking paint on the gate and cleaning out the grapevine beds...
While this all transpired when folks were still supposed to stay home, we were never so grateful to live at a workplace where our staff could come to us. It took the edge off of feeling so isolated.
Ms. Pam gifted Ellie this autoharp right before quarantine. It has occupied many an hour for Ellie... though I'm also grateful for doors that could close while she mastered her skills. It has a.... unique (?) sound.
For months I've been vocal here sharing about my cousin Dallas' project, The Chosen. During the quarantine they released it to view free of charge on their app and on YouTube. It skyrocketed in popularity in the United States as well as around the world. We had been working for months to translate the subtitles into Albanian to have as a resource to share with the wider church in Albania, but the progress was quite slow. The Global Partners team in Durres offered to help and moved the needle from around 23% to 48% completed.
As a person who often finds her identity in productivity, this quarantine pushed me in some creative directions to fill this need.
Since we couldn't meet in person for our regular programs, I decided to set up a work station in the center and invited some of our local Planters staff to come for a couple of intense 'translation parties.' Each of these colleagues was passionate about the show and had been trying independently to work on translation, but I knew it was a difficult, tiring task. However, I thought if we made it a group project we might be able to power through and bring it to completion.
The translation sessions were monumental in getting the project DONE. Nathan kept our children at bay, while plying us with muffins and coffee while we worked.
I saw my role as team cheerleader, celebrating progress and catching which chapters of each episode had missing lines. I also served as the clearing house with a couple of other translation contributors (one in Tirana, one in Shkodra, and another in the USA) to ensure we were all using the same spelling of characters' names and terminology for certain fictitious locations that had no obvious equivalent in Albanian.
I busied myself taking care of all the repetitive scripts (copying the lyrics in the credits, for example, across all the episodes) to free up our bilingual experts for the tougher stuff. And believe me, it was not easy. Some of the dialogue -- actually much of the dialogue -- is smartly written in English. The series employs a lot of humor, sarcasm and wit, while speaking in a more formal tone. It's not how a lot of my friends are accustomed to hearing colloquial English spoken. It was helpful that I could be there serving as the "native English speaker" to explain some of those trickier English expressions... Eventually, though, having them nearby to consult, I started delving into more and more dialogue for some really good language practice. I definitely saw that having each other to bounce off thoughts and verify understandings ensured greater accuracy.
Breaking down the chapters of each episode...
Oh what a happy day it was to watch that progress bar reach 100% and receive confirmation that our subtitles were live and available to use on The Chosen App!!
Then we realized we needed to translate the trailer so people could find the project to begin with! Nathan created an Albanian version of the trailer which includes instructions at the end if you want to see how the Albanian subtitles can be found.
As with most folks, the isolation from peers has been difficult for the kids. We were so grateful our agency offered a Zoom call for them to reconnect with some of their peers. Reni definitely did not want me on screen with him, but I managed to sneak a pic of him enjoying this modern rite of passage -- one's first zoom.
Genti usually preaches for church, but one week he asked Nathan to share and he translated. That meant I was entrusted with operating the presentation software for our livestream! (gulp!)
May 2 was a big day. It was technically the first day for Ellie to be allowed to leave our home -- though driving permission was still off limits, she could only go out on foot for a few hours.
Of course that day it was raining, so we took a little walk down the street to check out the progress of the work site.
And take a few family photos. Of course, we all need hair cuts and I have kind of gotten used to not wearing cosmetics. :-)
The weather turned incredible and Ellie enjoyed spending time outdoors painting. The well made a convenient table for her.
Another day we tackled the messy task of organizing our store room. I had done a thorough clean out in August, but since then, it had become the drop zone for many donations during earthquake relief, making it almost impossible to enter. With the help of Luli and Eda, we tackled this in just three hours. It contains a variety of items from curriculum, to crafting supplies, table games and outdoor game equipment, seasonal decorations, costumes, portable heaters... you name it!! And given that it's accessed by all our staff, it's a constant work in progress to keep it tidy and organized.
We had a "sticky" drain that would get de-pressed and was difficult to raise. After nearly six years of living here, Nathan was able to finally replace it. You know how home improvements go. So many other things take priority, and plumbing can be downright tricky ... it just felt good to get this done.
Reni FREE-HANDED this koala bear below in school with paint-dipped Q-tips!
Finally, last week we applied for permission to drive for work reasons. Given that Planters is registered with the government, we were granted permission for 'humanitarian' reasons. After 69 days, Ellie and Reni got to ride in a car! It might surprise you to know, they had no interest in leaving! I have actually heard this from other friends with kids...
We drove to Tirana for a 24 hours-shopping-and-work trip. As we drove up the street to the Planters office and apartment, we saw that at some point in time, this shop (Crocs) opened on our street. To appreciate this, you should know that our first couple of years here, I would be REGULARLY pulled aside and discretely told that Ellie had 'accidentally' worn her house shoes out of the house. That's because traditional "Crocs" or knock off "Crocs" to the Albanian eye do not look like street shoes, they look like house slippers. Of course though, when we moved here we didn't know that and we used them as street shoes for Ellie for a LONG time because they were just so easy for her to slip on independently. Well, until I could no longer handle the stares in public and comments. I will be curious to see how this shop fares...
I'm not really a 'foot shot' person but it was so liberating to be able to go out and run errands in Tirana. And wear summer shoes for the first time. And think of my friend Jen who gifted me these incredible sandals I love so much. I just had to take a photo to remember the feeling of gratitude. Thank you, Jen!! Walking so much here, we are hard on shoes. Thanks for keeping my feet stylish and protected!
We worked Wednesday from about 1:30 in the afternoon until 8:30 at night with Tiffany on a big new ministry endeavor she will be announcing soon! You can do so much on Zoom, but the creative juices just seem to flow better in person! Oh, and we rejoiced in ordering carry-out food for the first time since...?? March 2, I think.
The Lord blessed us with a really good Zoom meeting with some ministry partners in the UK who affirmed the progress on our work so far!
Food Bank Albania gifted us with several kilos worth of oats to distribute in food boxes to our neighbors. Unfortunately, most of our neighbors don't really know what to do with oats other than feed it to their chickens. After hearing that, I took it upon myself to start trying to find as many recipes for foods including oats as I could. Friday Nathan made this batch of 'soft and chewy flapjacks.' It was a hit with the local friends who tried it!
Last week our district went from a red zone designation to 'green,' This meant that we no longer had to request permission to leave the house and that we could drive anywhere else that is 'green.' We celebrated by having Eda and Luli come over and work on a puzzle for fellowship --something we used to enjoy doing regularly, but haven't done in nearly a year. Still no gatherings permitted larger than five, but with Ellie, we were okay down in the center!
The transition to Green Zone also meant the kids could resume in person instruction with Ms. Pam. I think EVERYONE was happy for that!
