May 2023 | It's All About the Story

This may have been one of the busiest spring and summer seasons we have yet braved in our Albanian career. It has been so full of wonderful times with old friends and making new ones, hosting events and activities, and tackling projects... yet, we are still human with the same number of hours in each day and I feel woefully overwhelmed at catching up on responsibilities and preparing for a trip to the USA next month.

Yesterday (July 20) we wrapped our last "special event" of the summer and said goodbye to our second-to-last set of visitors.  Today we relished our first morning with no appointments.  Can you guess what I did? I started dumping photos to my computer! :-) Then I checked the blog... what? No post since April's re-cap? Before selecting photos from this post, I had to consult my daily planner to remember what happened in May!

According to my trusty book, on May 1 we did home school, met with staff, posted announcements to Jeta's Instagram account, created an online registration form for camp, and made a trip to the market to prepare for the Coppedge family arriving the next day!

May 2: The Coppedge family arrives. How to introduce these dear friends? We have known Billy and Jo since they were sophomores at Asbury in 1999. Now they have a beautiful family and lots of education and experience teaching people how to read and understand the Bible.

When you homeschool, site-seeing counts as history class!  We enjoyed showing them the amphitheater in person -- they had previously "toured" it as part of a virtual trip we offered during the Pandemic, but it's obviously not the same as seeing it in person.

This family teaches a technique called "Simply the Story" and we were pleased when 7-year-old Blake demonstrated this by sharing a Bible story at kids club!

While with us, they provided two trainings in their oral Bible teaching method.  We practiced a lot in small groups and we loved that their girls served as small group facilitators, coaching us through the various steps in telling, re-telling, and digging treasures from the story.

We were pleased that a pastor and missionaries from other cities and organizations accepted our invitation to take part in this training.  The first group is featured in the photo above.

Everyone was amazed at the entire family's involvement in training.  They know God's word and love sharing it with others!

The bonus from the Coppedges offering the training twice was that we felt we learned it so much better than if had we only received the training once.  Having seen it in action, we are BIG proponents of this teaching method, especially in our local context which seems adept at memorizing details. But we love even more that the follow-up questions lead the participants into processing and analyzing the greater truths of the story and its personal applications.

We celebrated the end of two successful training sessions with dessert at the local patisseri in Maminas!

Introducing them to the lovely city of Kruje!

(Above)  This was not an uncommon sight -- Ellie loves playing 'teacher' and Blake enjoyed being read to!  A great combo!

During their visit, I was invited to celebrate the birthday of a sweet new friend who attends gym classes at Jeta.  She invited all the ladies who have taken part 

After the Coppedges left, Nathan presented a story in Albanian for church on Friday night!  He did fantastically -- though we both realized that story-ing relies a lot on speaking in past tense. :-)

We received a special gift to our ministry account which helped us finish some projects at the center.  One such project was to finish installing the netting over the volleyball/basketball court.  I admit in my thriftiness I didn't think it was all that essential BUT we play a LOT of volleyball and this prevents a lot of kids from chasing errant balls into the street.  We also installed a few lights to extend play into the cooler, evening hours.  We are so glad that Jeta can provide a place for the community to gather in safety and grow in relationship with each other!

We also were able to install a few more security cameras, including one in the soccer field. We can't say enough how important it has been to have these cameras on the property -- from loss prevention to reviewing situations where emotions have run high -- we have had the ability to review the situations in question for the protection of all involved.

It was a special treat to host some new friends -- our boys met in online school -- when their travels brought them to Albania!

On May 25 we welcomed John (He spent 2018 with us) and a new friend, Chloe! They would be staying for 9 and 7 weeks, respectively.

We spent much time in late May preparing for a large WGM conference we would be hosting in early June.  You know it's serious when the power washer comes out!

Below, we're finally hauling out some of the last of the construction debris we had saved "just in case."

I was gifted a rose bush and we found the perfect place to plant it!

Below, John and Demir terrace the ground along the side of the kalceto. The property was looking as nice as it has ever looked in anticipation of our upcoming visitors!

The futbol training program really exploded in May  AND we got our new KF Jeta uniforms!  We feel like a real program, now!

We also said goodbye to long-time friends, the Wiersmas.  After 14 years in Albania, they felt it was time for their family to transition back to the USA. We are so grateful for their friendship while we have been here!

We concluded our year at the Hope Center with a special frame/name craft.

Earlier in the month I had photographed each of the students at the Hope Center.

Later, I printed my favorite portraits of each student, researched the meaning of their names, and found Bible verses for each student related to the meaning of their names.

They combined all of the elements I research and printed and added their own personal touches to a photo frame.
I think they liked it!

We celebrated Nathan's birthday over lunch in Tirana with our summer volunteers

But this was all the closer Nathan got to getting a birthday cake! If that doesn't tell you about the state of our lives this spring/summer... More to come in June's review!

New Opportunities, Life, Light, Qualifications, and Guests!

April flew by in a flash with lots of wonderful memories!

Below, Ellie is living out her dream of teaching music by providing lessons for our friend, Z.  Thank you, Thompson piano books that haven't changed in over 40 years!  They still work!

The highlight of April is Easter and we were so pleased to share it with dear friends for the 5th time in 6 Easters!  After a special church service, we had lunch in our home.

We colored eggs, of course...

We played Ticket to Ride (the European version, of course).

We ate very well and ended the day with Argentine empanadas!  Yum!

Vlashaj was blessed this month with STREET LIGHTS!  What a difference they make!

Soccer school also resumed!  We added transportation service and we are busting at the seams with lots of students!

We were super proud of Luli for completing his first level of certification throught Futbol Federation of Albania and EUFA (the European federation).  He is now a certified assistant coach for youth!

Below, in case you were wondering what "American Cookies" look like...spotted at our local supermarket.

We were pleased to bring a small group from the village to a public Easter program in the central square in Tirana.

Thanks to the generosity of our partners, we were able to purchase and install outdoor lights for the volleyball/basketball court.  This space is used a lot, but especially on Wednesday nights for community volleyball!

On April 21 we were so pleased to welcome the McCues! They are long time farm friends from Michigan. 

They brought their 13-year-old grandson, Genesis, with them.  He and Reni seemed to get along quite well. Though they have been to Albania many times before, it was special to introduce them to a few new places!

Above, Reni and Genesis climb on a modern art sculpture in Tirana called "The Cloud."  Below, Ellie poses in the tunnel of the Roman-era amphitheater in Durres.

We try to have an element of personal response at the conclusion of each church service.  This helps bring the evening's message to a practical point.  This particular evening's message was about how we please God.  One of the ways we learned was through giving God thanks and praise for what he has done for us.  We each took turns writing our thanks to God on paper lanterns which we later released from the rooftop of the church!

One day we received a message from Mandi that the muncipality wanted to gift our center with some trees, while also holding a forum for the community to voice their thoughts and concerns.

Nathan and Luli pose next to this campaign sign -- "Never behind, only forward!" it claims.

The used our basketball court for their program which was complete with boisterous music and young women distributing pens and cigarette lighters with the majority party's campaign slogan on it.

Our neighbor and friend, Arjana, invited the McCues over for coffee.  We had a lovely time visiting together and enjoying her hospitality!

We showed Genesis that his name in the Albanian Bible is actually "Zanafilla" -- which Reni would occasionally call him for fun. :-)

Reni has become an AVID chess player and bought himself this olive wood chess board during our visit to Kruje.  Unfortunately, most folks don't enjoy playing him because the games conclude so quickly. :-)

Alas, our five days with the McCues flew by quickly and we were back at the airport to send them off!

While Reni got a chess board, in Kruja I bought a new rug for the guesthouse to maintain an Albanian vibe. :-) 

Just a week or so later, we would be welcoming our next set of guests!  Check back in a few weeks for a report on all we learned and did in May, including fantastic training in oral Bible story telling techniques!

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