Last month the members of our little village church made me proud as they shared of their time for a neighbor in need.
We have a family in our village who had recently welcomed a new baby. Knowing that they needed some help to get their house in order (what new mom doesn't need an extra set of hands while caring for a newborn and a toddler?), some members of our church spent the good portion of a day 'spring cleaning' their house and making some repairs to their furniture and bedroom walls.
It turned into a bigger job than we anticipated, spanning two days (due to hosting responsibilities, I wasn't there to document the 2nd day).
This little sweetheart blissfully slept through a lot of our ruckus of moving, sorting, purging and cleaning!
Many hands make light work!
Nathan and Luli work on reinforcing and replacing slats on the baby's crib so she could have a safe place to rest
Precious L washed clothes and dishes for HOURS then took bedding home to finish up the last of the laundry.
[editor's note: this was started Sunday, but finished several days later...]
Happy Sabbath day! What a gift!
We all need rest, though I'm the first to admit I struggle to take breaks. So much of my identity is wrapped up in my 'performance.' (This blog is probably a prime example). I want to make sure the work is being done and I can't really relax if I know there is work yet to do.
That's why it was good that this past week was a sort of 'forced' sabbath for our family. On Tuesday we drove 90 minutes past the northern Albanian border at Muriqan to attend the AEP conference outside of Budva, Montenegro.
AEP is an alliance of evangelical organizations working in the country of Albania. As the only missionaries for Planters Seed Foundation and WGM in this country, we have found membership in AEP to be a huge blessing and benefit -- not to mention safeguard -- to our ministry. They have helped us with our residency visas, collected our mail, shared timely announcements about legal matters, made us aware of various resources and conferences available to us or the people of our village church, and provided valuable networking opportunities with other individuals and groups throughout the country.
To maintain our membership we are required to attend their annual conference at least once every two years. But if I am honest, I admit that at times I wasn't so sure I wanted to go this year -- the idea of rising early to get us all out the door and to breakfast before morning sessions, then staying up late for evening sessions that didn't start until 8PM sounded more tiring than refreshing.
But as is usually the case, my expectations were misplaced.
Before we even left, the kids started counting down the days until we were to leave. The night before we left, Reni trudged into our room with not one, but THREE, backpacks that he had 'packed' for the trip. :-)
That was just the start. The kids started praying about making new friends at the conference (they had their closest English-speaking friends in Tirana all move back to the States over the summer) and talking about fun at the hotel pool. Suffice it to say, just seeing how excited the kids were showed me how much our family needed a change of scenery and a time with others like us.
Reni set up his own personal bed side "mini bar" with snacks we brought from home.
After we arrived Ellie asked why the floor at the hotel was so soft.
"That's something called carpeting, Ellie," her dad said.
Reni didn't comment on the carpet but couldn't stop running up and down the halls. Normally I'm annoyed by kids running up and down hotel hallways, but I couldn't bring myself to stop him. It obviously felt better for him running on carpet than ceramic tile and he seemed to relish running at top speed!
It wasn't long before the kids were pointing out their friends during meals at the cafeteria and asking about when we'd get to see them again after the conference concluded.
Playing video games together in the "Kid Room".
Ellie was in heaven watching an impromptu jam session between some of the youth. Then she proceeded to ask me why she wasn't 'allowed' to bring her guitar, ha ha. (It honestly hadn't crossed my mind that other kids might bring instruments!)
But that's just Ellie and Reni... Nathan and I reveled in special worship times surrounded by brothers and sisters from around the world, including many Albanian believers. Someone later pointed out the uniqueness of the group -- individuals from around the world with little in common 'except' for a mutual love for Jesus and a passion to make him known in Albania. That was treat enough in itself!
It was a treat to reconnect with Fiona after meeting her once before during our adoption of Reni. We had never been able to connect before!
Furthermore we made some divine connections that will be so helpful as we move forward in implementing strategies. These just scratch the surface of opportunities we learned about:
We met the missionary who brought CHE (Community Health Evangelism) to Albania 16 years ago in the city of Korca and she is going to share all of the materials they have translated into Shqip for us to use as we move forward in implementing this strategy in the village work!
We met another missionary who has made a website of FREE Sunday School lessons from Genesis to Revelation, all in Albanian, with links to corresponding songs and crafts for each story! (Before she even sat down I was sending the link to Eda for possible use in Metalle!).
I met an organization that publishes Sunday school curriculum in Shqip that I want to check out and possibly purchase for children's church. I hope to visit their office when we go to Tirana on Thursday.
We met Albanians who run Christian summer camps for children with special needs.
We learned about the status of foster care in Albania and the possible expansion next year (through our former adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services) to include Durres county, where we live. We got materials to share with a few Christian families whom we know and want to encourage to participate in this pilot program.
We have been assigned to participate in the Albanian Prayer Network that assigns each church in Albania to fast and pray for the nation on a specific day each month.
The theme of the conference was "Past, Present, Future" -- celebrating twenty-five years of the AEP and freedom of worship in Albania. One of the speakers included a founding member of AEP who shared stories of the first days of renewed missionary efforts in this country. It was a bit like sitting at a family reunion, hearing names and stories I've heard from my parents and other friends who worked here in the early 1990s.
(since there are so many Reni photos in this post) The last afternoon of the conference they scheduled an excursion to a nearby town, getting us out of the hotel for the first time since we arrived. We had coffee and juice at a little cafe in an old town square. We felt very "European". :-)
Suffice it to say, we thank God for such a refreshing and encouraging five days away. I want to close by sharing a song that we learned during the times of corporate worship. It's based on Psalm 23, entitled "Shepherd of My Soul." This week felt like a time of spent in 'green pastures' and being lead by quiet waters, of restoring our souls. May you see the Good Shepherd in your life today as well!
(If you cannot see the embedded video below, click here.)
In Nathan's family, much significance was placed on the meaning of one's name and as such, names were thoughtfully chosen accordingly.
I appreciated this tradition that I married into and so I remember when we were first matched with Ellie in the process of adoption, one of the first things we did was look up the meaning of her given name. Would we keep it or would we mark this new beginning in her life with a new first name, too?
In case you don't know this part of her story, we chose to keep her given name, Elisona, which means "[her] parents worship Jehoveh".
In Reni's story, as we were considering his file given us by our adoption agency, we learned that the name this baby was given at his baptism when he was taken into the Sisters' of Charity home happened to be the same name his soon-to-be grandfathers shared.
It also belonged to a young boy in the Old Testament who was nearly overlooked because of his lack of height, but chosen by God for what man couldn't see. You know him as David.
In both cases, our children's names were powerful signs to us of God's involvement in their lives and confirmations that they were ours. They were faith builders in journeys where human frailty can often find us walking in doubt and fear.
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Last Saturday marked the return of our family's visits to the Hope Center. The first few visits are always a bit of a challenge because it involves meeting to new friends and starting a new relationship from scratch with the new kids who've just moved in.
This year we knew that there would be six new ones to meet. In contemplating our first activity together, I chose to borrow from a devotional message my friend Anne, along with her daughter Lydia, prepared and shared with the girls from our village this past summer.
Nathan introduced our family, then told the kids we were going to lead them in an activity which would not only help us to know their names, but share with them, perhaps for the first time, the meaning of their names.
We wanted to remind them that God knows their names, and has known them personally by name, since before the creation of the world.
We then handed each youth a card with their name, meaning, and personal Scripture verse to read out loud.
Then, so they wouldn't lose track of the card, we showed them how to make journals and affix their cards on the cover or just inside.
Jenna -- we had just the right number of left over journals from this summer for this activity!
Then, once they got started, Nathan pulled out the blender and whipped up some good ol' American milkshakes. Milkshakes are just starting to hit the scene in select places in Tirana, so needless to say, they are a novelty...
...but were a big hit with the kids.
As we were about to leave, one of the students handed us his notebook. He was a bit confused when we told him it was his to keep!
All in all, it was our best beginning-of-the-year visit to the Hope Center yet! But more importantly, we hope that what might just have been a fun activity to some would be a powerful reminder that they are known, loved and treasured by the God who made them.
Many times it doesn't feel 'fair' that we are on the front lines while you, our ministry partners, are so far away.
Sure it's sometimes hard living away from family and friends, missing out on pumpkin spice lattes, and winter snow (just ask Reni on this last point), but it doesn't feel 'fair' that you miss out on some of the blessings we get to experience as your representatives.
I'm talking about having the privilege and joy of giving that bag of food, praying with baby Believers as they practice praying in public for the first time, worshiping in a congregation of first-generation Christians, of having water fights with kids who've never held a water gun before... It's an experience we long to share with others and these blog posts are an attempt to do that.
This past month we once again had the privilege of delivering needed supplies, donated by others who may likely never step foot in this country, much less meet the recipients of their gifts.
This past summer our VIA intern, Hannah S, partnered the children of her home church in Rehobeth, Massachusetts to raise funds to buy school supplies for the children of a neighboring village.
They raised so much that we were able to buy supplies for THREE villages of grade-school-aged kids!
Rather than just give each child a sack of goodies, we decided on a re-usable plastic box which could be purposed for just about anything.
Each box contained everything from pens, pencils, and erasers to rulers, notebooks, colored pencils, scissors, glue sticks, tape, sharpeners and stickers.
Because of the fewer number of kids in the Darshen school, we were able to also purchase them backpacks -- a necessity as many of them need their arms free for balancing up precarious mountain trails to reach their school -- the highest point in the village! And in the winter, they now each bring a bundle of firewood each day to heat their three classrooms...
These are just a portion of the students who received boxes...
With extra funds we were able to help some older students (who don't have a need so much for glue sticks and colored pencils) to purchase school books.
Friends from Community Covenant church -- Faleminderit Shume! (Thank you very much!)
