Bouquets, Boots, Bubbles, Battles, Basketball, Birthdays, and (not) Beets | March 2023

 What a diverse collection of activities we took part in this month!  Let's jump right in!

When we returned from the USA, our church had a special time of honoring Nathan's mother.

They gifted us with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Below, on the topic of perspective, Nathan had some fun with this science lesson at VT.  You can see a neat collection of poses (and give VT Albania a follow) on their instagram account. ;-)

March 8 is International Women's Day and a big occasion for celebration locally.

We hosted a special evening including games, dessert, a devotional message, and a craft.

Reni has took over this nook as his new 'hang-out zone' in our home this year, thanks to a shift to more online education.

At a recent education conference he made friends with other missionary kids living around the Balkans and other parts of Europe and spends lots of time each day in group chats with them. It's a different kind of socializing, than I experienced at his age for sure! 

We brought these "Bubble Balls" back from the USA and had fun inaugurating them with the kids from the Hope Center.

In addition to being a special activity for our local kids, we hope they might serve as a draw for potential party rentals of the soccer field.

Above, our neighbor laughs at Nathan's suggestion that they battle it out together with the balls.

We had promised the Alpha youth a raincheck when our funeral travels caused us to cancel the end-of-course party.  We ordered pizza, had a great last discussion (for now) and enjoyed probably the best nerf war I've had the pleasure of enjoying. :-)

March 21 is International Down Syndrome Day and in honor the Special Olympics hosted their first ever basketball scrimmage.

Nathan and Ellie attended to support our colleague, Luis, who was coaching the fledgling new team. It was held in a newly constructed sports arena.

A highlight of the month was Mom and Hannah's visit! 

Within hours of landing, they were attending a birthday party for our dear friend, Demir, who was turning 60. We celebrated with a barbecue no the rooftop of Jeta.

Mom's visit was a full one! Below, she greets the church.

Nathan performed good son-in-law duties which included taking down drapes for cleaning and rehanging them at the Planters guest apartment where she likes to stay :-)

Gigi performed her grandmotherly duty of taking Ellie out for waffles and bananas at a favorite sweet shop reserved for special occasions (like birthdays and international visitors).

Hannah enjoyed drinking Nathan's coffees which he usually makes twice per day... iced or hot!

On their layover to come to Albania, Mom and Hannah ran into longtime farmer friend, Gary Dumm (of Missouri) who was bringing a team from his church to serve in a mountain village.  The night before they were to leave, they stopped by Vlashaj for a visit.

The day before they left, we made chocolate cupcakes for church...

We iced them in Argentine blue icing to celebrate one year of the Artoni family serving with us!

We are so grateful for the gift of their presence with us and they love they show this community!

A big project this month was building the new website for KF Jeta (the name of the futbol club we are launching at Jeta). I took photos of Luli and Luis for the website.  Check it out here!

Finally, I had to close with the peculiar potato (above)... we had baked potatoes one evening for supper.  Mom had been tasked with sourcing them during the previous grocery shopping trip and chose red-skin potatoes as she said that's all the store had in stock.  Imagine our surprise when we cut into it discover it was purple!! Have you ever seen such a thing?

If so, don't hit reply to this e-mail -- we won't get the reply :-). But you can reach us by e-mail via the address listed in the margin of this blog. 

What a full month! And that only scratched the surface!
Happy Holy Week everyone!

Dancing and Mourning | February Highlights

The photo above was actually taken near the END of February, but I'm following the adage to "put my best foot forward." Why not lead with a nice family photo on a day where we accidentally coordinated? :-)  Photo credit to Bobby Bennett, who was visiting Albania.

Fun memory of a movie night with Luli and Hannah.  Going to the cinema is a guilty pleasure of mine.  Unfortunately, the selection of English films that come to our cinema can be "hit or miss," so we only go once or twice a year -- which makes it worth documenting. :-)

I love a good ol' object lesson. If done well, they drive home the point of Pastor Genti's message in a memorable way.

This one (above) sure was a doozy to get it to work, ha ha. The point was to show how the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives empowers us to overcome our natural desires for selfishness and make good decisions.  The light refracting through the water is supposed to make the arrows on the paper (in Nathan's hands) reverse direction.  So in the lesson, the glass jar in our life, water (which Nathan poured into the empty jar in the midst of the lesson) represents the Holy Spirit, and the signs read good choices (left) and bad choices (right).  If you look through the glass of water, the arrows will point in the opposite direction than how they appear  otherwise. After many attempts at home, we finally found the right thickness and length of arrows to make it work. 

I give YouTube videos a B- for not informing us of this, ha ha.

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The photo below is just for your amusement.  This was spotted at a specialty import store.  Yum!  Hot dog gummies! (ick!)

Night To Shine 2023

Night to Shine is probably one of the most joyous events on our annual calendar. 
 

I recently listened to a podcast about how to plan our lives to intersect more often with the path of fun.  According to the researcher, fun occurs at the intersection of play (an activity or event done for the process, not an outcome), connection (being connected to a person, community, animal, or place), and flow (when we are so "present" in a moment, we don't notice the passage of time). 

When I think of NTS, I see individuals who are enjoying themselves without self-consciousness, who are interacting with peers in meaningful connection, and living in a moment without the distraction of cell phones or other interruptions.

This is may be our 5th year of volunteering at NTS and I always tear up seeing the honored guests enjoying themselves so thoroughly.

Saying Goodbye to Mom Waggoner

About 48 hours after wrapping up Night to Shine we were awoken by a phone call from Nathan's father with the news that Nathan's mother, Lois, unexpectedly passed away. Initially, it was suspected that she aspirated/choked, but we think she most likely had another stroke. It was just 9 days before her 75th birthday. Thanks to the generosity of some special friends (they know who they are -- some we know well, others are much newer friends!), we were able to book tickets to fly back to Illinois the next day.

It was more than a bit crazy to plan an international trip with less than 24 hours' notice, especially as responsibilities in Tirana meant that we only had an evening at home to pack before leaving for the airport at 3AM. 

The woman above was sitting across from us at our gate for Frankfurt and struck up a conversation. It's amazing the connections one makes when you meet a fellow sister in Christ.  Before coming to Albania for some months, she had served in Romania.  To make a long story short, we discovered that she knew many of my friends on the Romanian translation team for The Chosen (which I was working on at that very moment)!

In full disclosure, I should report that Reni was not too excited about embarking on international travel for "such a short trip." I think some of it really may have been the unexpected change in our plans and a struggle to shift how he envisioned the next ten days ... but seriously, 24-25 hours of travel is not peaches and cream -- and to do it twice in ten days...  The Lord was kind though and we actually had a very lightly populated "big flight" over the Atlantic, so we were able to spread out and rest more than normal.

We arrived on Valentines' Day evening and enjoyed these donuts from Hannah the next morning.

Below, a blue-raspberry slushie from Sonic perked Reni up pretty quick -- even at 9:30 in the morning!

We enjoyed many days at Steve and Rachel's home and the kids willingly soaked up all the cousin time they could enjoy.

My grandfather generously lent us the use of his car for the days we were in Illinois. We went to lunch with him and visited some of his friends at "The Lodge."  Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of us with him!  I have just the one photo below where, Ellie performs some pieces in the lobby of the assisted living facility.  Before the end of our trip, my grandfather would end up contracting Covid, so we didn't get to see him again before leaving.

We shared lots of memories while we planned Mom's service and curated her slide show. 

A treasure was reading her Bible and finding notes like the one below where she listed the name of the head of the Albanian Adoption Committee.  This woman held our dossier and was part of the group that matched Ellie's file to ours. Lois had prayed for her by name in the months leading up to Ellie's referral.

Another sweet surprise was seeing our friends, the Bensons, who were traveling through Illinois from Nebraska to Vermont.  We hadn't seen them in years, so this was a big surprise and blessing!  They have traveled to Albania many, many times and are generous supporters of the work in Vlashaj.

Ellie and Gigi (my mom) share a love of music.  Here, Gigi demonstrated the sound of a particular arrangement for Ellie before she tried it.

Lois' service was held on Saturday, February 19. 

Dad (Carl), Nathan, Rebecca, and Stephen all shared at her service.

She was laid to rest at Prairie Rest Cemetery.

One of the reasons I was so grateful we could travel back was I remembered how healing it was to be surrounded by friends and family when Dad passed in 2018 -- and I wanted the same for Nathan. 

We were touched by friends who drove from Indiana (above) and Kentucky (below).

With the McMillans who came from Ohio

And other friends from Central Illinois who didn't know Mom as much, but came to support us.

Nathan with his uncle Paul from New Jersey (Aunt Melanie was also present, but not pictured)

In the Lord's kindness, my sister and her two daughters had already planned a visit from Vermont over the niece's winter break. We hadn't seen them since 2019!

We enjoyed three nights with them and catching up.

Before we knew it, it was Thursday and we were back at the airport and on our way back to Albania. We landed on a Friday afternoon and were in church Friday night!

What a bittersweet month! Grateful for the coming promise of new life, resurrection and spring!