Saying Goodbye

As our last week or so has quickly come to a close, I am at peace with how much I love these people and this country. It has been a blessing beyond any description to be a part of Berat and Valdete's family for so long, and they will hold a huge piece of my heart forever. I've learned a lot from their hearts and the way they live so fiercely for the Kingdom as a lifestyle rather than as a job. I am so thankful for all the opportunities they gave us and all the "tours" around Kosovo they took us on. Berat's history and culture lessons were some of the best stories I will ever hear, and spending time with a godly woman like Valdete will always be some of my fondest memories. They went above and beyond to love on us.
A couple days ago they gave us a "goodbye party" with all our friends here. I was overwhelmed by how loved I felt. It was sort of a shock seeing all out close friends in one room--it made me realize just how many good friends I had made in 4 short months. Each of those kids are wonderful in their own way, and I have appreciated getting to know them. They are all so ambitious and hard working, welcoming and endearing. I can't believe they enjoy spending time with such a weirdo like me!
I am eager to see my family, friends, and church again. However I will miss my family and friends here. I will also simply miss my life here--Suhareke has become my home. Everything here is normal to me now! It will be quite an adjustment living back in the states. There are things about the way Albanians live that I plan on keeping with me forever, so I hope everyone at home stays patient me as I refuse to let go of them!
Please pray for me, Sam, and Emily to travel home safely. Also that the students who are coming to live in Snellville will arrive safely soon after we return. Blessings from Suhareke, one last time!

Timing

When we originally made the plans to stay in Kosova until November, it was just that: our plans. We had no reasoning or insight to the time period of our stay. So when the opportunity came to send some of our close friends and students to Snellville for three weeks we were honestly disappointed. It seemed weird that our closest relationships were going back to our home for the last month of our time here. And we began to question not the place God sent us to, because that has never been a doubt in my mind, but for how long He has sent us here for. My roommates and I each really desire to be doing our Lord's will, and I think He has been able to teach us what that looks like--to be living fully in His will. After a lot of prayer and advice from many people who are much more wise and experienced than I, we have reached what I truly believe to be God's will. We will be coming home a month early in order to be in Snellville when our Kosovar friends come.

The Lord has given me and my roommates so much reassurance about this decision, so I don't think it is wrong at all. He is calling us to be a piece of home for the Kosovars as they are experiencing American culture shock for the first time. I think there will be so many open doors to their hearts to show them Who we had to rely on while we were in a different country without our families. We'll be able to point them directly to the source of all comfort because of their own experiences--and learning firsthand is always the best way to learn!

I am so sad to be leaving this country. It has been one of the most difficult and wonderful times of my life. I've learned more than I could imagine about God and my relationship with Him, and I am so thankful for the way He has transformed my spirit while being here. This place will always captivate a piece of my heart, and I certainly don't think this is my last time here, I love these people too much for it to be truly over! However I am eager to bring some of my closest friends home to America with me to show them my home for a little while. And I know all the students from Grace are so excited to see their friends from summer camp! This experience will be for the Glory of God in every way and for both groups of students, American and Albanian!

As our time here comes to a close, continue to pray for our spirits to be open to the Lord. Also pray for all the final details in sending the students to America to fall in place. We are trusting fully in God and His timing and plans because they are always so much better than our own!

I am so excited to be home, and in only a short two and half weeks!

Skopje, Macedonia

Since we don't have "real jobs" here, we can't apply for a Visa, which means we can't be in Kosovo for longer than 3 consecutive months. Easy way to fix that problem is drive two hours to Skopje which is exactly what we did as our 3 month anniversary celebration! We had so much fun seeing a different place. The city center was absolutely beautiful--especially since it rained all day which I haven't seen since I left Atlanta! It was a wonderful day trip, including a stop by the local Zoo.

We are doing well, definitely excited for the way we will be spending the rest of our time here working in the schools and meeting with students! We have several meetings a week with the students who will be going to study in America to help "debrief" them on the cultural differences. (And trust me, there are plenty of those!)

Check out some of these pictures from Skopje!

Transition and Stories

We have officially completed our English classes! Our students started school on September 3rd, and their school is very difficult and time consuming, so we did not want to take the focus away from their "real" studies. Without our teaching job, we have had a lot of downtime, which also meant more time to hang out with the friends we have made. However, the amount of downtime we have had was just too much, so we are working on a couple new ideas to help with our ministry here. So this is definitely a time of transition for us, just in time for our half way mark!

Some families from Grace have volunteered to host two Albanian students for three weeks! It has been so much fun having students apply and interviewing them and picking out the groups who will be going to Snellville. Erin and Jenna, two amazing women from Grace, got here this Wednesday to help Berat work out some of the technicalities of the travelling and school documents. We've been able to visit almost all the families to tell them the news that their students were picked to come study in America. It's incredible how honored and thankful the families are, it is so surreal how proud they are! It has been such a blessing to be a part of bringing such good news to them.

Erin and Jenna are playing a huge role in our transition time. They have been so encouraging and uplifting. Their wisdom and insight from their own experiences has been incredible and reassuring. We so appreciate their husbands letting them come stay with us for a week! It's been so cool showing them around "our city" and teaching them about this culture that we love so much. They've been able to experience so many unique Albanian traditions. 

Tonight, we went to a family who has been extremely close to Berat and Valdete for a long time, the grandfather actually played a huge role in their engagement (which is such a long story, but definitely a part of the culture that I will blog about later). The daughter was one of our friends and is also one of the students who was chosen to go study in America! She lives with her mother and father, his parents, and her older brother and younger sister. Her brother went to a high school where the curriculum is focused on only studying the Qur'an and learning to be an imam. He was top in his class for the written Arabic language and for speaking, we actually got to listen to him pray for our meal and read the Al-Fatihah (Sura One). It was so great getting to honor the family by listening to that, and it was one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard. His sister, our friend, could say the prayer in Albanian, and Berat translated that to English for us. The prayer was thanking God for His mercy and His blessings being poured out on the hands of the people who made it and who were there to share it and thanking God for all His creation and praising God. It was so beautiful! 

After one of the best meals I have ever eaten in my entire life, we sat down with the family for Russian Tea (its delicious, and not actually Russian, I can make it for you when I get home). It was so interesting to talk to the brother more about his studies. He is actually going to begin teaching Berat Arabic which will be an amazing opportunity for Berat to minister to him about Jesus! Definitely be praying for that, because this family is so close to the Kingdom, we can all sense the peace of God illuminating each of them. The mother and grandmother, who are both so beautiful, were wonderful hosts who were so easy to laugh with and be around. The grandfather and father have such captivating personalities. They both shared some very intimate and personal stories about the hardships their family faced during the war. I won't tell all of their stories because I know my explanations of them won't give them justice.... 

The Serbs burnt their entire village, and the families who survived escaped into some nearby mountains where they hid from Serbian soldiers for three months. Eventually they were all found, and the Serbs arrested every young man and took them to a prison simply for being Albanian. The older men fled to Albania as refugees with the women and children. The father was one of the men arrested, and he was held captive in that Serbian prison for 18 months. (His younger brother joined the Kosovo Liberation Army, even though he was technically too young, and was killed in battle by a Serbian sniper. He is recognized as a national hero for his level of extreme service, they have a picture of him in his uniform from just before he died hanging on their wall.) The father said that he was beaten in prison three times everyday, and if we could see his body we would see horrible scars of where the Serbs literally cut chunks of his skin off. When NATO forces attacked the prison, the Serbian soldiers shot every prisoner in order to kill them all. But the father and a handful of other prisoners were able to hide among the dead bodies. He said that he had to stay still for several hours to avoid being shot in the head by a Serbian sniper looking for prisoners moving. He and the other survivors were rescued by NATO troops and immediately taken to hospitals obviously for having severe traumatic injuries. Even after the NATO rescue, the grandfather had to pay 15,000 German marks to get his son back. When I asked him how he survived, his immediate answer was "Zot" (the Albanian word for God) along with a huge smile. The grandfather said that everyday while the rest of the family was living as refugees they would all pray for God to strengthen their hearts against the extreme trials they were facing. 

Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch balling my eyes out attempting to keep some of my composure. Listening to these stories sitting next to my friend who had witness all of this as a 2 year old and watching her mother crying as she had to reminisce on life without her husband for 18 months was the most surreal setting. I was blown away by their willingness to share such personal stories with us. They were so honored that we were interested in their lives, and they have so much respect for us just because we are Americans and American troops played  huge role in rescuing the Albanians here. Their faith was astounding too. I am still in a state of shock honestly. 

I am so thankful that the Lord gave us the opportunity to be around this family and get to know them so intimately. I feel so blessed.

Thank you for all your prayers and support, and continue praying for our time of transition! Blessings from Suhareke (:

Culture 101: Weddings

We have been building some really tight relationships with some of our students here, so we are creating a really awesome group of friends. Being able to casually hang out like normal teenagers has made a huge difference in our time being spent here. Our friends our inviting us out places and we even got invited to one of their cousin's wedding!

It was a huge culture shock, we had no idea what to expect and what we witnessed was nothing like any kind of wedding we were used to. So very briefly, the wedding is a two day event: the first night is only the groom and his family celebrating. (Celebrating is eating a huge dinner and then dancing traditional dances along with live traditional music from 8 p.m. to anywhere until 4 a.m.) The next day, the groom and his family will take several decorated cars to the bride's village and bring her back to the groom's home which is her new home. (Here, when you get married you live with the groom's family.) There they have a few ceremonies that no one could really explain what they meant, except one where the bride and her mother in law had to "bless" the front door before she entered her new home. Then the new couple meets both sides of the family at a restaurant/hotel to eat and dance even more. I really appreciated the experience and getting to see a side of the culture I hadn't been able to witness before. But I really loved spending some quality time with some beautiful girls who have been such a blessing to get closer to.

P.S. We have started taking Albanian lessons from some of our students, and it might be the hardest language ever. There are 36 letters, 4 of which are impossible for me to pronounce, and apparently there are 6 million grammatical rules. So wish us luck, we really do want to learn more so that we can adapt further into the lifestyle here!

Pray for us to have joyful and uplifted spirits. The realities of the real "grown up" world are beginning to bog us down considerably.

Here are some pictures from the wedding!

My roommates and I with our precious friends

This is a traditional dance--you also see several people wearing traditional outfits

Here is the bride (they wear soooo much makeup!) and the groom behind her

And these are some men playing traditional instruments as live music to celebrate the bride's entrance

A Sense of Normalcy

I have been here for a month and a half now, and it finally feels normal walking around Suhareke and waking up in my top bunk. Our class schedule (two classes a day, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) has really helped us feel the comfort that a routine provides. It's weird to think about how normal everything feels. It's like all of a sudden I noticed that I don't feel like a visitor anymore. This is my home. There are definitely things and people I miss back in America, but I'm already realizing just how difficult it will be to leave our home and friends here. Some of the cultural oddities have become part of our daily lives and we don't even recognize them as "oddities" anymore!

We have started hanging out with a few of our students on a regular basis. The girl I talked about in my last post has started meeting with us every Wednesday after class...to do a bible study. (Don't worry, you read that right.) She came to us about how to live her life completely devoted to the Lord. We did listening prayer with her and will now be reading a chapter from Proverbs with her every week! We are really excited, especially because she entered the Kingdom purely by the power and timing of the Lord. She has also decided to start bringing her cousin (they will both be going into the 12th grade) to meet with us too! So we are very happy that we will have a small group with some amazing girls here. We hope that it will continue to grow!

Today we got to go into a different village called Bukosh to visit a brother and sister who are both in our class (and their three cousins who are also in our class who live right next door). The father and his four brothers own all the land, it was passed down to them by their father. They each have their own home and garden, and one owns a restaurant at the very edge of the property. The mother woke up at 6 a.m. to prepare a traditional food called flia for us! We had it with a salad made of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions all grown in their garden, honey from their own beehives, and jam made from the plums they grow. Their house was beautiful, they had a huge garden with a gazebo looking at a perfect view of some incredible mountains. I am not exaggerating when I say looking at all the flowers and the mountains in the background took my breath away. They have an orchard with over 300 trees, including plum trees, apple trees, and peach trees! They also have a "small" corn field. We had so much fun visiting this family. The father and mother told us stories (translated by their son and nephew, two of our best students) like how they met, what their wedding was like, and when they lived in Switzerland. It was really fun, they were honestly the most comfortable people to be around. Their relationship is so different from many of the other marriages we have seen here, they were really in love and it was obvious. It was refreshing to witness! Emily taught everyone how to play a card game called "Spoons" and it was seriously entertaining. We felt so welcomed and enjoyed our time with them. We're taking all the kids to ice cream after class tomorrow to say thank you, and the parents are coming into Suhareke on Saturday to go to lunch with us and Berat! It was such a blessing to be with such a sweet family, the culture differences didn't create any awkwardness like it sometimes can, and there was never a quiet moment. The questions they asked us weren't just about us being Americans but about who we really were. Something new that I know I really enjoyed was how much they told us about themselves! That never happens, and I loved hearing all the "embarrassing moment" stories and "worst injury" stories from all the kids. I cannot wait until we can go visit them in Bukosh again.

I am very thankful for the weirdness of how normal my life here is becoming. Even in the struggles I am facing, I feel comfortable, at ease, and peaceful (which I know none of those things would exist in my heart without the Lord).

Emily, Sam, and I have really meshed into an awesome bond. I love them. We are each so different and the Lord teaches us in such different ways. Their wisdom and perspectives are enlightening and I enjoy every moment with them. I couldn't imagine being here with two better people!

Thank you so much for your continued prayers and thoughts. We need them.

Hospitality

Something I learned right away on my first visit to Kosova last summer was the overwhelming level of hospitality the people here offer towards us. This visit hasn't been any different. A couple of our students have already brought us into their homes to meet and spend time with all of their family and to eat traditional meals made by their mothers. Yesterday we got to visit one of our student's home in a village about 15 minutes away. We met her uncles and cousins and sat with her grandmother who couldn't understand any English. Even though we couldn't speak to her, and despite the fact that we had only known her for about 5 seconds, all she wanted to do was make sure we were comfortable. She was so willing to serve us without even knowing us. The food her mom made is called "pita" and its a flaky pie type thing filled with a vegetable and cheese. All the vegetables in the pita and served to us were grown from their garden in their yard--such a cool part of the village lifestyle that I love. Her little sister had practiced how to say "What is your name?" and "How are you?" in English and recited the phrases to all 5 of us English speakers in her home. (It was seriously the most precious thing.) The amount of effort the whole family put in to talking to us and welcoming us was amazing. It's so hard for me to understand because the level of respect and hospitality they offer to us is way beyond anything else I've ever experienced. This particular student is a friend from last year, so meeting her family was very exciting for us! And we really wanted to be as gracious and reflective of Christ as possible. Any difference in our behaviors and actions makes a huge difference here. Most of her family is fasting for Ramadan, so the fact that they wanted us over to eat with them in the middle of the day is a huge deal! Even though I don't think I will ever get used to the incredible amount of hospitality here, I am so grateful for it. I wish everyone back home could experience it. (And trust me, you wish you could eat the pita too, it's delicious.)


We have had a really great week here. Thank you for all your prayers and support!