paqe ne botes

This week has been full. Time feels like it is going fast, but sometimes the work feels like it is going slow. We began our 2 week break from language study, to celebrate three holidays: the muslim holiday of bajram, which began last thursday, christmas,and the new year. We spent time visiting some families that we have gotten to know over the past month, and we got the chance to make some new aquaintances. Probably one of the relationships i am most excited about is one with our language teacher.She is a young beautiful mother. She comes to our home five days a week to tutor us. This week during language study we began to talk a little bit about the war that took place here nine years ago. I asked her a personal question about what her family did during the war. For the next half an hour I sat there listening. With tears in her eyes and a shakey voice she told her story. It was one full of bombs, hiding, crowded ships, and terror. Finally she put her head in her hands crying, when she looked up again she simply said, you cannot imagine. I sat there speechless with so many things swirling around in my mind, all i could say was no i cannot. Her story was so incredible. I felt horrible, I wanted to pray for her, or give her some comforting word, but all I felt was how much I could not possibly pretend to understand that kind of pain. Her story is just one. The market, the stores, the coffee shops, they are all packed full of stories that I cannot relate to. Hatred, unforgiveness, revenge, these are very real spiritual strongholds here. As much as I have not experienced these things to the extent that the people I meet have, I carry around with me the answer. This week while the muslim call to prayer rings out over this city, I am celebrating the birth of the one who can bring real freedom to the people of k-land. I am praying that the Lord leads our team to the people who are ready to meet Jesus, those who are ready to see that there is a differant way to live, a way of peace, love, forgivenss, and joy. I pray we as a team will be faithful with the gift we have been given, and we would realize the power we carry with us to change lives. There is a sign that was just recently put up across the street from our apartment it has the words "peace on earth" written in four differant languages including shqip. We claim "Paqe ne botes" over this region, please join with us.
Sara

the weather outside is frightful, but our woodstove is delightful

When I went to Korea this summer, I never knew I would use what I'd learned there while here in K-land. On Sunday we went to church in Peja and met some people from Korea. I thought it was great to say "anyo-ha-sayoo" instead of the usual, "mire dite" (good day).
At the beginning of the service, a few people shared about the Christmas shoeboxes. Earlier this week, truckloads of the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes arrived. Groups from the States, England, and Germany send these boxes to children around the world, and we got to help hand them out. On Tuesday we woke up hours earlier than usual to get to the first school on time. The kids remembered the boxes from last year and ran around giggling and squirming with excitement. At the other schools for 7th-9th grades, the bigger guys came out and helped carry the big boxes that took two of us girls to carry. The schools were all cold inside, but once inside a classroom, the woodstove had the rooms warm and cosy.
The other missionaries here each took one of us into a classroom to help deliver the shoeboxes. They told the kids that the boxes were from people around the world who love Jesus and wanted to share Jesus' love with a gift.
On Wednesday we went to some village schools. We had to wait for the teachers to arrive before giving out the boxes, and as we waited, the kids came in and got ready for the day. They just stared at us curiously as they ran in and out of the building getting wood for the stove and rinsing out sponges to clean blackboards. But some of the braver ones murmered a "Mire dite!" before running inside.
After we finished at the village schools, we went to a preschool. The teachers had all the kids sitting on the floor for us. They stared with their big dark eyes and only wriggled around a little. Each child took his or her box shyly, but as soon as we left the room, I could hear the giggles and the sound of wrapping paper being shredded.
In the baby room, Lakyn and I were amused to see that fashion isn't just for the grown-ups. One four-year-old had a diamond in one ear, a gold bracelet, and blonde highlights throughout his hair.
We really enjoyed helping with the Christmas shoeboxes, and not just because we were able to miss Tuesday's language lesson.
Marita, our Albanian teacher, comes each afternoon for two hours. We are studying out of two books of Albanian phrases that may be useful, although I'm not sure how useful it is to know how to say "I do not know that man" in Albanian. We go over the homework from the day before and then get a new list of things to memorize. The lessons leave our brains drained for the evening, so our mornings before language is for cramming and forcing the Albanian words through our skulls.
This week went fairly well except for the time the electricity was out for twenty-one hours. However, on Friday night into Saturday, we got several inches of snow.
For the most part, we are doing well. I personally enjoy the strong Turkish coffee, the wonderful mountain teas, and the milky sweet hot chocolates from the local coffee shops. Drip coffee and yes, even Starbucks, is nothing compared to a cup of cappucino overflowing with whipped topping from Trofta for a mere euro. Yum-o.

Prayer Requests:
Health: a few of us have colds and there might be a stomach bug
Language: that we will learn it and be able to take it all in
-and please pray for a couple from one of the churches. Their baby girl died this week from complications of a premature birth.

There’s no place like home, unless you’re in Europe

My computer screen jumped to life and the familiar hum of the fan kicked in. I checked the small toolbar with anticipation hoping against hope that maybe I was connected. No. The two small computer icons showed no life and I was mocked by the small red “x” that covered them. Our internet connection has not been the greatest but as least we had some connection. But not now, in fact we hadn’t had any connection all day. Oh well. How could I be upset about a stupid internet connection when right now, right outside our kitchen window was an amazing view of snow-capped mountains. We’ve been nestled away at the foot of these beautiful mountains in an amazing yet very cold European apartment for a week now. Today was great; we explored an amazingly beautiful fresh water mountain spring that supplies our town with water. We even got a little brave and drank some water straight from the spring. It was incredible. It was fresh, crisp, and ice cold. I knew right then and there that I would diffidently be coming back to this spot. I had my moment of feeling like a tourist while I and Vanessa took lots of pictures of us at the spring. There was nobody around to gawk and so we had our fun. With an amazing view of the town, it was almost breath-taking. It was overwhelmingly gorgeous but we tried our best to just soak it in. As we walked down the mountain we came across a group of Spanish military peace-keeping troops, after getting our picture with them we laughed our way down the mountain only to be met again by our Spanish friends, they politely waved and we eagerly waved back as they drove away in their tank. A few minutes later we saw or friends again, this time they honked the tank’s horn at us. We laughed with delight at our new-found friends and waved back again. Later, after our walk back to town, we enjoyed some great food in a local café while sipping a coke and laughing about the day. Luckily we had constant power while sitting in the café, around here; one can never know when one will have electricity. With constant black-outs it’s hard to tell when one might hit as they are almost never at the same time every day. Tuesday night, only our second night here, we lost all electricity at approximately twelve o’clock midnight and did not regain our electric until 4:30 the next evening. Fourteen and a half hours of no electric. Our only source of heat came from our small woodstove in the corner of our kitchen. After a restless night of adjusting to the time change and slightly strained nerves, we awoke for our first meeting with Matt Krebs, one of our outreach coordinators. We were given a run-down of things that we will be doing here over the next five months most of which is community development and building relationships. Over the course of the next few days, we managed to settle into our homestead and make it feel like our own. With the anticipation of Christmas a small plastic Christmas tree with some very odd ornaments made its way into our dining room. With its red glowing lights, no matter how strange they were, it manages to remind us of home and the Christmas season. Being in a Muslim country, where they don’t celebrate Christmas, is slightly difficult to comprehend at some times, but it also serves as a reminder to us to slow down and take it easy. It also reminds us to not get so caught up in the hustle and bustle and to just enjoy the crisp days filled with snow and laughter. It’s not going to be easy to be away from our families on Christmas day but we have to make the best of it, no matter how hard it may be. We are anxious for the next five months and eager to learn all that we can. As we help develop this small community we hope to also develop ourselves into better, more efficient people and to come home, a brand new person. As for now, we face a bright new future.
lakyn

One lovely day at the park

leaving on a jet plane

Welcome to our blog.
Two and a half months in Harrisburg have come and gone. It has gone from really hot, to less hot, to cool, to cold, and just like the weather, the seasons are a changing for our team.

Training has been good, for lack of a better word. We have sat under alot of teaching, ventured out into the surrounding community, spent time in prayer, and worshiped together. Each of us have found our niche here in Harrisburg. In differant ways we all have been stretched and required to go beyond what we thought we could. There have been some great stories,and lots of good memories. Had we started our blog a little earlier we would have shared them with you all. However,we are now about to start the next season of our YES experience, it's all been building up to this. After a week of turkey and relaxation, We are finally headed of to the balkans.

I just recently recieved an email from our outreach coordinators, that was packed with the little details about the town we will live in, what ministries we will be invlolved in and, a description of the apartment we will rent. It really made it seem so real and so close. We are going to be assisting with english classes in the local highschool, which is one block away from our apartment. This is probably going to be the foundation of our ministry. The rest of our ministry description is to make friends with the youth, especially the girls, and share the hope that we have in Jesus. It sounds so simple dosn't it? The reality is it will probably take alot of praying, and alot of stepping out and getting over our fears, which i am both scared of and excited about.
So off we go. Probably the next time you will hear from us we will be across the ocean, speaking sqhip (albanian).
sara