Gezuar Krishtlindjen!

Merry Christmas! Or should I say Happy New Year?
New Year's is THE holiday here. Because the Communist dictator
Enver Hoxha declared Albania an atheistic state during the time
he ruled here for forty some years, Christmas is only
celebrated by Christians. So, it's just another day around
here pretty much. It's weird because people have Christmas
decorations around everywhere, but it's all for New Year's.
These guys are carrying turkeys. No, we didn't have a turkey for
Christmas because the only turkeys here are like this - alive!
We did have a yummy lasagna and Korean chicken, though.
No complaints here!

Christmas lights decorate the streets for upcoming New Year's.
Sorry about the blurry picture. I was in a car when I took this
and the roads here are not smooth.

Party! On Christmas day, we have an evangelistic service.
It was full which is really good. Then, that night, the church
has a party and the people invite their friends from outside the
church. Each house group from church had something to present,
like a song, a drama, etc. Then, we ate and danced. It was really fun!
Here's some Albanian music and this is traditional Albanian dance.

It's actually harder than it looks.
Not like I (Jamie) know how to dance anyways. : )

We were so blessed by our family and a couple friends with
packages for Christmas! Here's Kya just after opening Pooh
from her grandma and grandpa.

A fun book from her aunt and uncle. Yippee!

It's getting colder inside our flat. Thankfully, we just got a
wood burning stove put in! Can't wait to fire it up!

Drilling a hole to put the pipe through for the smoke. Afterwards,
they filled up the excess area around the pipe with rocks.
Not exactly pretty, but Tim will look for something else
to patch it with.

Open wide! I think Kadence has her mouth open a quarter
of each day as she is an eating machine. She eats often,
and she eats a lot. She equals her Daddy in consumption of food
many times during meals.

These next series of pictures are at the O.M. center where
our team in Lushnje hosted our annual O.M. team
Christmas party. Two other teams came and we enjoyed a great
night of food, fellowship, games, a white elephant gift game,
and singing Christmas carols. Jamie, myself, and Jess
(a single from Australia on our team) where in charge of putting
the whole thing together. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun.

Ok, I (Tim) just put these first two pics of Kadence and Kya because
they are so darn cute! I love them so much and Jamie and I
are so blessed to have happy, content daughters that play well
with each other and are just fun to be around.
(The fun part they got from their Dad! haha..)
Although, part of that fun includes bumps and bonks.
Here Kadence has a busted front lip from playing.

Many times throughout the day and night there will be kids setting
off loud firecrackers all over the city and frequently right outside our flat.
They woke Kya up this night so she came out and fell asleep on the
couch. Kids are so flexible. They can fall asleep almost anywhere
and at anytime....and in any position. So for you thirty-plus people
reading this (like myself), don't try this at home.

What was I saying about kid's falling asleep?
This is what happens when you miss your nap.

Kya is getting into music more and more, which of course
we couldn't be more happy as parents about that. Her latest
OBSESSION is with a band called Fireflight. They are a harder
rock band with a female vocalist. (If you haven't heard them
before, then get into them if you enjoy that style of music.
They are about equivalent to what Skillet sounds like only
with a girl singing) Anyways, Kya really likes this song.
The chorus says "You gave me your promise" and you can
hear her singing it with the music. She asks for it morning,
noon, and night. So what Kya wants, Kya gets....just kidding.
But we do play it quite often, sometimes even at 7:30 in the
morning we'll blast it and dance rock out together!

Being thankful

How was your Thanksgiving? Probably spent with family,
food, friends, football... This was our first one away from family.
We spent it in a village just outside of Lushnje. This was also
our first official ministry. We've posted pictures of the church
there just so we can all as Americans be thankful for the
luxuries and blessings we have. This is their church.
Their building is a house. This picture above is of the bathroom,
but it doesn't work, so they have no bathroom.

This is the first room you walk into.

Back wall of the sanctuary. The whole room fits maybe 20
people or so. We really made the rows tight and praise God,
it was a full house! There were even people standing outside
in the hallway, so there wasn't enough room for us (our team).

kitchen

Tim played worship with our leader for the service and
Jamie led worship for the girl's meeting in Albanian
for the first time! Before and after, we just try to converse
with the people - some believers, some nonbelievers, some who've
been away from the church. Since this outreach, the church has
been doing very well. We have prayed for the fruit
of this to continue on.

Sickness just will not leave our family alone! Our whole family
got a really bad bug, but we're better now. Although, now Kadence
has a bad ear infection and popped ear drum. We
discovered it yesterday. We called the doctor right away
and he came over (that's what we do here, it's different than calling
and going in an office like in the States). Then, he said she needed
to see a specialist, so we went there with him. It was at a
clinic right here in Lushnje... interesting. It's just different.
Smoking is allowed everywhere, so even in a clinic of sick people
you smell smoke. Then right in front of the room where Kadence was
seen was a circle about 6 feet around where the wall and ceiling
was just coming apart and you could see mold. After she was
seen there, the specialist said we had to go to the hospital.
So, we went there. Before this I had decided I wouldn't get sick
enough for the hospital after going to a lab to get a test for
an infection. When I (Jamie) went there, I walked upstairs to a desk.
Normally, in America, there's a receptionist and she takes your
name and you wait for a while and go in the back and so on.
Well, the doctor was behind the desk and he was drawing blood
from a woman. The room was small, maybe 20x20ft and the
"waiting area" was 5 feet in front of the entertaining blood drawing
episode. Then as my doctor walked in, the doctor who was already
there finished drawing the blood and stood up to shake my doctor's
hand with the syringe full of blood in the other hand.
Then, he waved it around while he talked and put it down on the
desk. This bit is for anyone with any medical training.
A little something called "universal precautions" is unknown here.
So, I had my concerns about going to the hospital, but didn't worry
about it. It turned out fine and Kadence is on medicine now.

Christmas time! Tim had bought a tree at a missionary's garage sale. Yay!

We had given away and sold all of our holiday decorations,
in America, so we made some paper snowflakes.
Way cheaper than any decorations we've seen here yet!

Brrrrrrr!

Is it cold inside or are we shivering?!
We've had our first taste of winter here. This is the temperature
INSIDE of our flat! We wear scarves, gloves, jackets, whatever
we can around the house and to sleep at night. When waking up
this morning and even still now at 10:45 a.m., we can see our breath in here.
Hey, at least it's warmed up to 52 degrees!

This is the view from our window. If you can, look to see
a set of mountains that are dark in the front, then behind it is another
bigger set covered with snow! We see these mountains on clear days,
but not with snow until now.

The reason it is so cold inside is because there is no central A/C
or heating. Tim just bought this space heater. It can produce heat from gas
or electric - it's our make believe fireplace.

Well, now Kadence is sick. Kya at least understood when we
could only give her a spoonful of water at a time (because she
would throw it right up), but she would ask for it constantly.
Kadence constantly is fussing now for more water all of the time,
but she also throws it up a lot. Poor baby can't understand.

Yesterday our windows were all fogging up.
They did because it was still kinda warm inside. They don't anymore!

Tim's parents sent us a goody package. Woohoo!!! Like Christmas
before Christmas. A couple things we got were some
graham crackers and marshmallows (we don't have them here in
Albania) to make s'mores. We just melt the marshmallows
over our gas stove. Mmmmm.

Faithful blog checkers, sorry it has been a while since our last update.
We've had a really slow connection when we've had internet
and then Kya's been very sick. This is her getting checked
by a doctor on our team at our house. She has been
throwing up everything - even a spoonful of water
- for the past almost 48 hours. : (

To make it up to you, we've put a few videos on.
This is before she got sick. She likes to jump around the house
counting in Albanian "Nje, dy, tre, kater, pese, gjashte, shtate,
tete, nente, dhjete". Kadence is starting to try to count now,
but it actually sounds more like Albanian!
We think it's because Kya is always doing this.

Here's a team picnic. So so nice to get out of the city
and sit in grass under trees. This is maybe a 5 minute
drive from our place.

Some livestock came to join us. Too bad you can't hear
the donkey hee-hawing across the lake.

The sun is rising over the mountain just east of our flat.

This is a verb chart. This is how many ways we have to learn one single
verb! And guess what... we just found out today that we have to add
another column we haven't learned yet. Please, pray for us!
Sometimes it is difficult and tiring trying to study and fit so much
in our heads when our study times are very limited with the girls.

I miss green grass and playgrounds.

We thought this was interesting. It's a real, dead wolf hanging on a
building! We asked someone why it was there and they said probably
to show off that they killed a wolf. Hmmm....

We had a birthday party for our Australian missionary friend, Jess.
There obviously isn't a Party City here, so we had to get creative
with the decorations.

Uhoh. We ran out of water during the party. We found out
all of Lushnje ran out and didn't receive water that morning.
It sure was fun washing all those dishes without running water. : )
We didn't have water the next night either, then we went a couple
days without water. Man, are we grateful for running water!!
I would definitely say the worst effect from this is
the inability to flush the toilet.

Skype time with Micah and the Tumas fam. It's unbelievable -
this technology these days. We still feel far away
from our family and friends in the States, but it so
amazing to see their faces once in a while.

Kya is carrying water jugs here - we put her to work around here. : )
Every few days, Tim takes these to a truck right down the street
that visits daily dispersing water for us to drink,
wash produce in, cook with, etc.

October 14th, we celebrated our 8 year anniversary!
A couple from the OM team offered to watch the girls
so we could go out for dinner. Thanks, Matias and Sue. : )
Here, you see flowers from Tim, and a chocolate coffee cheesecake
made by Jamie for Tim. When we went out for dinner that night,
we walked to a restaurant about 1 mile away on a hill
overlooking Lushnje. Jamie wore high heels and by the time we
got there she already had blisters on both feet.
It's one thing to wear high heels in the States where you drive
everywhere. It's something else when you walk a mile away
on the broken uneven streets of Albania. The meal was interesting.
The soup we had was super rich and full of oil/butter.
Our next dish was cold veggies with potatoes and they were
literally swimming in oil there was so much in the plate.
Then we had the main course of fried chicken (which
was a little tough) and french fries. The bill was way
more than we had anticipated, but without menus it was
hard to know. On the way home, Jamie walked barefoot while I
held her shoes. We got a whole lot of stares on the way home
and we just had to laugh about the whole evening.
Maybe it wasn't the anniversary night out we had hoped for,
but it most certainly created a lasting memory for years to come.

Bugs get in the house regularly. Especially flies, bees, moths, and these - stink bugs.

Here's a little worship sample from our church. You can see
Kadence right in the first row from where Tim is filming.
Erna, an missionary here from Paraguay is holding her. There is no
childcare during services. We are so grateful for people like her
and others who have helped watch them and distract them so we
can enjoy the worship and hear the teaching sometimes.

A night out.
Our landlords took out the whole OM team for a nice dinner (pizza).
This restaurant is considered expensive by Albanians.
It's about $4-6 a pizza which feeds 1-2 people.

Yes, that's a worm in between two walnuts.
While preparing a salad, I (Jamie) was sifting through
the nuts to separate pieces of shell and little twiggy
things from the nuts we would eat. Unfortunately,
I was doing this in my hand when I saw our little friend
here writhing around. The nuts went flying and I had
the willies for about 10 minutes. I am really glad I
caught that before we put any in our salad!
While I'm on the subject of food, I thought it would be
interesting to note some foods that are not here.
They just aren't anywhere. There a couple things
we can only get in the capital like taco dinner
packages and broccoli and canned beans. Here's some
specific things we miss that's not available concerning food:
Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch,
DiGiorno pizza, corn on the cob, berries of any kind,
pancake syrup, half and half or any kind of cream
that's refrigerated, chili powder, cheddar and
colby jack cheese, grainy bread, brownie mixes,
chocolate chips, raisins in a box that aren't hard
little rocks, sour cream, ricotta cheese, canned pumpkin,
cupcake liners, cooking spray, pecans, sliced turkey,
prerefrigerated milk (not in a box on the shelf),
iced coffee from Starbucks, Quiznos, Chilis, Subway,
IHOP, and Super Target. BUT, on the other hand,
we are VERY grateful because while talking to an
Albanian friend a couple days ago, she told us what it
was like during the Communism and how it was when
it fell and so many new things started coming in.
She remembers seeing a banana for the first time,
and they didn't know what it was or even how to eat it!!
Things have improved much since then!
They actually have more than I assumed
they would in coming here.

Here's Jamie with another woman on our team who is from Australia.
Then on the right is our language teacher.
She's also a good friend and great ping pong player.
Not one guy has beat her yet - including Tim. : )

These women are making a traditional Albanian drink called Raki
(with the ki stressed when you say it) That first container on the far
left is holding grapes that have been fermented for like 10 days or so.
The big container is holding water with a pipe running through it.
The liquid from the grapes drips into the pipe and you see it
come out the other side and drip into that plastic jug on the ground.
I (Tim) tried some and man was it strong! It left a weird sensation
in my throat for a while and they said not to drink too much
or I'd get drunk. I think I'll pass next time.

Kya is improving her drawing skills right now.
We have been working with her to draw faces.
This wonderful masterpiece is of Mommy and Kadence.
She was pretty proud of it. Mommy has grown
a little more facial hair since we moved here. :)

This couple is our landlords. There are three flats here,
we live on the third floor and they live on the second.
Their names are Ladi and Nico. One day I was walking up
the stairs and Ladi told me to come with him to the bottom.
He went around the corner and pulled a live chicken out
and butchered him right there. Lots of blood, which
I don't do so well with. Anyways, after the head stopped
flopping around and the blood stopped, they plucked him
and cooked him up. They brought some up the next afternoon
for us so we had a free lunch that day.

This ride is at a park about a four minute walk from our flat.
Kya loves this ride and this was Kadence's first time on it.
They also have a train ride, trampolines, and a gated play
area with swings, cars and toys. The rides cost about 65
cents apiece. It's a nice treat once in a while for the girls,
but if was up to Kya, she would go on it everyday. At the
end of the video, Kya is a concerned older sister saying,
"Daddy, she's not holding on." : )