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!