A hot summer day in the life of Kim & Ieva

For most of the month of July this year, it's been HOT outside!! And I'm committed not to complain after living through the tremendously COLD winter we had this past year. This afternoon as I lugged myself & my sweaty baby through our front door, I chuckled to myself about the theatrics we sometimes have to put ourselves through just to get from point A to point B around here.

So, here it is: A Day in the Life...

Tuesday:
Andrew's at LCC managing a youth basketball camp in our gym, and Ieva & I also need to go there so I can attend a couple meetings. I make sure the diaper bag is loaded. Hat on Ieva's sweaty head? Check. Shoes on her sweaty toes? Check. (All babies in this part of the world MUST have their heads & feet covered while outdoors or they might contract some sort of bacterial disease floating around in the air...) With Ieva in one arm & the diaper bag on the other, I walk down our 3 flights to the basement door, and as I grab my keys to open the door, realize that our spare set of keys (I misplaced my set the day before) doesn't have a key to the basement on it. Shoot. Time for Plan B: trek back upstairs & load Ieva into the baby backpack & head back down.
With Ieva on my back, I can walk the usual route going up over the railroad bridge and get to the school within 20 minutes. It's a nice walk, despite the heat. I cut across the non-seeded field in front of the gym & head straight to Andrews office. I walk in, take Ieva off my soaking wet back & run to the meeting I'm 5 minutes late to. Thankfully, managing a basketball camp doesn't involve being in the gym the whole time & Andrew has time to hang out with Ieva in his office while I'm in my meetings today.

Wednesday:
Andrew's at the school again & again, I, too must go there to get some work done. I've found my keys, so Plan A should work this time. I load up the kid & the diaper bag, grab each & head downstairs. I unlock the basement door & set the diaper bag in front to prop it open. I take Ieva down the 5 steps & set her on the floor, keeping one eye on her as I put the long, cylindrical key in the hole in our storage room door & start turning it, hoping it will catch. It's the strangest (and most difficult) key & lock I've ever seen. Ieva's grabbed a piece of plaster laying nearby her from our neighbor's basement renovation. I stop the key turning, grab the plaster & toss it across the small basement space hoping that she won't go after it again. I go back to the key & 2 full minutes later have the door open. I pull out our stroller (otherwise known as Ieva's armored personnel carrier) and fight to get the big wheels up over the door jam while sharply turning it toward the steps. Ieva's found another piece of plaster & is spitting her pacifier out...which means plaster will be going toward her mouth in about .3 seconds. I bark a loud "no!" at which she gives a startled jump & looks at me with her huge, gorgeous innocent eyes and gives me enough time to push past the stroller, grab the plaster out of her hand, pick her up & return her pacifier to it's rightful place. With her on my hip, I wiggle the key while closing the door & sigh with relief as it latches. Then I grab the handlebar of the stroller & step by step, pull it up the 5 steps to our entryway. Since the stroller is now blocking the front door of our building, I quickly pull the diaper bag away from the basement door, swing it shut & push the stroller in front of it & out of the front door traffic. Basement door locked? Check. Ieva strapped securely in the stroller? Check? Time to walk the 30 minute stroller route? Nope. I head toward the bus stop & pray that one of the 3 that go to the school will be coming within 5 minutes. As I walk there, I also pray that people will help me get the stroller on & off the bus - that's always a bit tricky (to read more about public transport in Klaipeda, click here).
I get to the bus stop & check the schedule. Perfect. A #3 bus should be there within 5 minutes. I hope it's the stroller-friendly kind without steps. Or if it has steps, at least the kind that doesn't have a center hand rail. The bus pulls up & the door opens. Steps & a center rail. Shoot. I spin the stroller around & start backing onto the steps, only to have a friendly guy ask (in Lithuanian) if I need help. "Taip! Prasom." I tell him (Yes! Please) and he grabs the other end of the stroller & helps me navigate my way on. Once I'm on, I loop one arm around a pole & dig through my wallet for a ticket while using my other hand to hold the stroller. I punch the ticket in the small red punch box on the pole next to me. The bus is hot & smells like body odor (typical). Thankfully, it's not packed full. At the next stop a young guy from the back rushes up & quickly punches his ticket next to me...hmmm...the bus police must be coming on. Sure enough, as soon as the doors open, the bus police ladies are there, blocking the people getting off until they see their ticket. One comes to me & I hand her my punched ticket. She looks at it to make sure the punch code is the right one for this bus, tears it, and moves on to the next person. No one gets busted this time, although I've seen it happen before.
5 minutes later, the bus pulls up to the stop across the street from LCC. 3 of the people getting off in front of me all turn around to help me get the stroller off. What a relief. I thank them, cross the street, cross the field & leave Ieva with Andrew again and head to my office.

And now the real work begins.

Since Andrew & I will walk home together, we'll go the shorter 20-minute route & carry the stroller up over the railroad bridge. Then when we get home, I'll take Ieva & the diaper bag upstairs & he'll put the stroller away in the basement. I much prefer that system to doing it solo, but...it's all in a day's work in sweaty Lithuania!

Summer Language Institute 2006

This July, we participated in our 4th Summer Language Institute (SLI) at Lithuania Christian College. SLI is a 3-week intensive English program that draws primarily high-school aged kids from all over Eastern Europe. It is staffed completely by North American volunteers who come for the month to teach English, build relationships and hopefully share the love of Christ with students. SLI is an incredibly complex program, but under the skillful supervision of LCC's English Language Institute's director, Robin, it runs like a well-oiled machine. Andrew & I work with Robin each summer to coordinate activities for the students and teachers outside of the classroom.

There are a good number of teachers who come back to LCC for SLI year after year, and we have been blessed to build relationships with many of them each July. Many of them were eager to meet Ieva, since I was hugely pregnant with her when they were here last summer! One particularly close friendship that has been cultivated over the past 4 summers has been with Tim & Heather St. Peters and their 6-year old daughter, Emma from Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Each summer we spend more time with the St. Peters and each year our friendship has deepened. We are extraordinarily thankful for this family & the support and love they continue to bless us with...we just wish we could live in the same place for longer than 1 month out of the year!

This summer was special for all of us as Emma became Ieva's new best friend, and after they got here, discovered they were pregnant...and when I took Heather to my gynecologist for an ultrasound, learned they'll be having twins next spring! We were thrilled to share in this joy with them!

Another fun addition to SLI this summer was a new friendship with Tim & Jean Thompson from Wilmore, Kentucky. Tim is currently an RD at Asbury College and came to LCC to be an RD in our Karklu dormitory. Jean has been a teacher in Wilmore and taught English during SLI. We spent most evenings in July with Tim & Jean and Tim, Heather & Emma and had a great time together. We're already working on plans to try to connect in Indiana over Christmas break!

Over 300 students came to LCC this July and spent 6 hours a day learning English from North American volunteer teachers. At the end of the month, there were many tearful goodbyes as students not only improved their language skills, but experienced something far beyond what they could learn in the classrooms: that people care enough about them to give up a month of their summer vacation and pay to come to the other side of the world to love them through teaching them English. The long & loud standing ovation the students gave the teachers in the closing assembly said it all.

If you have interest in learning more about how you could be involved in LCC's Summer Language Institute, you can read more about it on LCC's website here.

Jen came to visit!!

Three days after we returned from the States, my dear friend Jennifer Swanborough came to visit and we had a FABULOUS time!! Jen is our first friend who came to Lithuania for the sole purpose of visiting us here, and I'm sure she would recommend it to any of the rest of you! (hint, hint!)

We packed a lot into the 10 days she was here. Since Andrew was managing a basketball camp at LCC for the bulk of the time she was here, Jen, Ieva & I got a lot of fun girl time together! Since the weather was so nice, we took Jen to two of our different beaches on the Baltic Sea. Those were Ieva's first Baltic beach trips & she loved it!

We also rented a car & drove to Vilnius for two days. After Andrew & I spent over two weeks there waiting for Ieva, I got to know the city pretty well and enjoyed giving Jen a walking tour of much of it. We went in an Amber museum, looked in linen shops, and did lots of perusing at the outdoor market vendors that are always set up on Pilies street. It was especially fun for me to walk past the apartment we lived in during our pre-Ieva Vilnius stay & look down at my beautiful 9 month old baby who I was longing to meet while staying there! We also frequented my favorite restaurant -- Double Coffee -- since Jen & I have similar tastes in cafes. On the way home we stopped at the famous Trakai Castle - a must-see for all tourists!

Jen wanted to experience another country, so we drove north to the border town of Liepaja, Latvia and were hosted by Agata (the LCC student who stayed in our place while we were in the States) and her family! Being in Agata's home & meeting her family was such a fantastic experience, as it helped us understand who she is so much more. She gave us a walking tour of the city, then after a delicious dinner in her home, we all went walking on the beach of the Latvian coast of the Baltic Sea. It was an honor to be hosted by such gracious people, and fun for Jen to leave with another stamp in her passport!

We also spent a full day in Palanga - the coastal resort town just north of us - picking up some new LCC colleagues from the airport and then seeing the local sights. We braved the crowds and walked downtown, popping into a couple shops and checking out street vendors, then out onto the pier that stretches out onto the Baltic Sea.

All in all, it was a tremendous gift to have Jen here! Sharing our lives with our friends & family is so important to us, and there's no better way to understand how we live than to come experience it for yourself.

If you would ever consider coming to Lithuania to visit, let us know! We'd LOVE to have you!