Sad Goodbyes, but Happy Hellos!

Today was Ieva's last day with her nanny Aurelija, who she's spent every weekday of the past 16 (of her 26 total) months of life with during the days. It truly was a sad goodbye, as Aurelija has become a member of our family. We're happy for her as she pursues this next stage of her life in Vilnius, but she will be missed here.Ieva loves Aurelija!

Thankfully, God has answered our pleas for a new nanny with Rasa - an LCC Lithuanian alumna who is not only good friends with Aurelija, but who is also very involved in the local Free Christian Church and is a committed Christian. Rasa has agreed to fill in temporarily and will stay with Ieva until our Christmas break begins, on December 22. She has plans to find a job outside of Lithuania, but we're praying she'll postpone her plans until May of 2008 & continue working for us during the spring semester, too! Please join us in praying that she enjoys being with Ieva enough to stay on after Christmas.

Aurelija, Ieva & Rasa being silly together!

What makes Rasa an even bigger blessing is that Ieva already LOVES HER!! She came over earlier this week to spend time with Aurelija & Ieva together and they were playing together wonderfully. When I came home, Ieva even led Rasa by the hand into her bedroom and closed the door, leaving Aurelija & I in the living room so she could play alone with Rasa! We all thought that was very cute & are hopeful the relationship will continue to blossom.

Thank you for praying for our nanny situation! God has (once again) surprised us & given us something better than we could have hoped for. Now we're shifting our prayers to include keeping Rasa through April. Please join us!

Thanksgiving Blues...

Unfortunately this year, I'm feeling a little sad on the day I'm supposed to feel the most blessed.

For some reason, Thanksgiving nostalgia has hit fairly hard & I'm missing all the things I don't have this year. I'm picturing so many of you sleeping in on your day off, then pulling yourself out of bed in time to watch the Macy's Day parade interspersed with preparations for Thanksgiving dinner. (is the turkey ready yet?) Then you'll gather with family & friends around the table and allow yourself to eat yourself into a lethargic bliss, all the while talking about the many things you have to be thankful for this year. After your last serving of pumpkin pie, the men will retreat to the living room for an afternoon & evening of football & the women will head to the kitchen to clean up & chat about everything happening in their lives, followed by going through newspaper ads to figure out where they'll shop tomorrow. And isn't tonight the night The Sound of Music is always on TV? ...sigh... And then tomorrow morning you'll wake up at a ridiculously early hour to get some of the early bird specials & spend a good chunk of the day Christmas shopping.

I know it by heart. And this year I miss it with all my heart.

This morning in our Student Life staff meeting we all shared what we were thankful for. I had to force myself to come up with a few decent contributions to the list. I came back to the office to see someone had written a large & decorative "Happy Thanksgiving!!" on the office white board. It just made my heart heavy. I turned on my computer & found a beautifully sweet thanksgiving e-card that my mom & dad sent. I cried as read it.

Tonight we'll join other Americans for our annual LCC traditional trip to McDonalds on Thanksgiving evening. As lame as it may be, McDonalds is the only truly American institution we have here in Lithuania & we'll feast on chicken sandwiches & apple pie in lieu of turkey & pumpkin pie. The Lithuanian employees will think this huge group of foreigners is crazy, but we'll enjoy it nonetheless. It's our tradition, after all.

Update: We had the largest record LCC group having Thanksgiving dinner at Klaipeda's Mickey D's - 45 people crammed in!

And then on Saturday we'll have our 2nd Thanksgiving tradition here at LCC: a staff/faculty potluck where people bring everything from the turkey & gravy to the cranberry sauce and we'll sit with the closest ones we have to family on this side of the Atlantic & eat ourselves into that lethargic bliss and feel a little closer to home. And then we'll pull out the Christmas decorations & deck the halls of LCC together in preparation for our Community Christmas Program on the weekend of December 7th.

Update: The Thanksgiving Potluck went great with TONS of wonderful food (we even had leftover stuffing - yum!)

Aside from the fact that I'm coordinating the dinner & decorating event on Saturday and the inevitable stress that will go along with it, I'm sure it will be a fun day. It always is. How can you feel sad when your belly is full of turkey and you're hanging Christmas garland & lights? So I'm sure better days are ahead. Right now I'm just exhausted from a long, difficult semester and am missing the comforts & familiarities of home.

I truly hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving celebration today wherever you are!! And if you think of it, pray for those of us far away from the comfort of American traditions, that we, too, will remember all the many ways in which we are so very blessed.

Stories from Tallinn & Helsinki

We had a great Fall Break last week with the Kaethlers in Tallinn & Helsinki. In general, it was very relaxing which was just what we needed! We stayed in an apartment outside of old town and spent leisurely mornings in with afternoons or evenings out exploring.

Some of our memorable experiences were:

Eating at the fantastic African Kitchen in Tallinn's old town

Going to the Tallinn Zoo & seeing the world's ugliest animal, the warthog.

Eating at the medieval restaurant Olde Hansa in old town Tallinn

Trying to take the ferry to Helsinki, but discovering the ferries weren't running due to rough water on both Thursday & on Friday...and finally making it there on Saturday, only to discover (once we arrived) that it was a holiday & everything was closed! The ferry we took there was amazing - like a floating hotel lobby! Thankfully, the Finlandia Circus was in Helsinki & we got the last 4 seats under the big top!

Ieva's makeshift snow shield on her stroller in HelsinkiAlene & I keeping warm in the Helsinki snow!

The turbulent ride back to Tallinn on the only ferry running: the hydrofoil - presumably the one that is supposed to give you the smoothest ride! (not so much for us...)

Spending lots of good time together with Andrew, Alene & Charlotte

Staying at the funky Fontaine hotel in Liepaja, Latvia on our way home

Ieva & I in our fun "jungle room" - just one of the many individually-designed rooms in the trendy 400-year-old downtown hotel.

Fall Break in Estonia's capital city!

This week has been Fall Break at LCC & we are fully taking advantage of it! We decided to get out of town & drive north with our friends Andrew & Alene and their 1-year old daughter Charlotte to Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. We were here during our fall break in 2004 when we did the same trip with our friends Mark & Kim Hoelterhoff & their kids, but were only here for 2 days due to splitting our time in Riga, Latvia as well. Outside of cutting the 9-hour drive in half by spending 1 night in Riga, we're spending the entire week camping out in a cute little apartment just outside of Tallinn's medieval old town. This is a beautiful city with loads of history and things to see. Because of the girls & their nap schedules, as well as all of us being totally exhausted from the semester, we've been spending a lot of time playing games & relaxing together in the apartment. Just what we've needed!! And since the apartment doesn't have internet access, we don't have the temptation of getting online to check emails or do work - perfect!!


We tried to take a 1.5-hour ferry to Helsinki, Finland this morning, but due to stormy weather, the ferry was canceled. We'll try again tomorrow and if that doesn't work, we'll still have Saturday since we aren't leaving until Sunday. Ieva is excited to ride on the big boat & we're all looking forward to being in a new country for the day!

The week so far as been fairly overcast & drizzly, so we're hoping the end of the week gets better...but it isn't ruining our fun. The true R&R we're getting has really been just what we all needed!

We'll post photos once we're back in Klaipeda next week. Please pray that our long drive home goes smoothly! Thanks!