Isak Andrius Stave arrived!

Isak entered the world on Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 2:20pm weighing 7.8 lbs (3.6 kl) & 21.25 inches long (54 cm).

We're also thrilled to report that Ieva's tonsillectomy & adenoid removal on Monday, June 1st went VERY well & she's recovered amazingly fast! By Isak's birthday you'd never know that she had just had major surgery 2 days earlier!

The morning of Ieva's surgery - she was in a great mood & playing with ants!

Ieva recovering after her surgery - watching a movie was a good distraction from feeling miserable!

We're still in the hospital (they keep you at least 4 days after a c-section) and all are getting anxious to get back to the home we're staying at in Vilnius where there will be much more space than we have in our tiny (albeit very nice!) hospital room!

Ieva passing the time in the hospital by swinging from the traction bar above Andrew's bed!

Kim's recovery is slow (I had forgotten that c-section recovories aren't easy), but Isak is doing very well & seems to be a generally peaceful & content little guy!

Thanks for all of you prayers for our family during such a full week!

Stave Family Mission "Leave Klaipeda with Tonsils & No Baby; Come Back with No Tonsils & Healthy Baby!"

Back in September of 2005, I wrote in my journal that it felt strange to be driving out of Klaipeda for the last time as a married, childless couple knowing that when we drove back into our city our lives would be forever changed as we would have a baby in tow.

And here we are again, 3 & 1/2 years later, about to take that same trip tomorrow, with that same strange knowledge. This time it's a bit easier to imagine as we've already done it once, although I've heard that going from 1 kid to 2 can be the toughest transition of raising a family. Bringing home a boy will be new for us, and for as much as Ieva talks about how excited she is to meet her baby brother, we know that the reality of sharing mom & dad's attention is going to be a pretty tough reality check in her little life.

Ieva & her baby brother at -5 weeks old! (I was at 35 weeks then.)

Waiting for Ieva was somewhat easy. Our doctors suspected she could come early (I had gone into early labor at 34 weeks), so we went to Vilnius 2 full weeks prior to the due date and waited. And waited. And waited. And when her due date came & went and she still hadn't come, we had labor induced & she was born via c-section (due to my body refusing to continue the labor process all the way to completion).

This time around it's a bit different. We hoped to play the waiting game again, but this time wait long enough for the baby to come naturally, without inducing labor, & see if my body reacts differently & allows me to labor until the end. But upon consultation with our doctor (the same who delivered Ieva -- she's fabulous!) she informed us that due to the risks involved for a 2nd pregnancy when you wait too long (the bigger you get, the thinner your uterus becomes & the greater the chance of your c-section scar bursting while trying to push the baby out of the birth canal), she said that she won't let us wait longer than the due date of June 10. If he hasn't come naturally by then, it'll be another c-section. And as much as I thought I'd be disappointed to hear this, I'm really (truly!) okay with it! When she used the terminology "internal bleeding" in reference to what could happen if my scar burst during labor, both Andrew & I immediately decided it wasn't a risk worth taking. I've always thought the idea of natural baby delivery was the best (and only!) way to go, but quite frankly, our primary goal has become a healthy baby (and healthy mom!) at the end of the day...regardless of which way the baby comes out.

The other big change this time around is obviously having our precious 3 & 1/2 year old daughter Ieva with us. Thankfully, her 1st nanny Aurelija (who lives in Vilnius with her husband now) has agreed to keep her when we go to the hospital. It's a perfect fit, since Ieva adores Aurelija & Balys and the feeling is very much mutual!

Ieva was the flower girl in Aurelija & Balys' wedding in September 2008!

We also had Ieva see an Ear/Nose/Throat specialist the last time we were in Vilnius who strongly recommended that she get her tonsils & adenoids removed, as her tonsils are in bad shape & her adenoids are blocking her sinuses & causing fluid build-up in her ears, which is preventing her from hearing properly (and helped her get sick much more frequently this spring).

So...our tentative (and hopeful!) plan is this:

Saturday, May 30 -- drive to Vilnius & stay with missionaries Wendell & Patti McClung who are graciously opening their home to us!

Sunday, May 31 -- attend the 10 year anniversary service & celebration of the International church in Vilnius. The pastor there now is the same one who was there when we were waiting with Ieva. He & his wife left soon after, but have returned recently & we're thrilled to reconnect with them!

Monday, June 1 @ 2pm -- Ieva will go to the Baltic American Clinic for a tonsillectomy & adenoid removal. They'll most likely keep her overnight.

Wednesday, June 3 @ 10am -- I will have an appointment with my doctor at the Baltic American & she'll assess my progress at that point. Depending on what she finds, we'll make a plan for the next week (either wait it out or schedule a c-section).

Sometime between June 3-10, and hopefully after Ieva has recovered from her surgery, we expect our baby boy to enter the world!

We know that our plans are often not the same as Gods', so we're trusting that whatever happens will still work out okay. I'm significantly more uncomfortable at the end of this pregnancy than I was with Ieva, so the idea of getting baby boy out of my belly & into my arms as soon as possible sounds wonderful! But it would still be nice if he waited to come until after Ieva recovers from her surgery. We'd like her to be able to enjoy the process of welcoming her baby brother as much as possible!

Please join us in praying for all these transitions happening within our family in the upcoming weeks. Thanks!

We're excited to see what God will do in the life of our family!

Continual Transitions at LCC...

As we wrote in our last blog, there are lots of goodbyes to say around here...especially this time of the year! Another difficult goodbye just happened earlier this week when the person who hired both us of to come to LCC in 2002 & who has supervised us for the past 7 years has left our community.

Mel Humphreys was offered a position in the Student Life department at Wheaton College and it was clear that this was the obvious next step for her career. As the Vice President of Student Life, she's done much to develop our division at LCC over the past 10 years, and we're thankful to have been able to work with her during our tenure this far. I (Kim) have worked especially closely with Mel since 2002 and have learned a lot from her! Thanks, Mel, for all you've given me over the years!

Kim & Mel, May 2009

Below is the online article posted on LCC's website regarding Mel's departure. As you read it, you'll discover (if you haven't heard already) that this change of events has also changed our family plans for the coming year. I had planned on quitting my job & seeing what it was like to be a stay at home mom next year. But Mel's job offer came so quickly that there wasn't time to do a job search & as the Student Life staff member who has worked the most closely with her for the longest time, I was offered her job. I agreed to take it, but only on a part-time basis, as we both feel that it's still important to try to cut my working time down in order to spend more time with our kids. And amazingly, both Andrew & I have a peace about this new direction, despite it being so different from our original plan! We decided to hire a full-time Student Life Office Manager, largely for the purpose of allowing me to actually work half time by taking on many of the time-consuming administrative tasks that would take up my time as VP. I'm also excited to work with LCC's new President, Kyle Usrey, who will begin at LCC this July. We appreciate any prayers for how we'll resolve childcare questions and that I'll be able to do my job well, along with spending more quality time at home with our kids!

After 10 Years of Service at LCC Dr. Melanie Humphreys’ Career Takes a New Turn

Our boss for the past 7 years, Mel Humphreys

LCC International University is sad to announce that Dr. Melanie Humphreys who has served our university in the position of Student Life Vice President for the 10 past years is pursuing a new career opportunity and will leave Klaipėda in the beginning of the summer.

She will be temporarily replaced by the current Community Life Director Kim Stave, M.Ed.

Dr. Humphreys’ contributions to LCC International University are plentiful: she built the Student Life Division from the ground up – establishing departments and programs, learning outcomes and assessment, worked with campus and Board to establish the 196-bed Neumann Hall (2007), and the multipurpose facility Michealsen center (2002), and worked with transition to a dry campus (alcohol-free). Dr. Humphreys will start her new position as Dean of Student Care and Services at Wheaton College in the United States on July 1st.

Interim President Dr. David Skeen comments on her leaving, “Mel's contributions to the evolution of LCC International University have been enormous over her 10 years of service. She is responsible for the structure of the division and virtually all of the policies and practices. But beyond her professional contribution it has been her support, care and dedication to the students, faculty and staff of LCC which are her legacy that will be remembered most by the campus community. We wish for Mel every success as she moves forward to her new position at Wheaton College in Illinois."

Dr. Humphreys herself says, "It is hard to capture in words what the LCC community has meant to me over the years. Thank you all for your love and support. I look forward in anticipation to all that God has in store both for LCC and in this next chapter of my own journey."

We'll miss you, Mel!

Saying Goodbye to good friends

Part of the joy & heartache of being at LCC long-term are the many relationships we get to develop, but then the frequent goodbyes we also have to say. We've had lots of great friends over the past 7 years here, but have also said lots of sad goodbyes. Earlier this week we took our dear friends, the Bosch Family, to the airport to see them off. They came to LCC last August from the Toronto area where they took a year-long leave of absence from their jobs & schools so Chris could teach at LCC and the family could experience something different from the norms of North American life. For some reason we didn't start spending much time with them until November of last year, but once we did, we really connected. And it wasn't just us adults that enjoyed spending time together, but Ieva adored their boys Levi (7) and Josiah (very recently 9). And they adopted her like a little sister.

Saying Goodbye in the Vilnius Airport

We've had lots of great memories with the Bosch family over the past 7 months and will miss them tremendously. One of the last sweet memories that will stay in my mind was after we had all said our tearful goodbyes in the airport lobby and they had gone to get in the security line. Andrew, Ieva & I were sitting a little ways away talking about where we were going next. All of a sudden, and completely out of the blue, Ieva jumps up out of her seat & bolts across the huge lobby space between the chairs & the security line & practically leaps into Josiah's arms for a big long hug. Then as quick as she went, she let go & turned around & ran back to us. It was really, really precious. Those two really adored each other so much!

Josiah & Ieva on Josiah's 9th birthday (we just celebrated on May 11th - the night before they flew out!)

Josiah, Ieva & Levi in the airport

Josiah is the same age as Ieva's only cousin Eli, and interestingly, they look quite similar to each other! When Eli & Ieva get to spend time together, Eli also loves to give her hugs & coddle her. In so many ways, Josiah was Ieva's surrogate cousin (or big brother) and we all loved watching them together! Chris, Lydia, Josiah & Levi Bosch

Thanks for being such an integral part part of our lives this year, Chris, Lydia, Josiah & Levi! We miss you already!!

LCC's 14th Graduation Ceremonies!

The tossing of the caps of the LCC International University graduating class of 2009!

On the way to LCC with flowers for the graduates!

It's a tradition to give graduates flowers upon their graduation. Ieva enjoyed helping me pick them out & carrying them the whole way to LCC. And since they were tulips, we had to stop for a photo shoot near a flower bed of tulips on our way to the bus stop!

Ledina reading scripture in Albanian.
During the Baccalaureate service, a selected scripture passage is chosen to be read in the native language of each graduate. I believe this class had 10 nationalities graduating.

Altynay from Kyrgyzstan was selected to be the graduate who spoke at Baccalaureate.
She gave an extremely moving testimony of finding Christ at LCC through her relationships with staff & faculty members and other Christian students.

A very happy Tanya crosses the stage & receives her diploma during the graduation ceremony.

Tanya is from Ukraine & told me just days before the event that she couldn't wait for her parents to arrive, as it would be their first visit to LCC during her 4 years there! Many of our students families are in the same situation and can't afford to travel to experience the place where their children study. Many of our international students didn't have parents there at the ceremonies with them at all.

After graduation with Algis & Egle, both from Lithuania. Egle has been one of Ieva's babysitters for the past 2 years & she still has another two years before she'll graduate (we're thrilled to keep her around). We know Algis well, as we've spent a lot of time talking about life with him during his years as a student. He is a talented worship leader and has led numerous chapel bands during his student tenure.

After graduation with Yuliya. She is from Ukraine and has been very involved in student leadership at LCC. In fact, she was selected to win an award for servant leadership out of her entire class. We've known her well over the years and are sad to see her go, but excited to see what great things she'll do next!

The Stave family at our 7th LCC graduation ceremony. This is the 4th class we've been privileged to journey with from their freshmen year until they graduate. What a gift to see students grow & develop throughout these crucial years! This is why we love our jobs!

Easter Festivities

The Stave Family on Easter Monday 2009

As you may imagine, it's often holiday times that give us reason to miss family and friends or American traditions the most. However, it's also holiday times that give us reason to look around at the community we have here & rejoice at the many ways God covers those desires for family (as our friends here make up the next best thing) and for missed traditions (as we've begun to create our own during our years here). Within that light, Easter 2009 gave us much reason to rejoice -- beyond our celebration of Christ's resurrection!

The Thursday before Easter Ieva & I played hooky from work & school and spent part of the day with other moms & kids at the country home of our friends Garrett & Sophi Gilliland painting Easter eggs. Garrett & Sophi have lots of land around their home, giving our kids a nice break from city life to run around outside with their dogs and cats and to search for frogs & other woodland creatures. Ieva jumped right back into the "farm girl" mode which she had developed after a month at her Grand Aunt Shelley's property last summer.

Painting Easter eggs with Hevenlee, Charlotte, Josiah & Levi

Hevenlee holding the frog Ieva & I found (neither of us wanted to touch it!) :)

Charlotte in the yard by the old (& covered) well with one of the kitties

Ieva's first time on a big-kid bike with training wheels!

On Friday evening we had Steve & Laura Hanson over for games (Steve is one of the Resident Directors on my staff & Laura works in Student Life with Orientation & our Leadership program). They brought peanut butter cookie dough for us & Ieva enjoyed helping roll the dough & putting the pans in the oven nearly as much as she enjoyed eating them! Little baker girl

Since our church (International Christian Fellowship) meets on Sunday evenings, we hosted an Easter brunch on Sunday morning for the same group of families who we went to Egypt with us for spring break. We all contributed fantastic food and the kids especially enjoyed a candy Easter egg hunt (indoors) and the Easter craft projects we had for them. This was the first really big gathering we hosted in our new apartment & it was so great to see how well everyone fit! We never could have done this at our old place! We spent the bulk of the afternoon playing games & then met again that evening to celebrate Christ's resurrection with our church community!

The Easter brunch group (from L-R): Andrew, Andrew Kaethler & Charlotte, Alene & Paige, Alene's mom Mary (here visiting!), Carrie & baby Charlotte, Jared, Chris & Lydia


Coloring bunnies, eggs & chicks - Levi, Josiah & Ieva

The big kids (Josiah & Levi, Ieva & Charlotte) beneath our Happy Easter sign (Ieva & I had fun decorating for the event!)

On Easter Monday our church leadership team had coordinated a day trip to a fabulous outdoor museum in central Lithuania called Rumšiškės. It spans over 430 acres of gorgeous nature and shows the historical agriculture & architecture of each region of the country. Easter Monday is it's opening day for the season & they bring in traditional dance & music groups, craft vendors, games for kids & deck the place out with loads of decorations just for the Easter holiday. It's a fantastic day to go! After a gorgeously sunny & warm afternoon wandering throughout the grounds, our group went to a large traditional Lithuanian restaurant for very satisfying dinner. All in all it was a great day and everyone seemed to really enjoy their experience there!

Eating yummy sausage & sauerkraut in the sunshine with the Bosch family

The city center section of Rumšiškės decorated with giant eggs (photo courtesy of Laura Hanson)

Beautifully hand-painted wooden traditional Easter Eggs (photo courtesy of Laura Hanson)

Kids having a contest to see who can roll their giant egg around the windmill first! (photo courtesy of Laura Hanson)

Ieva trying out egg-rolling (a very traditional Lithuanian easter game for kids)

Traditional dancers in costume (photo, again, courtesy of Laura Hanson)

The entire Rumšiškės crew - 44 of us!

LCC Basketball put on hold

One of my (Andrew's) great joys in working at LCC International University as Athletic Director was getting to be on the ground floor as we built a high level basketball program from nothing.

2008 LCC Moose Team

The program, envisioned as far back as 2003, finally found the right people to make it happen in the spring of 2007. Our first season (a season of growing but not much winning) started in the Fall of 2007 and we had our second and much more succesful season this year, 2008/09.

From the beginning the program struggled for funds (which is fully donation-based) and there was always a lingering question of whether the program would survive to complete its second season. While I always held out hope, that question came to our Board of Directors this spring, and to everyone's shock, (no one's more than mine), the Board responded by suspending the program pending a year long analysis of its future potential, identifying long-term funding and assessing its place within the larger campus and educational model here in Lithuania.

In the process, scholarships for 8 student athletes were cut, our coaching staff (one of whom was staying on for the next year), one student employee and three part time students lost their jobs.

In spite of the best efforts given by myself, our Vice President for Student Life and our Interim Head coach, we were unable to convince the Board and our incoming president that we had found a way (albeit a difficult one) to operate the program on a budget that worked within the confines of the one consistent donation that we still had coming.

The disappointment that I have been experiencing since the initial news and the final confirmation we received today has been heartbreaking. Our coach is looking for work, several of our student athletes will likely be looking for new, more affordable schools and our campus community that was getting used to a high level Varsity sport is having to get used to its absence for the coming season.

I will still be working closely with the program as I help to move a Staff and Faculty task force forward to engage with how and why basketball (among other sports) needs to be embedded into our campus culture and I hope that in Fall of 2010 we will be able to restart a program that has better overall support both financially and structurally.

I personally can use prayer as I move forward into this next year with a much less clear role, as could the 8 players whose lives have been shaken upside down with the loss of their scholarships. Our coach (and my friend) Marius will also be looking for work as of May 8th and could also use your prayers.

Grandma & Grandpa Stave are in town!

Last weekend Andrew's parents & sister Ingrid came to visit! They're here all week & we've been having a wonderful time with them! This is their 5th trip to Lithuania - two of those trips were longer stints when Tom & Vicki taught at LCC, once was a visit only a year after we arrived, another was last year (without Ingrid) and we're excited to have them here again now! Ieva has especially loved the extra attention & love she's been getting. We kept her home from school all week and all of them had a great time together!

Here's some of the things we've been doing together:

Auntie Ingie & Ieva being silly - their favorite thing to do together!

A family trip to the Klaipeda Clock Museum - we had never been before!

Visiting another local museum we'd never been to: the Blacksmith Museum

3 generations taking a walk

helping Grandma knit a sweater for her baby brother...or at least helping her cut the yarn!

playing with Grandpa

trying on Grandma's hat & scarf - both hand-made!

Since Ieva let her Auntie Ingrid sleep in her room, she got to sleep in a special bed inside her princess castle in mom & dad's room!

so much alike...

We've had a great time together & are sad to see them go this weekend! Thanks for coming to visit again Tom, Vik & Ing! Come again soon!

Spring Break in Egypt!

One of the best pieces of advice we recieved soon after our arrival to Lithuania in 2002 was to be sure that we left the country on a fairly regular basis. It sounds strange, but the person giving us the advice wasn't saying anything negative about Lithuania, rather he was saying that as North Americans trying to integrate into the culture we'd get burned out much more quickly if we didn't take breaks from the culture & get away every now & again. As much as we've been able, we've taken that advice to heart and have seen time & time again how it really has made a difference in our ability to continue living in a culture different from ours & avoiding burn out.

Here in Europe, Egypt is a very common tourist destination. Travel agents have loads of low-cost vacation package deals around this time of the year. It would be a similar equivilent to West-coast North Americans going to Mexico or Midwest/East-coast North Americans going to Cuba.

The Red Sea from the air - so beautiful!

For our spring break 2005, when I was 3 months pregnant with Ieva, we had the opportunity to go to Hurghada, Egypt with an LCC colleague. We split the trip between relaxing in the sun & visiting all the historic & educational sites we could see (Cairo & the pyramids, Luxor, the Valley of the Kings & a snokeling trip on a coral reef in the Red Sea). It was a pretty relaxing trip, but also extraordinarily educational.

Kim & Andrew at the pyramids - spring break 2005

So this spring break, the idea started forming among some of our friends that we should all get away for a multi-family trip to a kid-friendly warm destination! It came down to the Canary Islands or Egypt, and even though we had been to Egypt before, the dates of the trip fit our schedules better and the costs were lower. And we found a place to stay that looked incredibly kid-friendly. So, Egypt it was!

The Spring Break 2009 LCC Crew:

Chris, Lydia, Josiah & Levi Bosch; Jared, Carrie & Charlotte Schumacher; Andrew, Alene, Charlotte & Paige Kaethler & us

We've never done a trip with multiple families before and it turned out really well. Chris & Lydia Bosch just came to LCC in August 2008 and will be returning to their home in Ontario, Canada after this academic year. Their sons Josiah (8) and Levi (7) have become like brothers to Ieva this year as all three kids adore each other! Andrew & Alene Kaethler have been good friends of ours since they arrived to Lithuania from Vancouver, B.C. in August 2007. Their daughter Charlotte (2 & 1/2) is a year younger than Ieva and they've been good friends since before either can remember. Their baby girl Paige was just born this September & Ieva spent the fall semester referring to Paige as her baby sister, too. Jared & Carrie Schumacher just arrived to Lithuania from Texas in August 2008. They work with us in the Student Life department (Chris Bosch & Andrew Kaethler are both faculty) and have an 8-month old baby girl also named Charlotte. Both the Schumachers & Kaethlers are returning for another year at LCC with us, so we're all sad to be losing the Boschs!

The Girls at the Red Sea (about to dive in!): Kim, Alene, Carrie & Lydia

Because the Bosch kids & Ieva are a bit older, and the other two families have babies (Charlotte & Paige are only 2 months apart), we often ended up doing things in pairs of families. Since we had already seen the Egyptian sites on our first trip, we decided that we weren't going to do much more than RELAX around the hotel grounds. The Bosch family did a long day trip to Cairo so the boys could see the pyramids and the Egyptian museum, while the Schumachers, Alene & baby Paige went together on a day trip to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. We were happy to go nowhere, except for a few-hour trip in the "Seascope Submarine" to see the coral & fish of the Red Sea up close.

Looking at Red Sea coral & fish up close from the comfort of the 'Seascope Submarine' 15 feet below the surface!

The place we stayed turned out to be perfect for our families. From a wading pool for the little kids to the normal pool for the big to a kid's club that did events like a mini-disco and other kid-friendly events run by a wonderfully caring staff. In general, all of the staff were great with kids. The housekeeping staff would always make Ieva's bed with her stuffed animals strategically placed around & her blanket laid out like a fan. The restaurant/buffet staff who we'd see at every meal loved to talk to the kids and play little games with them. Overall, the staff made a huge difference in our enjoyment of the trip.

The big kids: Ieva, Levi Bosch, Charlotte Kaethler & Josiah Bosch

So we spent a week enjoying a reprieve from a long, cold Lithuanian winter and really enjoying time with good friends. Andrew & I celebrated our 9th anniversary there & now can say that each of our kids have been to Egypt in utero! What a gift. We're extremely thankful to have such an opportunity to do things like this while living in Eastern Europe.