Ieva's Snowy Day

We have today & tomorrow off work for our Easter break and we're having lots of fun being home together as a family! Here's a video we made of Ieva (still in her PJs) playing outside on our balcony this morning!

Kim's blessing in Dubrovnik

As I wrote earlier, part of the reason we went to Dubrovnik for our spring break was so I (Kim) could attend a retreat for missionary women hosted by the organization Women of the Harvest (WOTH). This blog would be longer than what anyone would care to read if I went into all the details of how phenomenal the retreat was & the many ways the women there blessed me to no end, so I'll just give a few highlights (which is still going to take time).

:::Pampering:::

WOTH brought 30 volunteers for the sole purpose of serving & ministering to the 75 retreat attendees. The volunteers ranged from massage therapists to counselors to worship leaders, and those who came without a specific ministry were taught to do pedicures, be small group leaders & give make-overs. We were each given a pampering scheduling card that we got to fill up as we signed up for these different luxuries. I signed up for every one. And as each woman massaged my back or painted my toenails or washed my feet, they asked what was going on in my life & then prayed over me. I've never been so simultaneously physically & spiritually pampered in all my life.my pretty painted toes

:::Gifts:::

The target area of this retreat was Central/Eastern Europe, so the WOTH retreat coordinators researched the items that American women can't readily get in this part of the world & proceeded to smother us with gifts. When we arrived we each received a big gift plate with everything from note cards to trail mix to Bath & Body Works lotion. Then every time we'd gather for a group session, we'd each find a tote bag or a coffee mug, books or chocolate chips, recipes, packets of Ranch dip mix, candy and other goodies at our seat. I couldn't believe it. The ultimate gift was the massive white elephant gift exchange they arranged where they broke us into two smaller groups of 35-ish where we sat in a circle with a big gift bag under each chair. As it was our turn, we said our name & the country we're serving in, then proceeded to pull the bag from under our chair & (without looking inside) determined if we wanted to keep it (and open it) or trade it for something that someone else had already opened. Each bag had a strategically-coordinated combo inside like: peanut butter & jelly; Bath & Body Works shower gel & a loofah sponge; a massive bag of pecans (which was a stand alone gift & the first to be "frozen" after 3 women quickly stole it!); a box of Lucky Charms & a box of pop tarts; brown sugar & chocolate chips...the amazing combinations went on & on. I ended up with a box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate packets (Andrew's favorites!) and a bag of mini-marshmallows! Apparently each volunteer was only permitted to bring one suitcase of their own; their 2nd bag was to be used fully to bring gifts for the retreat attendees. Wow...it was amazing.

:::Worship:::

WOTH brought a wonderfully talented worship leader to lead us in musical worship twice a day. They also created our own song books with a vast selection of songs ranging from classic hymns to current worship songs. We sang together before each keynote session and it was overwhelmingly beautiful to be in a room with 100 women praising Christ in song! Since I went to the retreat alone, I was struck by how free I felt to worship in whatever way the spirit led me without feeling self conscious of how people might watch & judge me (something I'm constantly aware of in our spiritually-diverse & sensitive setting at LCC). Once there, I realized that I haven't felt that kind of freedom in worship in YEARS. It was incredible. I spent much of the time weeping out of the joy that freedom brought!the WOTH worship team

:::Teaching:::

The keynote speaker for the retreat was Mimi Wilson, a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart after God who was raised in Africa to missionary parents & spent much of her adult life on the mission field with her husband. She has written several books, the one she referenced most with us is Holy Habits (1999). She challenged us, encouraged us & fed us from the Word. The illustration that stood out the most to me was when she talked about how we often pray that God will "fill our empty cups" to give us what we need. Ironically, I told my small group on the first night that the thing I was hoping to get from the retreat the most was "to be filled" as I was feeling empty & burnt out. A day or two later, Mimi holds up a small empty glass in front of us & then lowers it into a large pitcher full of water. She talked about how we're often praying for God to fill us, when really, it's just a matter of us submersing ourselves into Him & then we're immediately filled. She talked about dwelling in God...living always IN the full pitcher of water. It's when we pull our small cup out that we're quickly drained by all the different pulls life has on us. I was in awe, as it was exactly what I needed to hear.Mimi Wilson, WOTH keynote speaker

:::Connections:::

For a person with the strength of Connectedness like me (from the Gallop Strengths Finder test), the way I got to share my life with 74 other women who truly get the kind of life I'm living was fantastic. And, I met loads of people who I actually have real connections with: one girl was led to the Lord in college by a good friend I've met at LCC, another girl is the cousin of a woman I used to work with in Oregon, and I discovered that the founder of the entire WOTH organization is the sister of a dear friend of mine that I've known since I was 15 from camp! And I made a new friend who was a kindred spirit from the first time we talked - Kathy was one of the volunteers who came from Tennessee who was one of my 2 small group leaders. She & I bonded so deeply & dearly during those 4 days that it's obvious that only the Lord brought us together. Despite only being with her for 4 days and our roughly 20-year age gap, I feel like I've known her for years & already love her dearly. It was a joy to run into many of the volunteers & especially Kathy 2 days after the retreat finished in downtown Dubrovnik!Kathy got to meet Andrew & Ieva in Dubrovnik after the retreat!

:::Healing:::

I've heard it said that you often don't know how sick you are until you've been healed and can look back with some retrospect. This was me 100%. The retreat began on Thursday evening as we met with our small groups & shared what we hoped to get out of the next 3 days. On Sunday Kathy told me that she could see how empty & hurting I was that first Thursday & by Sunday she saw a totally new persona within me. I did go into that retreat in bad shape. I was carrying the leftover burdens of burnout from my job, the loss of our beloved nanny & our current haphazard childcare system, our surprising & devastating miscarriage, guilt over not giving enough to my family or my staff, etc, etc, etc... and then my empty cup was submerged into the overflowing love of Jesus shown to me through each of these elements of the retreat. I truly feel like I have been healed from a sickness I didn't even know how to describe prior to attending & I praise God for it! Since returning from Dubrovnik I've had a fresh outlook on everything around me and now can live each day immersed in the lavish love & freedom of Christ! Hallelujah!!He makes all things new!

The Pearl of the Adriatic: Dubrovnik, Croatia

After the length of the previous post, we'll give you all a break from reading and let you sit back and enjoy the view.

The view from our balcony during the day...

...and at night.

A Dubrovnik sunset

Part of the old city wall

Kim & Ieva looking out over the old city from the carport above our apartment

Ieva taking a rest from all the stairs going down to the old city with a new friend!

Part of the old city fortress

The narrow sidewalks & stairs within a residential area of Dubrovnik

In the city of Zadar, on the Northern Croatian coast

Outside the Zagreb Cathedral at sunset

What a fabulous trip!

Is this the road to Dubrovnik?

(Written by Andrew, who contributes once annually to the Blog)
That was the theme of the first part of the trip Ieva and I made to connect with Kim in sunny Dubrovnik, Croatia (Hrvatska in Croatian). After getting the two of us packed, fed, on the bus to Vilnius, taxi to the airport, back to town for dinner, back to the airport by taxi, 5 hours of sleep in a room with no shower, 6am flight to Prague, 7 hour layover and flight to Zagreb, at 2:30pm we were into our rental car and on the road to Dubrovnik for our anticipated 7.5 hour drive. Since the car came with the free upgrade of a GPS system, the question we continually asked our new friend "GPS", was "Is this road to Dubrovnik?"

I have limited experience with GPS navigational systems and had not intended to use one until I believe (never confirmed) that the rental company gave it to us to keep us happy when our Fiat Punto that we reserved online (car with some room) turned into a Fiat Panda (car with room for Ieva, a Ieva sized friend and a bag of pretzels).

Croatia is shaped like a backwards comma and the Zagreb airport is somewhere at the top of the comma with Dubrovnik at the extreme south end. Our goal was to head to the A1 motorway that spans most of Croatia's long and skinny western coast. I entered a Dubrovnik address into our electronic friend and it immediately told me to drive straight and then turn left in 210 meters. I thought, "wow, how precise" and started off.
My instincts told me that I would need to drive west for a while before we linked up with the motorway and even though we spent considerable time driving southeast, I thought that it must be setting me up to hit the motorway through a more direct, back road route rather then a major highway.

2.5 hours later and nearly at the border of Bosnia I resigned myself to the fact that the automatic settings were set to take me the absolute most direct route and this was through Bosnia. So I began the task of figuring out where I was, where I wanted to be and how to get there. I soon realized that my friend GPS wasn't going to be much help after it sent me two miles down a dirt road that ended in a large mud quarry with a burned out old steam shovel and a bunch of broken down farm equipment that had been run off the road. I have to say at that point that I was less then confident in my new friend's abilities. Trying to get your microscopic rental car down a wet dirt road with your wet diapered two year old screaming, "Ieva want to get on Dada" isn't fun in rural America but in rural Croatia where the guide books say, "if you see signs that say "land mines, stay on the path", they mean, stay on the path!", its more then a little disconcerting. Needless to say, the atlas worked out better for me the next few turns and finally I got to the freeway where I was able to drive unimpeded for several hours on beautiful three lane motorways with little traffic, lots of gas stations and places to stop.

I mistakenly went back to the GPS which was proving more reliable until we encountered the one thing that GPS can't handle, road closures. Apparently a bridge was being repaired and the resulting detour was more then it could take. As the hour became later (11:30pm) and the detour became longer I again began to lose faith in "GPS". Croatia doesn't identify with my need for "affirmation signs", signs that aren't necessarily at a major turn or intersection but that "affirm" that you are indeed still on the right path (I think that the 150 km detour had three signs saying "Dubrovnik"). After the GPS unit sent me again on a wild goose chase into an abandoned gravel parking lot of a factory in what could have been Kazakhstan, I reversed direction, pulled up to the road I had just left and offered up a desperate prayer. It was 12.00am, the "system" had been telling me that I was 1.5 hours away for 1.5 hours and my cell phone was out of network coverage. I'd been driving for 9 hours with a two year old (who other then 5 minutes of crying was an angel and I was so proud) mostly in the dark on country roads in the mountains somewhere between the Adriatic and the Black Sea and I was at the end of my rope.
No sooner had the "God, just get me to Dubrovnik" exited my lips when a car flashed by with a license place that started with DU. I thought, "could that stand for Dubrovnik", didn't wait to find out and tore after the car. Needless to say, the car took me right to the outskirts of the city, 150 km away and I was able to pick up Kim at her hotel and get to our flat.

I have to say that never in my life has God answered a prayer so fast. I don't tend to get to the end of my rope very easily so perhaps it was the absolute desperate thoughts of spending the night in this little car in the middle of nowhere with my sleeping daughter that prompted the rapid response but I couldn't have even snapped my fingers before the answer to my dilemma was in front of me. Its amazing how when we get to the end of ourselves there's a lot of God left to cling to.

At 1:30am after 11 hours of driving when we finally settled into our flat, owned by a strange but nice man named Mirko, we were greeted by the reason we came, the view of the old city and its ancient harbor was magnificent and was right out our bedroom window. While I would have gladly traded the 11 hour drive for the 1 hour flight that Kim had taken, the experience, the time with Ieva even in frustration and humility was worth it as I silently praised God for his provision and faithfulness to his children, even the ones who don't always think that we need it.

Croatia, here we come!

For the past 5.5 years we've lived here, we've often talked about exploring the Balkans - especially Croatia (since we heard the coast was amazing) and Albania (since we've had a number of Albanian students that we've known well at LCC). So, the time has come for us to head south & check it out!

Part of what promted our trip was a retreat designed for women missionaries sponsored by the organization Women of the Harvest that will be hosted in Dubrovnik this weekend. The timing was perfect, the price was right, I am IN NEED of some spiritual nourishment, and everything has fallen into place for us to go. Hallelujah! I can't wait.

So, tonight I'll board a bus for Vilnius & spend the night in the airport hotel so I can catch my 6am flight out in the morning. I fly to the capital of Zagreb in the northern part of the country & then have a 1 hour layover before catching another flight to Dubrovnik. Pray that I don't have any delays & can catch my flight on time! The retreat is held at a 4-star hotel in downtown Dubrovnik and aside from the spiritual teaching & fellowship they advertise that there is a fair amount of pampering involved. Again I say Hallelujah!!

On Sunday Andrew & Ieva will fly to Zagreb, rent a car & drive down to Dubrovnik. It's faster to drive through Bosnia to get there, so they'll go that route & will meet me Sunday evening. Please pray for their travels as Andrew navigates the bus, plane & rental car all with Ieva in tow!

You can see how Croatia stretches down the coast of the Adriatic Sea - Dubrovnik is the furthest city south!

We plan to spend the rest of the week relaxing in Dubrovnik & are hoping to drive down to Albania for a day or two. We've discovered that Croatian rental car companies don't allow you to cross over the borders of non-EU countries with their cars, so if we want to go to Albania, we'll have to find a different way to do it. We're hopeful something will work out. Next Thursday we plan to start heading up the coastline, spending a night somewhere mid-way up and then making our way back to Zagreb in time to fly back on Saturday. We'll post photos when we return! Thanks again for your prayers for us - please pray that the retreat can give the spiritual nouishment I'm longing for & the trip can be the mental & physical break we both need.

Grandma & Grandpa Stave came to visit!

Hi! This is Ieva writing. I wanted to tell you all about my Grandma & Grandpa Stave coming to visit me!! They left this morning to fly in an airplane to go home to Oregon. I'll fly in an airplane to see them in Oregon later this summer.

We had soooo much fun together here at my house in Klaipeda! We read lots of books together -- my favorite is "Drummer Hoff fired it off...KABABLOOM!!" we played with my toys, talked about letters and words, I got really good at my alphabet because we practiced a lot, we danced and sang and cooked and Grandma let me try wearing big girl underwear but I kept going pee-pee in them so I stayed in my pull-ups most of the time.Yesterday we went to Palanga to eat kepta duona (that's fried bread with melted cheese) at the big HBH restaurant where there's a play area for kids. Grandma & Grandpa went to the Amber museum with Keith & Casey and some students and then walked around in the rain. After my nap when Mommy & Daddy & I came to get them, they were really wet! It was great having so much time with Grandma & Grandpa and I can't wait to see them again this summer!

Valentines Girl

This Valentines Day, Andrew had 2 very appreciative recipients of his floral gifts! This was the first year that Ieva was really old enough to grasp the concept of this special day of love. She & her babysitter made us a card & the word LOVE in Lithuanian (MYLIU) in playdough letters for us to find when we came home from work. Ieva loved that she got a special rose that was all her own & I loved my gorgeous red & white tulips! We're thankful to have such a great daddy/hubby to take care of us!

daug myliu (lots of love)


We've also had a good bout of snow in the past couple of days, so Ieva & her Daddy made a mini snowman on our balcony wall!

Ieva's first balcony snowman was a success!


Such a happy valentine!

Fabulous Florida

Kim's trip to Florida was a fantastic one! The Institute on College Student Values was a very insightful and educational conference experience. We were happily surprised to discover ACSD colleagues from Taylor University there, including past LCC Study Abroad student Kyle who is now in Taylor's master of higher education program. It was also exciting to see Arthur Chickering, a very well-known researcher and author in Higher Education as he was there with his wife. The topic of the conference was creating moral conversations and it was very interesting to see how diverse the spectrum of morality could span. Casey & I presented on the topic of developing programming to foster moral development in college students using LCC as a primary example, and in general it went very well. We also had fun wandering around Florida State University's campus where the conference was held.The 2nd half of our trip was spent in St. Petersburg with past LCC colleagues Tim & Barb Wolter and their kids. It was wonderfully refreshing to spend time with the Wolters, visit the Christian school where the kids go & where Tim teaches, visit the different campuses of St. Petersburg College where Barb works and attend their church, Living Hope Community Church of Pinellas. We were blessed with great weather, and lots of challenging, encouraging & enriching conversations!American Cheeseburgers & IBC Rootbeer with Barb - yum!

Kim's going to Florida!

Please pray for us as Andrew & Ieva stay here in Klaipeda for the next week & as I travel to Florida to present at the Institute of College Student Values. To read about the institute or see the abstract of our workshop, click here. I'm excited to present in a new venue, as I've never attended this conference before. We're also hoping to make some good recruitment connections for LCC.

As much as I'm excited to get some Florida sun in the middle of a cold, dark Lithuanian winter (and to gain professional experience), I'm not excited about leaving my precious family here. Thankfully I'm traveling with our colleague & friend, Casey, so I'm not making all the bus, taxi & rental car rides or flights alone. But Andrew will be back here flying solo with Ieva.

Thanks for your prayers for babysitting. We still don't have a full-time person, but have found 2 students who are giving significant hours of their week to Ieva. One is here for a bit every day & the other is here every M-W-F afternoon. 3 other girls fill in the rest of the gaps. We're so thankful & hope it continues to work out (and that Ieva remains flexible).

I'll write more when I'm back in Lithuania again!
Sunshine, here I come!!

An Oregon Angel

Thanks to so many of you who have prayed us through our recent difficulties with the miscarriage. God has truly healed our family & is daily opening our eyes to what He has in store for our future!

The support & prayer we recieve from so many faithful friends & family makes our ministry here in Lithuania so much more meaningful! Ačiu Labai! (Thank You in Lithuanian)

We thought you'd enjoy some recent photos of our joyful Oregon Angel! Ieva loves to wear her ballerina skirt & shoes and her angel wings & halo and then dance to music like a "dancing princess" (her words - not ours)!

Her Daddy is her biggest fan!

A rough start to the new year...

It's with great saddness that we share our most recent family news with you. On January 3rd when we went to my doctor for my (nearly) 3-month pregnancy check-up (I was at 11 weeks), the doctor discovered that we had lost our baby. From the ultrasound the size of the fetus showed that it stopped developing somewhere around it's 6th or 7th week...somewhere around the 1st week of December. For some reason, my body hadn't given me any indication that the baby wasn't alive & I still very much felt as if I were pregnant.

Because of that, the news came as quite a shock to us. We spent the next few days reeling & processing with family over skype. Telling Ieva was difficult - probably one of the most difficult, yet tender moments we've had together in our small family. Since her favorite line to proclaim to everyone has been "Ieva's a big sister!!" we explained that the baby in mama's tummy isn't there anymore, but instead is in heaven with Jesus. She looked into our tear-filled eyes & asked sincerely "Ieva big sister??" "No..." we told her. "Not now. But you will be later." In the days to follow her new line has become: "Mama & Daddy so sad...baby in heaven with Jesus...Ieva big sister later." It's pretty precious what our two-year old is able to come up with, and this loss makes us love & appreciate her all the more.

This past Tuesday we went to Vilnius so I could have the D&C procedure done at the Baltic American Clinic. We continue to be extremely impressed with the care & skill used there, which is what keeps us driving the 3.5 hours when we have major medical needs. The same doctor who delivered Ieva did my procedure & was very caring during the entire experience. She gave me a good report after it was all done & we were on our way 5 hours after coming in! I was pretty nervous about my recovery...how painful it all might be, how long it would take to feel normal again, how I might feel emotionally...but it really has gone amazingly well!

We've received loads of encouraging emails & phone calls from friends & family, all ensuring us that they have been & continue to pray for us. And we are convinced that it's only through those faithful prayers that my recovery has gone so smoothly. Physically I feel pretty good & emotionally I am in much better shape than I anticipated being (and than I was last week). Truly, we praise the Lord for this!! He has shown Himself faithful to us once again through this difficult process and is even beginining to open my eyes to some of the reasons why He may have allowed us to experience this loss.

So for now, we will continue to covet your prayers as we readjust our plans for the future and settle back into a new semester of work at LCC. If you could also add the loss of our nanny to your prayers, we'd be thankful. I'm currently writing on Friday evening & we're scheduled to both be at work full-time starting Monday and don't have a replacement nanny lined up yet. We've got a few phone calls to make over the weekend & are trusting that God will continue to show us His faithfulness to our family has He has so many times before. Thanks for joining us in praying for this crucial need.

And thanks again family, friends & faithful blog-readers, for supporting our life & ministry here in Lithuania is so many ways!! We truly could not be here, doing what we're doing, without you. Labai Ačiu.

Happy 2008!

Here in Lithuania, the New Year is welcomed with celebrations & fireworks equivalent to our American 4th of July. Evey city does a massive fireworks show, but many pedestrians do shows of theirs own that still offer quite a lot of pizazz!!

We started our evening with dinner at our friends home - Gregg & Sharon Brubaker & their boys, Erik & Augenijus (who are Ieva's good friends). Around 9 we took Ieva home to put her to bed and around 10 our friend Chad came over. We played games until 11:45 and then went out on the balcony to see what we could see in the sky. It's days like this that we are SO thankful to have a balcony (many people don't)!! We lit sparklers & waved them around while watching at least 8 different firework displays going off in all directions around us. It was extraordinarily loud (but amazingly quiet in Ieva's room - it didn't phase here a bit!) and extraordinarily beautiful. I really think the States needs to adopt this tradition of fireworks on New Year's Eve. What an explosively colorful way to start the new year!

Happy 2008 to all of you! We wish you a year full of God's unexpected & fabulous surprises!

Our BIG news!!

For those of you who haven't heard yet, our family will be expanding next July! Here's how we told our family last week:



So...Merry early Christmas to you all!

Ieva's first Christmas Performance

Yesterday our church, International Christian Fellowship, had it's first children's Christmas program (largely because it's the first year we've had more than 1 kid in the congregation)! We did a 'Living Nativity' with our co-pastor Becky narrating and different members of the congregation coming to the stage dressed as different characters of the nativity. The kids, of course, were the main event - and the only members of the cast who had any speaking parts or solos.

The first to go on stage were our 3 angels: 7 year-old Alexandra & Sarina and our Ieva. I had made her a white, fluffy tutu just for the event (if any of you want to know how to make them, I found the EASIEST idea online!!) and Becky found glittery halos & real feather wings that all 3 wore. Ieva was so excited to be an angel with the big girls! And she did a great job. All they had to do was stand up front for the 15 or 20 minutes of the program, but seeing as how Ieva is very much 2 and has never been on stage like this, we weren't sure how she'd do. She stood next to the big girls the entire time & aside from starting to flip her lip over & over with her finger (you know, making that "brrrub, brrrub, brrrub" sound), she did a great job. Anytime Alexandra took the program to read or sing something, Ieva had to pick one up & look at it, too. It was too cute!!

Our friends Andrew & Alene were Mary & Joseph with their 1 year-old daughter Charlotte as baby Jesus. At one point Ieva walked over to them and tried to put her halo first on Charlotte, then on Alene. It was hilarious. Sarina's 3 year-old brother Ezra was the only shepherd in the show. LCC's president Jim was (very appropriately) one of the wise men, along with 2 other faculty members Dan & John.

All in all it was a great time of telling the story of Jesus' birth in a way that made it come to life for the kids! And we think Ieva did a stunning job in her first on-stage performance.

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.