Gettin' Chilly and Headin' South

Michelin Mama Longs for a Wood Stove

It's starting to get cold here and I'm wearing so many layers, I'm starting to look like the Michelin Man! I know you're glad I don't have a picture to share!! Even as I sit here writing, I am wearing four layers!

The houses in Prilep have no heat built in; most homes heat with wood stoves. Even at the kids' school, each schoolroom has a little wood stove and throughout the day they throw in logs to keep the room toasty.

If you look behind Daniel you can see the stove in the corner.

We bought electric heaters (convection) for our house. Since Kyle has been travelling so much we thought it'd be better if I didn't have to worry about chopping wood and starting the fire each day. However, after our last electric bill, we are now reconsidering! Even wearing my four layers, I'm still cool and as I said, it's only STARTING to get cold!! As it is, we keep all doors to all rooms shut, hoping to keep in what warm air we have while trying to shut out the cold air. Walking out into the hallway or stairwell is pretty chilly! Many Macedonian families all sleep in one room (usually the living room) in the winter, so only one room has to be heated; we're considering that option too!

Last night we were visiting some new friends and their living room was so cozy that we are now very tempted to get a wood stove. I may have become a master wood-chopper and fire-starter by the next time you see me!

Christmas Party

Wednesday nights we hold conversational English classes as a way to meet the people of Prilep. As a result, our Arkansas volunteers were invited to visit some students' homes, some students joined the guys for football on Thanksgiving day, and some have come to our house for coffee. This Wednesday night will be the last class for the semester – except it will be a party instead of class and it will be at our ministry center. You may remember that our Arkansas volunteers helped paint it. We now have carpets, couches and curtains – and a Christmas tree! We'll have some of our Macedonian Christian books to give some away to our guests.

We will have another grand opening in January, when things get going again after the holidays, and we'll have regular gatherings in the ministry center (or cafe or reading room!).

We are so excited to get things started with the center. Our teammates Jeff & Amy Williams have really put a lot of time and effort into it! Thank you to all of you who have contributed to our center! We'd love to have you stop in for some coffee!!!

Christmas in Kenya

Kyle's parents, Cherry & Vance, have graciously invited us to Kenya for Christmas. We will be leaving Friday and will go first to visit Kyle's sister, Cara, and her family who are serving in Tanzania. We have never been to Cara's home so this will be special treat for all of us. Cara says it is “hot, hot, hot!“ there so I'll be shedding some layers before we leave!

Rebekah will turn 12 years old while we're there and is going to her very first MK (missionary kid) retreat and even though she's a European MK who'll stand out among African MKs, she is so excited to be going with her cousins Caitlynn and Laurynn!

We'll be in Tanzania for a week and then go to Kenya for the rest of our visit. We'll actually celebrate Christmas after the New Year when we're all together.

I'll do my best to update the blog from Kenya. Email seems to work well enough but we'll see how reliable the internet service is; I promise to write it all up offline and at least try to upload it!

Thanksgiving comes to Prilep

Thanksgiving Thursday
We had a great Thanksgiving – we celebrated twice: on Thanksgiving Day with eight Macedonian guests and again on Saturday with our team. Our Macedonian guests only knew of Thanksgiving from movies, so we enjoyed introducing them to dressing, green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole. (I know the pic looks like we didn't feed them, but we forgot to take the pic until after we had cleared everything!!) They seemed to like it all but especially liked the sweet potato casserole – which, truth be known, I make with pumpkin since sweet potatoes aren't grown here. Anyway, they loved the faux sweet potato casserole but they all took a bite or two, then saved it for dessert with their coffee!! But they liked it enough to have seconds, thirds and maybe even fourths (we sat around talking a while!).

We also carried on our tradition of giving everyone a slip of paper with „I am thankful to God for ...“ and asking them to finish it. Then between the meal and dessert, we draw them from a basket, read them aloud and try to guess who wrote what. It's a lot of fun and they seemed to enjoy it too.

Thanksgiving Saturday
On Saturday our friends from the town of Ohrid: Brian & Mandy and Baby Kate Davis, and of course, Jeff & Amy Williams from here in Prilep came too. At the last minute, Lee Bradley and teammate Brandon (sorry, can't remember his last name) from Albania were passing through town and came to the celebration too!

Prilep's First Football Game
In the morning while the ladies shuffled around the kitchen making ourselves busy, the guys and kids went out to play football. Four Macedonians played: Borce (from English classes), Gabriel (from the Sunday Bible study) and another Borce (the landlord for our ministry center) and his 10-year old son Ivan. Borce and his wife and Ivan had been to our house for Thanksgiving dinner.


They played on a field where teams often practice soccer and Saturday morning they had quite an audience as you can see in the picture above. It was very muddy and there was lots of slipping and sliding, followed by lots of sore muscles!! It was great fun and a tradition that can't be left out!



Our Team Thanksgiving in Prilep

After football, the muddy guys returned to clean themselves up before the meal. Then the feast began – and went on and on and on! I must admit that there was at least one advantage to Kyle's many travels this past month: he was able to buy a Butterball turkey and bring it home! Macedonian turkeys are typically about 9 lbs. max; this one was a good 20 lbs!!!




The food was fantastic and the company was as close to family as we could possibly get, so it was a special time for all of us! Unfortunately, if we harp on the „family“ analogy, Kyle and I are the grandparents, so we'll just move on now!


Pin the Beak
After dinner we played „Pin the Beak on the Turkey“ which Rebekah had graciously designed for us. Brian from Ohrid won, but Josh and Mandy tied for an extremely close second place. And as you can see, Kate did pretty well too, but she didn't wear the blindfold!






Thanksgiving Sunday
Our Macedonian friends really enjoyed trying out football so Sunday night we invited them over to watch a REAL football game on TV (it was Giants vs. Redskins), giving us the chance to explain the rules better. By half-time, Borce (#1) began planning out how we can start an American football league here in Prilep! Though there is currently nothing that we know of here in Macedonia, there are two leagues in Serbia, and I'm reading John Grisham's book right now about football in Italy, so who knows?! Of course, though it'd take a lot of organizing, football would be fun -- but if it does happen, we're hoping it will be key to reaching a whole segment of men and their families for Christ. Pray that if this is part of God's plan for Prilep, we would know how to pursue it.

All in all it was a fabulous holiday weekend. It seems that we have made huge bounds in deepening some friendships with a few here in Prilep, and that is beginning to feel nice!

Arkansas Vols and Harmonicas

I know it's a shock, but here we are again, blogging!!! We had our first snow here yesterday. It was pretty, but the ground wasn't cool enough for it to stick. We've had lots of problems with the electricity in the house and we blew the fuse several times yesterday – ugghh. Please pray that this winter we'll be able to stay warm without blowing fuses – and pray that we'll live wisely by dressing more warmly even just around the house!

Our volunteers from Indian Springs Baptist Church left last night and are now on their way home. We had a great week with them prayer walking, cleaning and painting our new ministry center, and brainstorming the possibilities of future projects with them. We also used them as bait (they said they didn't mind!) to get into homes of some of our students from English class. Of course the team was curious about how Macedonians live and this was a chance to move our relationships to a deeper level, out of the classroom and into homes! We are so thankful for the spiritual soil that was cleared and for the seeds that were planted, and we look forward to the harvest that He has promised to give when we are faithful to his plans! Pray with us for these seeds to sprout!

One of the volunteers gave our children harmonicas! For a brief moment I was thrilled, recalling the sweet tunes I heard as a child from Mr. David Campbell of FBC, Baton Rouge, as he played his harmonica! I can still see him now: tall and slim, wearing a suit and bow tie (though I'm not sure if the bow tie is real, or something I've added in my imagination!). I especially remember him playing Christmas carols, and now my children . . . Oh my! My children, even with bow ties, are a far cry from Mr. David!!!

Anyway, Russell (the volunteer who gave the harmonicas) graciously also gave them the notes to one song, and I have to say, I may need to buy three bow ties, because before I know it, they could become harmonica stars!!! I have a video of the children playing their song the day after they got them. Please listen and be impressed – see if you recognize the song! I am amazed and so proud to say that I think you will!!!



Here's a teaser for what I plan to tell you about on the next update: Malta

Back up and running???

For quite some time now I have struggled with how to start back up with this blog after so long. I have tried to come up with something clever, but it's just not coming! Suffice it to say that we somehow got caught in the blog bog, but have finally stumbled out. Here's to not getting lost again!

We spent the summer in the States on furlough. We loved being with family, like in this pic with Rainey (Jackie's mom) and the cousins (Nancy's kids). This was a much shorter trip than we've made in the past, but with the children getting older, we must now work around the school year.

One week before we arrived in the States, my 22-year-old niece Kate Crews was in a car accident. I am so thankful to God that he graciously worked it all out so that I could go to the States. Through the years, the most difficult part of living so far from family is knowing if and when we should go to the States when crisis hit. This time was by far the biggest crisis and we already had tickets in hand. Our time in the States was short, but we're so glad we could be there. Kate was in a coma the entire time we were there but has now come a long way in a rehab hospital in Atlanta.

Kate is living with my sister Janne and Kate's younger sister Sarah and she's now in an out-patient program. (Kate's dad, Charlie, is a pastor and is still in Louisiana but visits Atlanta often.) Kate sometimes has therapy with Fitz the Doberman, as you can see in the pic. Kate speaks slowly and with effort, but keeps a good attitude and even makes jokes. She is also working hard to get her left arm and leg to work. She can walk in therapy but still uses a wheelchair to get around. We are amazed and so thankful to God for the miracles that come with each new day. Please pray for her continued improvement and for her to be encouraged with her own progress. She has begun to realize all that she cannot do. Pray also for Janne to lean on Christ daily for strength.


Since returning to Macedonia. the biggest news is that we returned to a new home – in a new city! We are now living in Prilep, which is in central Macedonia. Prilep (which you can see behind us in the pic) is a much smaller town than the capital Skopje, where we lived for just over 11 years. There is no evangelical church in this town of 70,000. The decision to move was very difficult but we are now convinced that this is where God wants us. We're pretty much settled in and the children seem to be adjusting well. They have friends, though none of them have found a best friend yet. Please pray for Rebekah, Joshua and Daniel to shine brightly for Christ. We'll share more details about their adjustments soon. Pray also for Kyle and me as we meet people. Pray that we would be lovingly bold from the very beginning, not missing any opportunity to tell of the wondrous salvation that comes through Christ. Pray for our passion for the people; Kyle has been travelling a lot and I've been distracted with survival in a new town! Thank you, Lord, that Kyle won't be travelling much in November!

We have a volunteer team here from Indian Springs Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. The pastor of the church, Tom Williams, is the father of our teammate here in Prilep, Jeff Williams. Tom and three other men from the church are here on a vision trip to get a feel for the town and how their church will be able to help us in reaching the people of Prilep in the future. We are so excited they are here and look forward to a partnership with them. They will be prayer-walking and also helping us get our Education Center ready for opening. We have rented a place near the center of town where we hope to hold English classes, as well as using it to make Christian literature available and as a meeting place for teaching the Bible. It needs a good cleaning and painting and the team will help with that. Tomorrow and Tuesday they will also be visiting in the homes of some of our English students. Pray that they will have the opportunity to boldly share their faith, and pray that the students' hearts will be ready to receive the Word as it is sown.

I think this is enough for now. I don't want to overwhelm you with too much after so long! I'll give more details and pics about Prilep and more soon; we'll catch you up little by little! Thank you for your continued faithfulness to our family and to the people of Macedonia. We know of two believers here, Riste and his son, Gabriel; they are meeting weekly with Jeff and Amy for Bible study. Pray that the body of Christ will have an enormous growth spurt in Prilep!!!