Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
Happy Thanksgiving to all! Lycia is awesome! She has been cooking since morning! Sam and a friend are on their way here now from Hungary and we are having some of the belivers over for dinner tonight. All is lovely today except that you can't all be here as well. Many blessings to you all today! I am thankful for you all! Here is an update I did a few days ago but just now had internet to post it!
_____________
KEK: Korporata Energjetike e Kosovës-Kosovo’s Energy Corperation
KEK givith and KEK takith away but blessed be the name of the Lord. Ha! It occurred to me last Friday night when Randy was asking for prayer requests that I need to learn to Rejoice in the Lord always.
“Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!” Philipians 4:4
Every time the power comes on after being off for a while you can hear “HALLELUJA!!!” all over the apartment. But either way we trust in the power of God and be thankful that we have KEK’s power at all right? Of course right!
We had our first snowfall today. The snow is such a beautiful thing to behold! Worth the cold I think :o) Right when I woke up this morning Hana came in and immediately pulled me to the door and out on our balcony(brrrrr!), threw her arms wide and said, “Jenna! Look! Borë (snow)! Sa bukur (how beautiful)!” Apparently she had woken to other girls an hour before, to their dismay, to show them the snow too! Ha!
The girls stay with me in the girl’s bunk room every Friday night which would be kinda like a slumber party IF they actually slept! Which they really don’t. We all stay up pretty late and some just stay up hanging out, chatting, playing the guitar or uno. It reminds me how blessed we are to have fellowship with one another. For some of the believers it is the only time they see another Christian all week. Do not forsake the assembling of the brethren…that’d be a command not a suggestion and yet how often we get lazy to go to church or a bible study. And yet here fellowship means so much…as it should be I think.
Here is a picture of the group with the “little pile o’ puppies” as Randy called them in the middle of the floor.
Lycia found this great object lesion idea where you get a tray of random stuff from around the house and then challenge the group is to pick something then use it explain how they came to know the Lord. When I saw the hot pad/glove C.S. Lewis’ analogy came to mind of how a glove is useless without the hand inside and how silly it would be for a glove to take credit for what the hand has done. Us: Glove Hand:God. Xhëmile used a sheet protector to illustrate how we are protected in God. Lycia used the heater remote to explain how cold her life was before Christ and Labi tok apart a pen and made the analogy that as the body of Christ we are all the parts of a pen but can do nothing unless joined together. Even little Besnik took the masking tape and said something to the effect of, “Well this is used to fix things that are broken and God fixed us.”
I got to se Randy & Lycia’s house the other day and it is so exciting to see what was just drawn out plans becoming a reality. Speaking of which here are pics of the house. The slanted wall in the front is going to be all windows and much or their designs are based on creating passive heating. Using the sun, insulating against the cold ground, earth tubs for interior fresh air that is kept at a constant temp. Much of what they are doing is way different than what we even know in the states.
Also Randy’s meister (construction guys helping to build the house) came to church today! Yippie! Lavdi zoti! (Praise the Lord) We were in the minor prophets today for a bible class that a neighboring missionary taught. I am amazed at the amount of the gospel in the minor prophets! Meister Kujtim (qui-teem) stayed for the whole thing which was 3 hours long! On break it was cool to overhead Lycia talking to him about the Lord. Partly because what she was saying and that he was listening and partly because I could understand her! Whoo hooo!!! The poor guy if he hasn’t pulled out all his hair from dealing with Randy’s non-traditional (“dramatic intake of breath” Oh no! Different?! Different is bad!) ways of building he may just become a Christian yet. Ha!
More pics just for fun…
Future rock stars!
For those of you who know Anthony…Or Anton as he is called here.
Teaching at the Fajronikel factory (Fair-nickle)
Perfecting his juggling skills. He just learned from Randy.
What a great guy-bringing me breakfast when I missed it while working with the kids this morning… Oh bless him! Even went out in the snow for it!
As to my living situation I am leaning more towards getting my own place as I am praying so I would love your prayes on all of that.
As to teaching, my schedule is pretty set now. I will be working in Malisheve two days and Drenas two days a week filling in the administrative and ministry stuff around that. Drenas is about to expand to 2 more days which may include a kids only class (7-9 year olds) which will be new for us. Yaye! I love teaching kids! I just started teaching this week and it has been WONDERFUL to be back in the classroom! Some of the students I had before but most are new.
Again thank you all for keeping up on my sometimes mundane updates. It make it feel like you all are here with me!
Praise Him for
Provision-Electricity and ok even KEK.
Language- I am learning new words every day. PTL for retention!
Relationships-Good or bad, happy or sad, praise God for the connections He gives us to keep, maintain (no matter how challenging) and ultimately enjoy in Him.
Prayer for…
Church-Strength and boldness to walk according to what we already know
Schools-For us to be a witness by our ways
Administrative stuff-Organizing our records, materials and methods
Living-Apartment, R&L house, Kujtim’s salvation
Intern-where ever you are we are praying for you!
Land-yet another…”Uh you’ll have it in a month.” statement has been made by the powers that be to Rabishe’s family. Oh Lord help!
KEK givith and KEK takith away but blessed be the name of the Lord. Ha! It occurred to me last Friday night when Randy was asking for prayer requests that I need to learn to Rejoice in the Lord always.
“Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!” Philipians 4:4
Every time the power comes on after being off for a while you can hear “HALLELUJA!!!” all over the apartment. But either way we trust in the power of God and be thankful that we have KEK’s power at all right? Of course right!
We had our first snowfall today. The snow is such a beautiful thing to behold! Worth the cold I think :o) Right when I woke up this morning Hana came in and immediately pulled me to the door and out on our balcony(brrrrr!), threw her arms wide and said, “Jenna! Look! Borë (snow)! Sa bukur (how beautiful)!” Apparently she had woken to other girls an hour before, to their dismay, to show them the snow too! Ha!
The girls stay with me in the girl’s bunk room every Friday night which would be kinda like a slumber party IF they actually slept! Which they really don’t. We all stay up pretty late and some just stay up hanging out, chatting, playing the guitar or uno. It reminds me how blessed we are to have fellowship with one another. For some of the believers it is the only time they see another Christian all week. Do not forsake the assembling of the brethren…that’d be a command not a suggestion and yet how often we get lazy to go to church or a bible study. And yet here fellowship means so much…as it should be I think.
Here is a picture of the group with the “little pile o’ puppies” as Randy called them in the middle of the floor.
Lycia found this great object lesion idea where you get a tray of random stuff from around the house and then challenge the group is to pick something then use it explain how they came to know the Lord. When I saw the hot pad/glove C.S. Lewis’ analogy came to mind of how a glove is useless without the hand inside and how silly it would be for a glove to take credit for what the hand has done. Us: Glove Hand:God. Xhëmile used a sheet protector to illustrate how we are protected in God. Lycia used the heater remote to explain how cold her life was before Christ and Labi tok apart a pen and made the analogy that as the body of Christ we are all the parts of a pen but can do nothing unless joined together. Even little Besnik took the masking tape and said something to the effect of, “Well this is used to fix things that are broken and God fixed us.”
I got to se Randy & Lycia’s house the other day and it is so exciting to see what was just drawn out plans becoming a reality. Speaking of which here are pics of the house. The slanted wall in the front is going to be all windows and much or their designs are based on creating passive heating. Using the sun, insulating against the cold ground, earth tubs for interior fresh air that is kept at a constant temp. Much of what they are doing is way different than what we even know in the states.
Also Randy’s meister (construction guys helping to build the house) came to church today! Yippie! Lavdi zoti! (Praise the Lord) We were in the minor prophets today for a bible class that a neighboring missionary taught. I am amazed at the amount of the gospel in the minor prophets! Meister Kujtim (qui-teem) stayed for the whole thing which was 3 hours long! On break it was cool to overhead Lycia talking to him about the Lord. Partly because what she was saying and that he was listening and partly because I could understand her! Whoo hooo!!! The poor guy if he hasn’t pulled out all his hair from dealing with Randy’s non-traditional (“dramatic intake of breath” Oh no! Different?! Different is bad!) ways of building he may just become a Christian yet. Ha!
More pics just for fun…
Future rock stars!
For those of you who know Anthony…Or Anton as he is called here.
Teaching at the Fajronikel factory (Fair-nickle)
Perfecting his juggling skills. He just learned from Randy.
What a great guy-bringing me breakfast when I missed it while working with the kids this morning… Oh bless him! Even went out in the snow for it!
As to my living situation I am leaning more towards getting my own place as I am praying so I would love your prayes on all of that.
As to teaching, my schedule is pretty set now. I will be working in Malisheve two days and Drenas two days a week filling in the administrative and ministry stuff around that. Drenas is about to expand to 2 more days which may include a kids only class (7-9 year olds) which will be new for us. Yaye! I love teaching kids! I just started teaching this week and it has been WONDERFUL to be back in the classroom! Some of the students I had before but most are new.
Again thank you all for keeping up on my sometimes mundane updates. It make it feel like you all are here with me!
Praise Him for
Provision-Electricity and ok even KEK.
Language- I am learning new words every day. PTL for retention!
Relationships-Good or bad, happy or sad, praise God for the connections He gives us to keep, maintain (no matter how challenging) and ultimately enjoy in Him.
Prayer for…
Church-Strength and boldness to walk according to what we already know
Schools-For us to be a witness by our ways
Administrative stuff-Organizing our records, materials and methods
Living-Apartment, R&L house, Kujtim’s salvation
Intern-where ever you are we are praying for you!
Land-yet another…”Uh you’ll have it in a month.” statement has been made by the powers that be to Rabishe’s family. Oh Lord help!
Comments
happy turkey day my B5.
xoxo - beth
Sure looks COLD there! Randy and Lycia look GREAT,
Your looking pretty fantastically happy your self!
Blessings and prayers,
Love LizO