Kafich Update 2

Things are progressing with the kafich, but as we close in on legalities, we lost a little ground ... literally. The place that we had sized up and researched for our kafich was just rented out. Today I went by to look at the place with Mandy and low and behold there were computers set up in our spot? We had talked to the owner of the shop and told him that we were looking at an opening date of April 1st. It was a good conversation that ended with "we are interested and we will get back in touch." However, I guess when someone walks in and says "I'll take it" previous open ended conversations go out the door. I can't blame the man for doing so, so it looks like we will be trying to find a new place. Fortunately we have 2 more that we were considering, but we will wait for the legal side to straighten out.
As for the legal side, we are still praying and debating the best way to approach the kafich. Will it be a business or a not-for-profit? At the moment it looks like we (The supporting church in Skopje, Kyle, Mandy, and myself) are going to try the not-for-profit route for at least and year and see if that works. We are a week or two away from confirming all of this, but it looks like sure bet. Now Mandy and I have to hit the streets again to see if we can choose the next best place!!! Please pray for us as we still continue in this pursuit.

One Year Down

March 7th commemorated our one year anniversary on Macedonian soil. It has been a great and exciting year, and we have learned a lot!!! Here are just a few of the things that have been imbedded into our brains this last year and a few things the Lord is still trying to teach us:

Rest can only come in the Lord. Family and friends are awesome and they are truly a gift from above, but ONLY the Lord can satisfy our every need.

IMA VREME!!! It means “there is time,” and while that makes no sense to most Americans, it is the resounding theme here in our town and we have grown to love it.

Southerners know nothing of real hospitality. Sorry guys. The Macedonians have got them beat hands down. There are always drinks and food and a welcome living room to gather for a chat which means, always have food and drinks on hand and a clean living room because you never know when someone is going to ring the doorbell to invite themselves in for coffee.

It takes more than a year to learn a foreign language. We thought this language thing was going to be the easiest thing we had in front of us.. how naive!!! We are still learning, and are told we have several more years of it. Fun times.

Email, skype, msn messenger: gifts from the Lord!!!

A note in your mailbox that says you have a package at the post office can turn an awful day around instantly!!!

There is NOTHING too hard for the Lord!!!! And He brings the harvest.

One day without time spent alone with the Lord is like one day without water and food. We can’t survive without Him!

Trees, walls, sidewalks, are all perfectly good public restrooms. I know you didn’t care to know that, try seeing it. :0)

There is no such thing as too much Turkish Coffee, not for a Macedonian that is

Just saying ‘yes’ and ‘good’ when you have no idea what is going on can get you a long ways.

Everyone (even 12 year old girls) has a home remedy for pregnancy woes.

Life is fantastic on this side of the big blue pond, and the grace of the Lord is sufficient for all of our needs!

And Then There Were... 3

Yep! The Lord decided now would be a wonderful time to bless us with a baby. We are 6 1/2 weeks pregnant! WOW!!! We were very surprised, but are very excited. We would really appreciate your prayers during these next 8 months. Pray that we will have a safe and healthy pregnancy. Pray, as the Lord molds and forms the innermost parts of our little one, that we will enjoy every moment of the pregnancy and that we will count every bit of nausea, dizziness and then into feet swelling and kicking in the middle of the night as pure joy and give our Lord all the glory for it all. Also please pray that we will make a wise and informed decision about where to have the baby. We think we have 3 different choices but there are questions for each place. We have a little time to make this big decision, but do pray that it will be the right one.

Thanks for praying and celebrating with us!!!

We love y'all!!!

Kafich Update

We may have found a place to open the kafich. It is right off the main street in town, and would provide a perfect location. The rent is affordable, and that is a huge answer to prayer. Thank you so much for praying!!! Pray that this works out and that we will we will be able to clear everything legally. We'll keep you updated.

Team Meeting

We just finished up three days of team meetings. The whole team came down Sunday evening and we had a great time of prayer, discussion, encouragement, not to mention board games to top off every night. It was a blast!!! We have just entered 40 days of prayer and fasting (no worries the pregnant lady is still chowing down). Every week we are taking special time to focus in on one thing. This week we are praying for our IMB leadership teams. These man have their hands full with travel, ministry and their own families. Please pray especially for them this week and stay tuned to the blog for updates on prayer.

Here is a picture of our team with our beautiful city in the background. The two on the far right are our newest friends. They are hanging out in Skopje for awhile. Pray for them as they adjust to the culture and language.

Kafich; Cafe; Cafe Bar; Starbucks Wannabee...

Whatever you want to call it, we have are getting ready to open a cafe here in Ohrid. We have a long way to go, since we have not even found a place yet, but we believe that the Lord is leading us to do this and we believe it will be. We have asked you to pray about this, but we haven't given you much explanation. Well, that is about to change.

Explanation 1: Macedonians love to drink coffee and sit for hours chatting with their friends. When you sit down to have coffee with someone, you'd better be prepared to sit for a while. We love this part of our new culture, and we find that sitting for hours talking to one person always leaves room for sharing the love of Christ.

Explanation 2: Just about around every corner in our beautiful city there is a kafich (the Macedonian word for cafe bar). They are always full to the brim throughout the summer and maintain a good flow of people during the winter months. This is the hangout for teenagers, parents of young children, middle-aged people and old people. There is no age limit for hanging out at the cafe bars. It is a wonderful place to get to know people of all ages and walks of life.

Explanation 3: There is no place of evangelistic outreach in this city other than our home. We love to open our home and do so daily. But as we begin to share more, start more ministires (such as teaching ESL) or have larger Bible studies groups, we need a place to gather them.

Explanation 4: Not only did we feel impressed by the Lord to look into opening a cafe bar here, our SC who lives in Skopje also felt impressed to do so. So much so that he budgeted the money for it this year.

So, as you can see by these four points, this town needs a Christian cafe bar. It needs a place where people can come and hang out and hear the love of Christ. It needs a place where they can have access to Bibles and Christian literature while at the same time getting their daily shot of Turkish coffee.

We have a goal, lofty though it may seem, to have a cafe bar up and running by spring. We have a tremendous amount of work to do, and we need your prayers. We not only have to paint and furnish a place, but we also have to get through the legal side of opening a cafe-bar in our less than second tongue.
So, what can you do to help???

PRAY!!! PRAY!!! PRAY!!!!
Pray for an available, affordable spot. We have limited funds that are to last us all year. But we are so grateful for what the Lord has provoded through you and your gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. You are helping to make this happen! But please pray for an affordable spot, we are having trouble finding that it, and we know it is out there somewhere. Pray that we will find it.

Pray that all will go smooth with the City Hall side of things. Things could get crazy for us just because we are foreigners.

Pray that the Lord will begin to prepare the hearts of the people who will walk through those doors (whoever they may be) to hear the Truth and that many will come to know Him as Lord through this.

The requests could really go on and on, but this is enough for now. Thank you again for praying. We are excited to see what the Lord is going to do through our prayers.

Za Mnogu Godina

Literally translated this means "for many years," but on one special day called Vodnitza, you say this to not only every one you know, but to those people you pass on the street. It is to wish good luck and wellness for many to years to come on the whole city. This day is a huge celebration that begins with the drinking of hot rakia. Rakia is a VERY strong homemade alcohol that flows freely to all on this day. By freely, I mean, when we walked out of our door on that day to go to our landlords to celebrate we could smell the alcohol. The church just up the street from us was giving out free cups to anyone including children, and as we continued to walk we found that restaurants were giving it out for free, shops were giving it for free, coffee houses, and just regular people who had brought their hot keg into town were giving it out for free. This was of great interest to us. Many men and boys ran around in their speedos with a steaming hot cup of rakia and prepared to jump in the lake. "Jump in the lake? In January?" You may be asking. Yes, this is the day they celebrate John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus, and so tradition is that many men jump in the lake (this is not a required thing, and some people think it is crazy, but the whole city comes out to watch the men who do jump). But there is more to it than that; the supreme priest of the city comes to the lake, blesses a small wooden cross, sings some songs in the old language and tosses the cross in the water. The men and boys then jump in the lake to find the cross. Whoever gets it wins good luck for the whole year and also some money and a DVD player. Then the guy who captured the cross in the freezing cold lake walks around town with his buddies collecting money from the whole city and singing at every place he stops. He dropped by our house later that day with his friends. We were in language class, and I had no idea what to do. Maria, our language tutor, said I had to give him lunch, of which I had none, money and chocolates, of which I had none. So we chose not to open the door. It was better to pretend we weren't home than to disappoint him. So here are a few pictures of the festivities. Sorry they aren't very good. My camera batteries were almost dead.
This is the processional bringing in the priest.

This is one guy serving up his homemade rakia.

This is the best shot I could get of the guys in the water. About 100 jumped in, but you can't see them all.

Rock On!!!

Last night, we were inviting to our tutor's boyfriend's heavy metal band concert. She didn't invite anyone else and really wanted us to be there, so we went. The night was quite an experience. We were kind of the big brother and sister on the scene. She quickly introduced us to everyone, and was very excited to show us around. Then she handed me her money, id card and her phone to hold for the evening. We kind of just sat back and watched in amazement as they sang all kinds of heavy metal songs in English. Very funny. Maria stole my camera and was off. She took a ton of pictures and had me take several of her. All in all, we had a very loud, but good time. We are very excited that Maria trusts us and repsects us to this level. She called her mom on our way home who made sure to speak to Brian to confirm we were with her daughter.

Here is Gotze jamming out on the keyboard.


Maria and me hanging out. This is where I sat most of the evening sipping on my juice and Coke.


Brian and Gotze before Gotze's big performance.


Here is the rest of Gotze's band playing their little hearts out. "Off to never never land."

Their Answers

Several of you were curious about the answers the Macedonians gave us to the question of why Jesus came to earth. 99% of the people we talked to could not give us a reason for His incarnation. We did have a few people tell us He came to do good things and heal people. This is not a completely wrong answer, but it does not even come close to fully answering the question of why Christ came.
Thanks for your comments, questions and prayers!!!

Orthodox Christmas

"Isus Se Rodi!!!" "Jesus is born."
"Vistina se rodi" Truly, He is born."

The above is what you say to your neighbors, friends and family on Christmas. One person says the first phrase and the second person responds with "Truly, He is born." Amazing that everyone here says that and celebrates that, and yet a vast minority actually know why He was born--to give life, and to give it abundantly. Although they do not know the truth and hope that Christ brought when he came to earth to pay the penalty for our sins so that we can have a relationship with the Almighty God, they celebrate Him only on that day. We were able to visit with a few families for their Christmas "parties." In one home, we were able to share of the hope that Christ gives us. We were able to share with them that they can have this hope as well. The subject was quickly changed, but we give God the glory that He allowed us to throw a little salt in the conversation.

In the second home we went to, we were able to boldly share some Scripture about why Christ came to this earth. In John 10:10, Jesus says, "I have come that they might have life and have it to the full." We shared this verse and the hope that Christ's coming gives us. "Everyone must choose his own way" was the way the man of the house responded. "Jesus is The only Way!" we responded. He was quiet, then we shared John 14:6 with them where the Lord says, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through me." Here again, the subject was changed very quickly, but praise our Lord and Savior who again enabled us to remember the verses we have memorized in Macedonian to season the conversation with salt!!! He desires a relationship with these families. Pray that we will continue to boldly share the beautiful Truth with them that "He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God." -2 Corinthians 5:21. Give Him all the glory and pray that these men and women, their sons and daughters will come to know the Lord as their Savior.

THANK YOU!!!

Thank you so much to those of you who have given to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering this past month. We are ever so grateful for your financial support. You have allowed more than 5200 missionaries and their families to remain on the field and you have sent more into the world! Many lives will be changed eternally because of your gifts! WOW!! God is doing amazing things through you, your willingness to give and your willingness to pray! Thank You!!

Successful

So the party went off without a hitch except the fact that by the end of the night I felt like I had just worked a 12 hour shift at Applebees. I was the greeter, the cook and the waitress. In this culture, the woman does it all, which is ok except when there are 30 people roaming in and out of your house. All the same, it went great, and almost everyone came. We gave everyone a gift bag full of cookies and offered them a book entitled "Jesus our Destiny." Only a few of them took the book, but we were able to have a few conversations regarding spiritual things throughout the evening. Thanks so much for your prayers!!! Continue to pray for those who took a copy of the book. Pray that they will actually read it and seek to know more. Here are some pictures of the night. Oh yeah, Dedo Mraz (Santa Claus) stopped by for a few minutes bearing gifts of food and drink. He then decided he was too hot in his outfit to remain, so he returned to the hallway and came back as our friend Alexander (from the photo shop).

Ohrid Decked in Christmas Lights

Ohrid has begun to twinkle in the past few days. Lights are going up all over the place. You may be thinking, it is a little late to start putting up lights, but don't forget, Macedonians celebrate Christmas on January 7th. They have a couple more weeks to prepare for their holiday. Our favorite new sight are the skinny Santas that sit outside the photo shop in the center of town. We just want to stuff a pillow in that suit with them... or feed them some cookies or something. Santa is just not supposed to be skinny, I don't care what Dr. Atkins says.




Christmas is, however, not the biggest deal around here... not yet at least. Right now everyone is gearing up for New Year's. Evidently they know how to ring in the New Year with style. And most of the signs we have seen that would probably say Merry Christmas in America, say Crekna Nova Godina (Happy New Year) instead. We have heard the Christmas tree called the New Year's tree by several people and have realized that we don't have anything to wear out for the evening of New Year's because "you must dress like you are going to the prom." Personally I would rather ring in the New Year in my pj's, but for the Macedonians...





And for anything you may ever need for decorating your home for the holiday season visit the outdoor market. This has been a really fun place to visit to learn some new Christmas words and practice our language. And you can find anything from Christmas cards to sparklers, Santa hats to scary masks (not real sure what that's about yet).

Take a look at that temperature!!!!


And look at how I have to dress!!! I love it!!!


Pray that we will be able to share with the people what this time is so special!

Our New Home

Despite the lack of pictures on our walls, we have finally gotten settled into our new apartment. We are really happy here and have already seen our new place become a meeting place for our neighbors and friends. I have gotten settled into our kitchen even if it is Carolina Blue. Brian intends to make no comment regarding this. :0) I suggested painting the walls NC State red to make up for the little bit of blue, but he refused. "Wolfpack Red never ever mixes with that shade of blue" he says. So we will just leave that with a "Go Pack!!!!"

We have gotten our Christmas tree put up and I am enjoying spending my down moments enjoying the lights of the tree. Have a look around our apartment!!!
This is our entrance way. Put your coat on the right.


Don't forget to leave your shoes at the door.


Here is our living room. Do you like the tree? It is fake, but does the job just fine. We had to buy fake because it is illegal to have a real tree in our town. Amanda, you wouldn't break out in hives. :0)


Our dining room....


And yet another view of our living room.


Here is our bedroom. A day trip down to Greece was great assistance in furnishing our house.


And our kitchen.


Feel free to drop by anytime.

Cloud

Since we last wrote we have become parents. We have a new little puppy who has brought a little more excitement and laughter into our lives. His name is Cloud (named after Brian's favorite video game character from Final Fantasy 7 "best-game ever"). Brian named him. Some of our top choices were Chip after "chocolate chip cookie dough" or Spoto after that great Italian family up in New Jersey. Brian decided that neither of those "flowed" so Cloud it is. He is a happy little puppy who is coming out of shell more and more everyday. We got him from a farm on the outskirts of the town. He was malnurished and parasite infested, but after a scary trip to the vet, he is well on his way to growing into a strong healthy dog. He has some Dalmation and, we think, some Spaniel in him. Enjoy the pictures of our bundle of joy. :0)

Tale of Woe .... our internet saga

There have been many things happening in our town in the last month and we have not put up a single thing about them. TOMORROW, we will spend the time in the computer lab and write a myriad of updates. This tale is about our Internet. We did finally move on Dec. 1 to our new address (more later). We also got a dog(more later). However we still had the same old Internet which got worse, so bad that we haven’t been able to send an email in almost a month, much less post and upload pictures. The only reason we have not gone to the lab to do our posts is because of the constant lingering promise of working internet that never came. We are sorry about the problems.
For anyone who is interested in the specifics, we have a unit that goes outside the apartment that picks up the wireless signal being broadcast from one of many towers around the town. The place to where we moved is a void of signal because we have a cliff on one side and a super tall house on the other. From time to time we will pick up reflections off the cliff, but it is never long enough to stay connected to gmail to send an email. We have about 13 drafts that we want to send out. Tomorrow everyone will get updates!!!

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

WOW! It is a gorgeous sunny day in our town! The temperature has hit 50 degrees and the people of the city are out in droves. As I walked out of our apartment this morning, I watched some kids playing up in a tree. I walked past several other children playing in the streets enjoying the warm sunshine. As I rounded the corner, I spotted an elderly woman who was out in the street in her bedroom shoes speaking to anything that would speak back. As I got closer, I greeted her with a Dobar Den. Her whole face lit up. She was anxious to get out of me anything she could. So, we talked for a few minutes and then a man on a bike rode by and ended my conversation with her as he started talking to her. As I continued walking, I was greeted by three other elderly men on their bikes. I watched people feeding the birds in the lake. I giggled at the site of 4 slightly overweight men crammed onto one park bench for their afternoon conversation. And their wives chatting on the park bench next to them. And by the time I got where I was going I was stripping off my coat because the sun had warmed me on my journey. What a privilege to be able to enjoy God’s creation in all things!!! Praise Him for He is good!!! Praise Him for He created the children up in the tree, the children in the streets. He created the men and women of this town. They are fearfully and wonderfully made. Praise Him!!!! Pray that they will soon come to know Him as Savior and give Him the praise He is due.
Thank you for always praying with us and for us!

UUGA!!!

So I have joined an aerobics class with my language tutor here. I thought it would be a good place to make some new friends and workout during the cold gray days. It is a blast! The last three nights our instructor has thrown a little Macedonian style kickboxing in the routine. I giggle through the whole thing, because every time we kick, we say UUGAA!!! I just love the sound effects we make for things around here. So uuga is my new word. Say it with me. It’s fun!!! And every time you say it think of the women in my aerobics class. Pray that I will be able to build relationships with them that will bear fruit for the Gospel of Christ. Thanks for praying!!! UUGA!!!!

Mandy Rocked!!! (Thanksgiving)

Yesterday we celebrated our Thanksgiving here in Macedonia. Of course they don't celebrate it here so yesterday was our day to expose American culture and American Tradition to our friends who have been teaching us to be Macedonian. Since this was our first Thanksgiving away from family, it was Mandy's first time to cook a Thanksgiving meal ... and she rocked!!! Look at the Turkey!!!!

We (she) made Turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, apple sauce, 4 batches of yeast rolls, snikerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, walnut tarts, and cheesecake. Thanks to Mandy's mom who sent Ritz crackers and cheese spread for h'orderves (along with the stuffing). Everything was great and right during the middle of dinner I felt like I was back in America. Of course it wasn't as good as being with family, but it was fun. For this being Mandy's first time cooking Thanksgiving, it couldn't have gone any better. I was so proud of how everything came out, it was perfect.

This was us after dessert.

We're Moving!!

Yes, as of December 1st we will have new and more permanent residence. We will post pictures and a whole bunch of information on the new place very soon, but we wanted to let everyone know about the fact that we are moving!

This also brings a prayer request: It was stated when we arrived that our current apartment would only be temporary until we could learn the city well enough to find a new place. As a matter of fact we changed the lease from a 6-month lease to a year lease the day we went to sign the papers so that we could have a little more time to learn the city. We also changed the final notice from 2 weeks to 30 days to give each other enough time to prepare (whether they wanted us out or we found a new place). We even picked up on a couple of hints that they might be ready for us to leave so we THOUGHT that us leaving “early” would be well received. Hmm, that was wrong. Apparently they had financially planned on us staying a full year and they take pride in the apartment so they think that we are leaving early because the apartment is not good enough. This could not be farther from the truth. Our landlords are fantastic and the apartment is extremely nice … but it is not home. The main issue is that we want some place that can be home with our own pictures and some of our own furniture so we don’t have to worry about food, glasses, and whatnot getting all over the place. Anyway, pray for us as we try to smooth things out with the landlords and that we will be able to maintain the friendship that we have been trying to establish despite language barriers