Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Mother's Day






Mother's day is the first Sunday in May. But celebrations happen after that too... as did ours at home and the programs at school this year. They make that the reason to have a spring program. The school has a separate dance teacher and separate drama teacher who each did their part in preparing the program from what they worked on during the year. Pretty impressive for 5-6 year olds.





Erik was to dress as a frog for his program. He was quite good about singing all the songs and getting all the moves right- more attentive to detail than some other boys in his group.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

3 Celebrations in one

Bachalaureate and Graduation at LCC, Mother's Day, European Labor Day.



Well, Bachalaureate and Graduation got most of our attention. The day turned out to be rainy and cool so the usual welcoming line of faculty and staff moved inside and the soon to be grads moved quickly through the rain into the Michealson Center.



Aina from Albania was honored multiple times and really was one of the exceptional students of this group. The EMM missionaries that recommended her to LCC were there for Graduation as well. We enjoyed having Leon and Naomi in our home for a brief visit too the day before. The graduation speaker, Giedrius Saulytis from Vilnius Word of Faith church was able to give the speech in English and translations to LT and RUS were posted on the wall.

End of April



The end of Spring semester brings goodbyes both to students that are moving on as well as to staff and faculty (and families) who are moving on. We also celebrated the fact that some of our Lithuanian staff have been serving for 15 or more years! Always good to keep the perspective of the longer termers. And the day is coming that we will have some expats in that group of 15+ years.

Second day of Easter






One of Lithuania's Easter traditions is various egg-related games. Egg-rolling is so far our boys' favorite. It consists of rolling a hard-boiled (decorated) egg down an incline to see if it hits another egg. If it does you pick up both eggs, if not you leave your egg. What was unique this time was that we went to the Klaipeda baby house with our eggs and invited a group of the boys to join in. We had gotten to know one of the boys there in the previous week- he is to be adopted to a family in Canada and needed to get exposed to English speakers. This was the first time these children had ever seen this game, something that is normal for most Lithuanian families. So we were surprised to be taking a Lithuanian tradition to them.

Another highlight of this weekend was Lars' birthday party at his house with knights and princesses- an appropriate theme for this age.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

catching up wtih Easter!



we had an unique opportunity to prepare for Easter this year at the invitation of German Missionary Rachel who also occasionally leads kids club (bible club) in Lithuanian for a small group that includes our boys. She invited the boys to her place to make Easter bread bunnies and nests and you name it. And we watched the Jesus film for kids. It was really a good preparation for understanding the story of Easter. David did not last through the whole thing and Rachel entertained him with her cat and other things. But Erik and I watched the whole thing and occasionally he wanted commentary. I will never forget as we watched the story of Jesus inviting disciples to follow him, Erik said- I want to be Jesus' disciple too!


we also had time to join a remembrance in Klaipeda city organized by 2 Catholic parishes and the Lutheran church- the way of the Cross. A wooden cross carried to each stop by a different community group. Songs, readings, Lord's prayer and solemn procession. We started as a family but David and daddy dropped back after a while. Erik made it the whole way probably 2 kilometers or more through streets of Klaipeda between churches!



Easter day included an earler morning attempt by Gregg to get to the Klaipeda Free Church Easter celebration at the beach, our usual trip to Silute where the boys participated up front, Easter dinner, American style Easter Egg hunt, and a short trip to the beach since the weather was warmer than it had been up til then. He is risen!

Stay tuned because there is a second day of Easter in Lithuania!

Monday, May 2, 2011

more spring

Dressing up is always fun


fun times at home and also the celebration of the last semester at Karklu dorm with a LCC style BBQ (read hot dog roast) Art and Leona De Fehr and others shared memories of this building from when it was renovated for LCC use.





and another BBQ end of the year celebration at LCC allows the families to participate together too. Quite a troop of kids and our boys feel quite free playing. Some Lithuanians comment about the special situation we have of a safe community to allow them to roam because in general people would not feel that free.




And here is a look from our 4th floor on one of the areas the boys play outside. often it is soccer/football but this time it was wrestling.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

spring

It took quite a while for us to see spring this year, even though the ground was not covered with snow into the spring like last year.





We had one full weekend in March where we attended the Free Christian church conference in Panevezys and then visited in Siauliai, staying overnight with a family that I lived with while serving in Siauliai about 15 years ago. Significant memories to relive, a time in my life when I could be wholeheartedly focused on ministry... my spiritual journey and the development of physical therapy for rehabilitation in Lithuania, and make great strides in my Lithuanian language.


We also connected with an American family who adopted 2 from Lithuania. The process is taking longer these days so a bit of help and companionship from Americans, English speakers is a helpful thing for them. Here we were with the girls at a ball play area in Siauliai.


Then it was back to Panevezys for Gregg to preach at the church there and we had lunch and took a walk with Pastor Aurimas in the afternoon- one of the warmer ones we had had up til then, despite the frozen lake!