Love Goes: Hellos and Goodbyes

When we were in training for this job someone said its a lot of hellos and goodbyes. That's what the past summer was for the Stevens family, many excited hellos followed by many tearful goodbyes. The summer started with two long term hellos as the Isreal Family joined us along with our journey girl Amy arriving in July. In may our good friend Kim came with two bags stuffed full of the good stuff form America (this was a trend that thankfully continued with all our guest!). At the end of June we said hello to my dad (Goodbye in July) followed by my sister Shea, and brother-in-law Bobby, who sandwiched a honeymoon to Paris between visits to Belgrade. When my Dad left we got a surprise hello from Doug and Katherine Taylor, awesome friends from Africa. These hellos were all followed by a 10 day visit from Jen's sister, Julia. Picking all these great people up at the airport is always a thrill. Skype, email, facebook etc. are all great ways to stay connected, but to get to hug someone you have not seen in forever is unbelievable. But it's also bitter sweet, from the time you say hello, in the back of your mind the clock is ticking until goodbye. I know the girls loved this summer and spending so much time with people but the goodbyes were not fun.
In addition to the visits of these family and friends we met two groups of young ladies that had a huge impact on our summer. Kristina and Bethany were here working with our company in Novi Sad and spent a few days in Belgrade with us. And we saw lots of the "Seattle Girls". These young ladies (Jaimee, Aleks, Annie and Sarah) spent the summer in Belgrade working with college students. These six young ladies were a joy in a pleasure to get to know and spent a ton of time loving on my girls.
All told I made 14 trips to the airport in an 8 week span (including five 4:30AM drop offs for the dreaded first flight to Frankfurt).

Here is the honor roll of all our guests and new coworkers: