Fantastic Friday - More thankfulness

In honor of Thanksgiving, Fantastic Friday will be focused on things I am thankful for, but before we get to that a little story.  As all of you know in the states, today is Veterans Day.  In Serbia and the rest of the world it is just Friday.  So today when I headed out the door early to get some paperwork done at the U.S Embassy, it was just Friday to me (you know cause I live in Serbia and had no idea it was Veterans Day).  Well apparently Veterans day is a holiday, and the U.S Embassy is closed on holidays (not a bad gig, they are closed on American and Serbian holidays).  The security guard at the embassy did enjoy my confusion though.  So now on to some things I am thankful for.
1.  Veterans.  I have a hard time living overseas and being away from thins I love and no one is shooting at me, so thanks to all you men and women who sacrifice so all of us can do mundane things like blog.

2.  I am Thankful for this:

 

 Living in Serbia, one of the things I miss the most is our Church Home. Being taught by pastor Steve, having a great Lifegroup to fellowship with and oh how we miss worship.  But for all that we miss, LPC and the people of LPC have been so supportive of us.  The Fields, Murphy, Burge, and Moore Lifegroups have done super job of supporting us.  They pray for us, they stay in contact.  They celebrate birthdays with us and generally keep us connected to the church.  Aside from these classes the staff at LPC has gone above and beyond to make sure we have things we need and to get people here to help our business grow and be successful.  We are so thankful for our church home and all they have done to support us. 

Fantastic Friday

Happy Friday Everyone!  Since it's November and this month is all about being thankful, I am going to use Fantastic Friday this month to share some things I am thankful for.  Today I want to share the four most AWESOME people in my life,  I used to refer to them as my girls but we added Wilson, now they are my girls and the boy. 

My Girls

I am most thankful for my best girl, my wife, my partner, Jen.  It takes a special woman to live with me.  She has made our adjustment to life in Serbia so much easier.  She works hard making great meals, educating our kids, freeing me up to do what I need to do.  Without her nothing happens.  One of my favorite stories about Jen comes from when I was coaching.  I was visiting with the opposing coach when Jen walked up and met him for the first time.  When she walked away, he said "you definitely married up"  Truer words have never been spoken.

My oldest daughter is a joy.  I am so thankful for the lady she is growing into (although apparently growing into a lady means lots of unexplained tears, the manual forgot to warn me).  She is a great helper, loves playing with her little brother and tolerates playing with her sister.  She's so smart, she has taken to the language here in such a smooth way.  But her best quality is how God is shaping her heart, she sees the bigger picture of whats happening in all our lives and I can see that in the things she says and does.  I am so thankful for Kyleigh.

Miki... that kid makes us forget how serious we all can be (all being Jen and I).  She is smart and funny.  Combined this can be good or dangerous, depending on the situation.  When we first arrived in Serbia, and she was against speaking Serbian, she would point things out in English.  Things like "mom her hair is orange".  We had to remind her lots of folks speak English here, numerous times. Miki brings the fun, she's sensitive, she feels for those around her, and her heart breaks at injustice.  I am so thankful for Miki.

The Boy

I was pretty satisfied with just my girls, luckily Jen was not and God had a much better plan, or we probably would not have this boy.  He has been such a revelation for us.  He is such a boy,  he's physical, he moves all the time, he likes balls and cars - he just knew he was supposed to like them.  He smiles all the time (of course he is well entertained by those sisters).  He keeps up at night - alot.  But its worth it.  I marvel at how God is shaping K and Miki and daydream often about how God will shape this boy's life.  I am so thankful for Wilson.

It's Friday, be happy, be thankful, and have a fantastic day. 

Celebrating....

Well October has come to a close creating a dilemma for the Stevens family, how do we celebrate that last day of October.  Calling it Halloween, out of the question - does not jive with our jobs.  I prefer to celebrate Refromation Day, but that's kind of over the top.  So like 99% (no statistical proof for that just a guess) of all conservative, evangelical churches in the deep south we had a fall festival with Team Belgrade.

Side note: by guessing 99% I am implying that the other 1% completely ignore Oct. 31st, as a matter of fact it probably does not even appear on their calenders.

Side note 2:  By using these two numbers I have probably implied that I care/am following "occupy wall street" but I do not and am not.  Did you know that unemployment in Belgrade tops 30%?  I'm just sayin...

My super creative wife, encouraged/coerced everyone to dress up.  The stipulation was you had to be a character from a book and you had to use what you had from home.  Jen kept suggesting these great litereary characters from the past that we did not have the equipment for so I came up with two suggestions:

1.  I could be the modern version of any of those characters (meaning I could just where regular clothes).  That was quickly vetoed.

2.  I could be John Lock from LOST.  I have tshirts, boots and cargo pants.  I just needed Jen to shave my head and give me a scar over my right right eye.  I thought it was a good idea, no one else did.

So I became Roderick, the big brother from the Wimpy Kid book series.  Simple costume - black tshirt and jeans.  Done and Done.  Michaela was Nancy Drew - she was too cute, K was Ally Finkle - sort of her normal self, Jen was Mrs. Frizzle from the magic shool bus and Wilson was Chistopher Robin.  Good costumes by all of us. 

Amy and the Israels all came over so we played games (dry apple bobbing was my favorite).  We also decorated pumkins (see picture below) and ate, ALOT.  It was a great way to start fall.  

The whole gang, notice trey was taking the picture since he had the least creative costume

dry apple bobbing (shes cheating you are not supposed to use your hands

Pumpkin carving the stevens way - no mess

nancy drew

Fantastic Friday

This week has certainly not been fantastic.  I am in the U. S. but, for the funeral of my grandfather.  You can read about him here.  That being said (new favorite phrase by the way) I thought I would reflect on some of my impressions of home.  Two years is not a long time away but two years shifts perspective.
1.  No one parks on the sidewalk here.  They park in parking lots and walk instead of parking on the sidewalk right in front of where they are going.
2.  The traffic is light, there are no people out walking down the clear sidewalk (which they could do if they were out because no one is parked on the sidewalk!)
3.  BIG, everything is BIG here.  Big cars, big trucks, big everything.  I had a load of laundry to do and in my eyes it was huge and I dropped it in my moms washing machine and it looked empty.  Everything is BIG.
4.  Humidity, Humidity, Humidity.  I have not missed you old friend.
5.  WAL -MART is the most amazing place on earth.  I could spend all day there.  We had tricked our selves into thinking that we had stores like Wal - mart.  Wal - mart is Wal - mart, there is no place like it!
6.   CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES!  There are so many choices everywhere you go.  It's sort of overwhelming.
These are just a few of the things I've noticed and as the week progresses I'm sure I'll notice more.

My Grandpa

Me and Grandpa on the back patio in Athens

I'm back in the U.S. this week for the funeral of my grandpa.  In declining health he passed away this week and asked that I would come home to perform his funeral service.  What grandson would turn that opportunity down?  I just wanted to take a little blog space to let you know who grandpa was....

Lester Wilson (that's Grandpa for clarification) grew up in central Texas in a small community, the son of a cotton farmer.  I think his childhood impacted his adulthood in a tremendous way.  My grandpa was a plain spoken and simple man with the unending work ethic of small town America.  That being said grandpa was one of the smartest men I ever knew (he had three daughters so he had to be smart to survive that).  At 17 he lied so he could join the navy and fight in WWII.  After the war he returned home and met a wonderful lady, Betty (my grandmother).  They married and raised one son and three daughters.  Grandpa's adult life was spent working for Ford motor company and he retired and drove a school bus for Athens ISD for as long as I can remember.

The most important day in my grandpa's life came some 60 years ago when after much protesting he decided to follow Jesus and make him the lord of His life.  It was a day that not only changed his life but would ultimately have a tremendous impact on my life.  My grandpa had a deep and intimate relationship with Christ.  Through him I saw what daily Christian living looked like.  His bible was always being studied, it was tattered, it was worn and it was well read.  Sitting around the table and hearing stories of how grandpa helped folks that were out of work, how he took in family members that had no where to go, how he refused to eat at restraunts that would not serve his black co workers.  My grandpa never did what was popular, he did what was right.  He lived the scripture he believed, in a simple daily life.  He loved people, he helped those that needed help, and he spoke truth.  To a young boy growing to a young man, he was the model of Christian living.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak a final time with my grandpa on the phone.  I caught him up with my life in Serbia, and my family.  He talked some about his funeral what was important to be said - preach Jesus he told me, and the last words he spoke to me were "son I'll see you on the other side".  That's the legacy of my grandpa, the other side.  The people that will see him again because shared the name of Jesus.  

Fantastic Friday 4

So I have been a little lax in my blogging lately.  It is not that there has been nothing to blog about, It's just that it has been very busy and there has not been time.  Let me recap that last couple of weeks:
- Awesome 8 team from LPC comes for a week of crazy work.  There trip to teach English morphed into teaching English, serving the poor, and teaching at Kyleigh's school.  Quite a bit to do in 6 days.
- After the Awesome 8 left, team Belgrade started their English classes which included a ton of prep seeing as we are writing our own texts.
- Then there was the end of the month reporting, always fun.  (this month we started a fancy new reporting system, supposed to be better, easier etc.  It's not)
On to Fantastic Friday

ALL AFRICA ALL THE TIME ... in serbia

Our great friends Doug and Kathryn in Africa love us very much.  So much they went to a tremendous amount of trouble to send us this:

Notice that the package is from America....  This box and its content traveled from Uganda to the U.S(7050 miles).  Then from the U.S. to Serbia (4440 miles).  That's nearly 11500 miles of love.  You ask why they just did not send it straight to us?  Uganda won't send to Serbia so Kathryn got creative.  We were overjoyed at this little surprise.  I was stoked because I got this:

That's real African coffee grown in Doug and Kat's backyard.  As soon as I find a grinder it's gonna be all Uganda in the house.  (I am a  little conflicted there is no snazzy free trade sticker like on Starbucks, so should I drink this?)  And to top things off African style, earlier in the summer Doug, thinking of me, gave me this:

What is it you ask?  Its African Poop Art.  Yes men in the street take the cow poop, spread it out,  design it, let it dry then paint it.... all with their hands.  Needless to say this is a prized possession. Doug and Katheryn thanks for making this week FANTASTIC!!!!

SOME THOUGHTS ON APPLE

Who would have thought that the release of the most futuristic, intellegent, and powerful communication device of all time would be met with such scorn from the public.  If you are dissapointed don't buy it, wait and Apple will release a new unbelievable device and hopefully it won't be such a letdown.  Personally I am stoked about the Nano, may try to get my hands on one of those.

Fantastic Friday ... Errr Monday

Ok so this is a little late, but there is a good explanation.  Last week was the busiest week since we got here.  We had a SUPER, AMAZING, FANTASTIC volunteer team from LPC (our home church) here for the week.  I thought I was busy but we worked these folks to death.  They taught three English classes a day.  The performed some compassion work with the Roma, they taught in Kyleigh's school.  They did get one relaxing day of sight seeing.  They were truly a blessing and we hope they come back next year.    It was a fantastic week.  If you are interested in a more detailed description of the week plus pictures, check this out!  This week should be a little less crazy so I'll be a more faithful blogger!