Our New House

Si ia kalove ne pranvere?  – “How have you spent the spring?"

The biggest news that I have to announce in this blog is that I am writing from a new location. We have been working toward moving into a new building for months because the old building had some maintenance problems and complications that would not allow us to have enough room to expand our student body to include 9^th and 12^th grade. I did not discuss it before because the details were always changing and there were contractual details that were not sorted out. However, after a lot of prayer and effort, I am pleased to announce that we have just successfully completed a week of classes in our new home!

Our new building has much more space allowing us to create enough classrooms for the expanding student body while still housing most of the staff in apartments on the top floors. The downstairs used to be a restaurant that hosted wedding receptions, so we have a big kitchen and large seating area for a cafeteria and for any school events or celebrations. We have a computer lab, space for science lab, several offices, and are working on a library. The apartments are very nice and I have moved into a two-bedroom apartment where I will hopefully receive a roommate next year. One aspect of the building that is both positive and negative is that we have moved from our center-city location to the outer limits. It is now a 10-minute walk from the city center making it a difficult commute for some of the students and a less convenient location. However, we now have much more space available with a yard big enough potentially for soccer, volleyball, and maybe basketball. There is grass and flowers, which are not normal sights within Lezha, and the view of the mountains and the greener landscape beyond the city is wonderful. It feels more like we have our own community atmosphere and being outside of the city makes it easier to breathe and relax. I am looking forward to a new school year and the possibilities in this building.

There was a lot of work and thinking involved in switching buildings during the school year. We eventually decided that we would move Memorial day weekend, so the weeks leading up to the end of May included a lot of preparation. Dini and Klementina filled out paperwork, attended meetings, and supervised the cleaning and prep work at the other building. In the week leading up to the move, there were 3 members of the Shahini’s home church in Virginia that volunteered their time to help prepare the new building. They dug up trees, painted, and helped deliver some of the countless truckloads of stuff that had to be transferred from one building to the other. 

By Friday, almost everything in the old school had been moved apart from the things necessary for classes. After school, some of the students stayed to help us transfer all the desks, counters, chairs, and classroom supplies in a moving truck. The girls also completed moving their things from their apartment to their rooms in the new school on Friday. We spent most of the three-day weekend cleaning, organizing, eliminating, decorating, and preparing the classrooms. Some students and other school staff gave a lot of their time over the weekend to help us prepare for starting school on Tuesday in the new building.

This week was the culmination of many details coming together, so it felt good to be holding classes in our new home even if we didn’t have everything completed. When the students arrived for the first day and as they were socializing outside in the yard, it felt like a new beginning. With new problems and factors always presenting themselves throughout our year of figuring this school out at the other building, it never really sank in as a comfortable home. We were surrounded on all sides by concrete with eyes bearing down on us, now it feels like we have a space of our own and can breathe. The new building should be ours for several years to come and I am optimistic that I can accept it as my home.

There are new aspects and responsibilities that come with the changing location, but I think we will embrace these changes in light of a year full of exploration and difficult challenges. There is a lot that we have experienced and learned this year, so we have now have the opportunity to make improvements for next year. Please pray for us as a staff and community as we finish out this year and look to the horizon.  May God’s Spirit be present among us always encouraging us to be still and listen to His quiet voice beckoning us to a life of peace, grace, and hope. This year has been a great accomplishment and working with these students has been a blessing to us all, but it has also taken its toll on us in different ways. May we find rest, rejuvenation, and a renewed focus so that we can return following God’s voice and ready to take on the challenges and joys that He has laid before us.

For the over a month, I have felt worn out. I have actually been working less than I have all year because after school activities have been reduced and most of my lessons for the second half of the quarter are being recycled from last semester. Having some time to myself has been nice, but it has provided an opportunity for the weight of this year to bear down on me. It has given me opportunity to over-think, stumble, or feel that I am not using all my time well. I began to realize how long we have been here without the usual comforts, supports, or gauge of normalcy. I thrive living in the moment, adapting to challenges, not being surprised by anything, and staying consistent throughout my experience, but when I no longer had to fire on all cylinders I had time to see the negatives. The business of the year was starting to wear on me and I did not feel any specific area of focus for where to give myself. These realities affected me physically as I got sick a couple times and have felt less efficient and more tired. I have not felt as vivacious or determined as I did when I committed to this experience nor the same peace of being within God’s will. 

After finally settling into this new building I feel this lull beginning to fade. I am feeling a new determination to confront challenges and finish this year well. Knowing that there is only about two more weeks of this experience before I will be able to travel, see my friends and family, return to my church community, and live life at a different pace is starting to give me energy. I am so excited to for this summer, but I am also excited for the possibilities that God has in store for this place and my role in working toward that. Please pray that my outlook will continue to rise and that I will be open to all that God has to show me and work through me over the next couple weeks and into the summer.

With most of our after-school activities slowing down, the teacher’s have used some of our after school time to increase our efforts in tutoring or checking in with students to improve their performance. On a few occasions, I have also took some of the students out for coffee. As the summer approaches, I am trying to find time to spend with some of the boys in more informal interaction. These times have been great because I actually get to hang out with a group of guys and talk about things or joke in a way that is very natural. There have been a lot of laughs, questions, and comments about how I act differently from anyone they know. I feel very comfortable spending time outside of school while also being a teacher to these kids. In fact, I have noticed that there is a respect there because they respond more positively to my criticism or suggestions in class and it has given me a window to be able to offer advice or motivate them when possible.

I have also begun interacting regularly with two of my adult ESL students. Reni is a relaxed Italian-educated businessman who knows way too much about history. We have gone out for coffee several times and we often find something interesting to discuss allowing him to practice his English while I have another window into Albania. A cultural reality here is that men must always offer or argue over who will pay and it is usual for students to pay for their teacher. You have to be careful because there is can be an assumption that students pay in exchange for grades from their teacher, that the person who invited the other will pay, and that each member will pay sometimes, but there are also those who seem to proud to allow others to pay. I have had to assert myself from time to time to pay for something or just pay before the other person notices. However, I have yet to be able to pay for coffee when Reni is part of the group so it is my goal to invite him to coffee and somehow pay before the end of the year. Ermir is an engineer who likes to play soccer with a diverse group of individuals so I have joined with his group several times in the past month, which has been fun.

Early in May, was Kristi’s birthday and we decided to go to the beach in the evening to watch the sun set. It was nice to get out of the school and go somewhere together, but the mosquitos did all they could to limit our relaxation. We built a fire out of scrap wood and trash on the beach while the girls took jumping or special sunset pose pictures. We then sat down to eat our chicken dinner on plastic bag plates while taking in the sights and sounds of the coast. Much of Albania is very beautiful and the beach is a wonderful example, but the Albanians need to learn to clean up the trash before its potential can be realized.

This past Saturday was full of plans starting early in the morning. We had arranged to travel by bus with our students to visit the European University of Tirana. I appreciated this trip more because the bus was larger and the students did not yell or dance in the aisles the whole time. I was surprised by how small the university was, but no one lived on campus and there was little sense of a campus despite serving a total of about 3,000 students. After a short presentation and 10-minute walkthrough of the campus we ate in the cafeteria before traveling to the shopping center in another part of the city. We returned to Lezha later in the afternoon and then had to prepare for a get together to celebrate the end of the ESL classes and to hand out some certificates that we had made. We provided refreshments and some sports opportunities, so when most of the younger students attended we had a good time playing soccer, hitting volleyball, and putting golf balls with them.

With my return to the States growing closer every day, I am beginning to think about all the people I want to see, all the things I will eat, and how the whole pace of life will change dramatically for a couple months. I have no doubt that this will be the most eager I have ever been to return home. I am looking forward to doing some local travel and then traveling with my family, but with all the business at the end of the year I have not been able to do hardly any planning. With some individual and self-planned trips under my belt I feel that things will work out, but I do need to find a way for everything to fit together so that I can see a lot while being able to return home with all my stuff when I am supposed to. Prayer for safety, that details will come together, and that my travel time will be full of wonderful blessings and experiences would be appreciated.

This will be the last time that I write before the end of the school year, so I ask that you shower this community with prayers. Ask that God’s presence be with the students as they finish their work and take their tests, that they may finish the year strong, and that they recognize something special about LAC while they on summer break that will make them want to return and be a part of this community. There are health and various other concerns with the students or their families, so pray that God would bring healing and reconciliation to these situations. The EMHS touring choir will be visiting here at the end of the year and will be giving a concert during our end of the year celebration with the students and their families, so pray for safety in their travels and that all the arrangements could be made to accommodate them. May God shine on this place so that we will be able to bless the students and to maintain strong support and a growing reputation in Lezha.