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| This weekend I made Chinese Sticky Rice...pretty much my first time. I added too much water to the sticky rice so it became sticky "jook". I had to make another pot of sticky rice. Good that it worked after all. And I am now making Cantonese beancurd dessert with eggs and barley. It must be Chinese New Year that influences me making all these Chinese dishes. Pretty fun.
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| Oh my gosh! I can't wait till summer to come!!! I miss summer BADLY. | | |
| Day 10 (Sunday) - In the morning, we went to a church which is a few blocks away from our pastor's home. The church is called Open Door. On the way, we saw some graffiti on the wall. Again, it's because the assistance that the Kosovar Albanians received from the US in late 90's. They really appreciated the Americans. They even celebrate July 4 too. One of the ESL students told us that July 4 is the national holiday for them. They have fireworks and parties everywhere too.
Anyway, the church we went is very small. Inside of the church looks like a little office area with white walls. We were all greeted with the local believers. Everyone was so friendly. We worshiped in Albanian. They sang a lot of songs that we sing too in the US. I was trying to sing in Albanian. One special gift that I received from my pastor in Kosova is a worship CD in Albanian. The Albanian believers were so friendly and kind to us. The girl in the middle of the below picture was really special. She is very young, maybe about 13 or 14. She and other younger folks brought out a lot of soft drinks and hot coffee after the worship service. She sat down with me. Even though we couldn't really communicate well in English, her smile and hospitality melted my heart. She took me out to watch the guys playing rugby. Wil was in the game. But, he had no clue how to play at all. He got his team lost some points.  (See the picture below) Then, she and I went in to another room of the church building to play ping-pong. We bonded pretty well together.
  
In the evening, we went to the Ringjallja Center (ringjallja means resurrection) which was the place we taught Excel and English. It's also the center where our pastor and other missionaries hold evening Sunday worship service too. Again, we were greeted with some really nice believers. One of the staff who works at the center is called Naim. He is a great man of God who is very humble yet with a loving heart towards the community. He was the man who went to many schools and institution to find out what kind of skills they need the most. With his research, he found out that Excel is needed the most. That's why we decided to teach Excel. The worship service again was very simple. It was just a group of believers gathering together in circle. We sang some praise songs together and listened to the message given by Brenda, one of the missionaries. The night ended with a pot luck dinner with the locals. I got to try all kinds of good eats that night. Also, I had a chance to mingle with the locals by getting to know their names and a bit of their backgrounds. It's hard to remember their names. They said that it's hard for them to remember our names too. Fun night. Yet, we had to get ready for the 5-day Excel class.
Day 11-15 (Monday - Friday) - We had a busy work week in Kosova. Wil taught the morning class at 9am. I taught the afternoon class at 4pm. Mark taught the one at 6:30pm. Wil's class had a lot of younger people who are in highschool or college. They are more familiar with computer to begin with. So, it was quite easy for them to pick up how to maneuver. When it comes to my class, I was quite surprised that most of the students were professors and teachers. Most of the students were a lot more older and mature than me. And a lot of them were men too. I bet they probably thought I was a little kid. In the Albanian culture, men are more superior than women. Of course, the younger ones are to look up to the older ones too. It's hard for a young person to teach an older person. How lucky I was! Since it was my first time teaching Excel, I talked supe r fast. So, my interpreter couldn't really follow me. Worst was that some of the students had never used the computer or were not familiar with computer at all. So, I had to slow them a lot and even cut out some materials in order to finish Lesson 1 on time. It was a tough night. I felt so discouraged at myself. I felt like I failed already. Luckily the next morning I woke up with some new inspiration. I decided to spend my morning to revise the lesson for my students in order to fit their level. The second night and the third night went pretty well. On the fourth night, I made many errors during the class. I felt so embarrassed and ashamed. It's definitely not easy to be a teacher. After class, I just kept on beating up myself. However, a thought came to my mind. I shouldn't focus on my own performance during this trip. There was a greater purpose for me to be here! That purpose was to bring love and care towards the locals here. I should make an effort to listen to them and to get to know them. Wil told me that one of the professors whom he talked to, told him that he appreciated everything that we did in Kosova however one thing that he wanted the most is that we'll remember them after we leave. They wanted our friendship more so than what we offered. They have been living in a war-torn province. Hatred is a common thing in the society. Yet, they are looking for love and care as well. That night I got to talk to another professor who told me many of his life stories. Like how he lived in Switzerland for a while and learned many languages. On the last day of the course, I ended the class early and got a chance to talk to the students more. And they loved to know more about me too. They expressed their appreciation towards my hard work in putting the lesson together. All of the sudden, those professors didn't seem so stern to me anymore but they appeared to be very kind and encouraging!
 
After all the classes were over, Priscilla and I went out for coffee with two of her ESL students. Both of them were teachers at a local school. It was a great time getting to know them and to know more about Kosova. Almost 50% of the population are under 25. So there are a lot of students in Kosova. However, they don't have a big school facilities in order to fit all these students. So, each student attends classes for 3 hours/day. Each class lasts for about half an hour. After they graduate from highschool or even college, a lot of them don't know what they can do next. In fact, many people whom we met are very well educated. But, there aren't much opportunities for them to advance in career or for them to find a job. We heard that there are more job opportunities with the UN. However, people usually can get in by knowing someone else within the UN.
Day 16-18 (Saturday - Monday) - On Saturday, we hung out with a lot of our younger students. We went out for coffee. We took like 100 pictures in one setting. Guess they were quite fascinated by our digital cameras. We then went out for pizza with a few students and visited two of our now Albanian friends' home. It was a good time of fellowship. Then, on Sunday, bunch of us went to a restaurant to help set up for the ladies' luncheon. The ladies who came were from many places in Kosova. During the ladies' luncheon, one of the missionaries taught the ladies how to make certain handcrafts. They then brought home with the projects to work with. After they are done with the projects, the missionaries will then send all those handcrafts to the States for sale. Whatever proceeds they receive will be given to the ladies as wages. Also, during the luncheon, the gospel message was shared with the ladies. They took all the bibles home!
That same night it was quite hard for some of us. At least, it was for me. I really missed the people whom I met. Of course, I missed the Bowers the most! It was quite hard to say good night to Amelie and gave her a bear hug. However, we had to leave. The next morning we woke up at 4am and got out of the house at 5am. On the way to the airport, we got stopped like 3 times by the police. It's a normal thing in Kosova. Eventually we got to the airport 6am. Bye bye Kosova.
Surely it was a great experience for me!
Below website has all our pictures of Greece and Kosova:
http://www.dropshots.com/month.php?userid=154827&cdate=20061029&cimg=0 | | |
| Day 8 (Friday) - Mire dite, Kosova!
After 10 hours of travellinig from Athens to Prishtina, Kosova (9 expected hours + 1 unexpected hours of delay at Slovenia), we finally arrived in Prishtina. Though Wil and I were tired, we were thrilled to see Pastor Brett (our former English Pastor at our home church). As usual, he greeted Wil and I with his very calm voice as Wil and I were looking around for familiar faces! We totally walked pass him. Then, we met up with the rest of our team (Pastor Kong, Elizabeth (Pastor Kong's wife), Priscilla, Mark, and Ernie.) Besides our team, we met up with one other missionary, Di, who came to pick us up too. And we saw Amelie (Pastor Brett and Celine's daughter). Before they left for Kosova for missionary, Amelie was only 1 year old. Man, she is a lot bigger now. She is such an adorable girl. Anyhow, besides Wil and I, Pastor Kong, and Elizabeth, the rest of the team didn't get their luggague. Again, we had to go to the supermarket to get whatever they needed for just a few days. But, just that we were able to reunited with our Pastor and his family, none of these mattered to us that much.
As we were on the way from Prishtinato Gjilan, I noticed that many houses looked quite similar in Kosova. The town itself is very neat and clean. It's a lot better than Athens.  In Prishtina, they have a road called Bill Clinton Blvd. Not only so, a five-story tall picture of Bill Clinton was engraved to one of the sides of the tallest building in the province. This country is very fond of America because of its support during the crisis with Serbia. I think one thing I wanted to do is to study Kosova history. It had been through so much conflicts in the past. Now, it remains as one of the poorest countries in Europe. The unemployment is as high as 60%.
Anyway, after an hour drive, we got to Gjilan which is a very small town. Pastor Brett and his family lives in one of the apartments in the main road in Gjilan. That night, we had a great time to rejoining the Bower family! And I got to see their new born baby boy, Aidan. Celine is the same!! She is always funny yet motherly to us. She made us two pots of soup, one was spinach creamy soup and the other was vegetable soup. Both were so yummy!! She stuffed all of us well. We then all settled in and headed straight to bed.
 
Amelie Aidan, Me, and Priscilla
Day 9 (Saturday) - Orientation/Gjilan Flea Market/Lesson on Albania Culture/Burek
The purpose of our trip to Kosova was to teach English and Microsoft Excel to the Kosovar Albanians. Since I use Excel pretty much everyday at work, I was assigned as one of the MS Excel teachers. Before our trip, Wil and I worked pretty much every night to get the lessons together. Our mission to Kosova was to meet the felt needs of the community. Sometimes people might think mission trip is all about sharing the Good News. I think sometimes the Good News is shared through meeting the needs of people. As I thought about how Jesus reached the community, he didn't go out there to throw his teaching at them right a way. Instead he met the need of people, through that people see the love and compassion of God. Through this mission trip, I learned about this fact. We, mere men, can't change people but only God can. We aren't there to convert people but we are there to show God's love through our lives.
Anyway, one of the best local food that I had in Kosova is burek. It's kind like the chinese donut, but stuffed with either feta cheese or ground beef. It's sooooooo yummy. People usually eat that with yogurt too. That day we met up with Di, and 2 other missionaries, Roberta and Brenda. Everyone gathered at the Bower's apartment and we prayed and learned about Kosova. Life is not easy in Kosova. There is always power-outage two to three times a day. In winter time, it's hard to live without heater on. People usually then just roll into their comforter to keep themselves warm. :) It would be bad if you are in the middle of shower when the electricity is out. Good that during this trip, this never happened to any of us. Pastor Brett took us to walk around Gjilan. We went to this flea market where we saw all kinds of products. Some goods that they sold were so weird, like parts of a car. It was interesting to walk around the market though. When we walked up to one of the guys in the market who sold fruits, Pastor Brett went up to him and started talking in Albanian. But, I noticed that he began his conversation with handshaking with the man first. After we bought our fruits, we just walked away. Then, Pastor Brett realized he forgot to say goodbye to the man. So, he had to rush back to say bye to him. He told us that it is important to shake hands and greet people. It's the key in their culture. Albanians are very hospitable too. Even if they have very little, if you go visit them, they will make sure you are well fed. I can see that they are very generous and kind.
Good that we had another day to rest up before the hectic weekdays to come. I guess at this point none of us really knew how hectic our schedule would be. Btw, that night, Ernie, Mark, and Priscilla got their luggage back!!! They had to drive an hour to the airport to reclaim the luggage. Anyway, YAY!!!
 
Burek with yogurt - very delicious A snapshot of Gjilan
 
In the above picture on the right, it is a theater in Gjilan. Jesus' Film was shown last year. Also, I noticed that a lot of men wearing a white hat. Pastor Brett told me that those men are Muslim. There are two kinds of hat. In the above right picture, that man is wearing a higher white hat. And the picture on the left, that hat is flater. The flater one is from Mecca only. This man apparently went to Mecca to worship once in his life.
Notice the leeks in the market! They are generally SUPER long!!!
 
A snapshot of one of the streets in Gjilan Pastor Brett conversing with the man whom we bought fruits from in the flea market
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| Day 3 (Sunday)
** We left DC on Saturday afternoon and didn't get to Santorini, Greece until Sunday late afternoon. We flew from DC to Munich, Munich to Athens, then Athens to Santorini which is a small island away from Athens.
** Forget about the time zones! Don't even think about it! And don't even think about it or even try to know how long the flight is and how many time zones you are crossing. Of course, now we knew exactly how long each plane ride was. It helped us to get by our plane ride a lot easier and it helped us to fight jet lag. In fact, Wil and I slept super well every night! None of the nights we had to stay up and count sheeps.
** Smoky Europe - Welcome to Europe I guess. It's unlike the US where you can't smoke indoor in any public locations. Over there, people can smoke everywhere they want, as long as they can find an ash tray indoor. 
** No clean clothes for our first night in Santorini - Yep, we lost our luggage. I guess it's not new to anyone who used to travel. Wil and I were dying for a shower and clean clothes. But, we had to endure one night without clean clothes. Argh.  But, we were too tired to care somehow. Slept quite well and woke up the next day at 7am. No jet lag or what not. (See pictures of our hotel - The Boathouse in Kamari, by the beach) Luckily, our luggage arrived in Santorin early in the morning. The receptionist came in to the breakfast hall and told us about it. I said YAY! (quite loud) Wil and I quickly got our luggage and took another shower and put on clean clothes! Thanks God that He allowed us to start our first day going around the city in clean clothes!
 
** Fira, Nissan Micra, Selene, Ancient Thira, Oia - The weather was wonderful during the 2 days in Santorini. Some people told us that towards the end of the October, the weather is usually kind of nasty. Again, God's grace on us!!! It was warm and sunny. Finally, all the images of Santorini (blue sky, blue sea, white and color houses) became real in front of me. I couldn't believe what I saw was in fact real! To those who don't know this, I had been dreaming of coming to Greece for years and years! Now, my dream came true! 
Day 4 (Monday)
Fira - We were in fact planning to go to the Akrotiri historical site. But too bad there has been some construction going on. So, we decided to go to Fira instead.
 
Our Rental Car Nissan Micra - We picked up our rental car after our visit to Fira. We realized that we were quite lucky to have this car because the buses on the island don't come on time at all. With this car, we were able to make it Fira for our dinner at Selene that same night. This car looked more like a toy car to me! I didn't dare to drive because people didn't drive with rules over there! But, surely Wil enjoyed driving around like the locals.
Dinner at Selene - According to Frommer's, it is rated as one of the very best restaurants in Santorini. So, we made a reservation. Since it's the low season in Santorini now, we happened to be one of the three couples at the restaurant that night. The food was GREAT. Wil had rabbit and I had grouper. And we found out that the restaurant would be closed down a week later because of the winter. So, again we are thankful that we went to Santorini at just the right time! From Nov till March, the island would be really quiet and many sites would be closed down due to the winter season.
  
Day 5 (Tuesday)
Ancient Thira - After we checked out of the hotel, we drove up to the Ancient Thira historical site with our little buddy, Micra. The road to the top of the hill was so windy. It was actually quite steep too as you can see in the picture. When we got up there, we hiked up a little to the top. On top of the hill, you can pretty much see the whole island. It was a nice hot day up there.
 
Oia - It is a place where everyone says the sunset is just so magnificient. Too bad we love food more than the sunset. We didn't get to go the night before. This is the place where you can see all kinds of colorful houses on the cliff by the sea. It's a beautiful town. We noticed that this town has tons of dogs and cats lying on the ground and sleeping. What a great life for them! However, it's a place where you need to walk with caution! Otherwise, you might have a hard time cleaning your shoes for the rest of the day. 
  
We concluded our trip in Santorini and flew out for Athens in the evening. Again it's hard to leave Santorini after two pleasant days! I think if I have a chance, I will come back here!
Day 6 (Wednesday)
** The Acropolis/The Roman Agora/Aeropagus/The Ancient Agora/The Temple of Zeus/The Theater of Dionysus - I guess it's a typical tour that everyone would do in Athens. The city itself is quite dirty. (It's totally like what Sylvia told us about.) Again, you need to watch your step on the streets, no matter where you are at. But, those historical sites are impressive. It's amazing how back then people built such magnificient buildings. We stayed very close to all these tourist spots. So, we walked the whole time in Athens. The streets are super confusing though. We got lost so many times.  Fine, it's nothing new to us! Cafes are everywhere in Athens! No wonder there is only one Starbucks in Plaka (where most of the tourist spots are at.) Of course, we did visit Starbucks. Inside is very nice. Two stories with tons of couches and chairs. Before dinner we went there to read and write journal. At night, we went to Daphne's which is another recommendation by Frommer's. Good food!!! It's very romantic inside. Most of the time we ate super cheap for lunch and then we ate some better food for dinner. We pretty much travelled with Frommer's in our hands the whole time in Athens! The information is pretty accurate!
 
Aeropagus - This is where Apostle Paul preached about the unknown God in the book of Acts. Also, a lot of Greek philosphers were used to be here debating and talking. It's neat to walk around the area where Paul was used to be at. (See below picture)
Day 7 (Thursday)
** We just walked around Plaka some more. Nothing much on that day. Just to chill and relax because we know in the next few days we would not be on vacation anymore but on our mission trip in Kosova.
Day 8 (Friday)
** We woke up at 3am and left for the airport. Bye bye Greece! We flew from Athens to Frankfurt, then to Slovenia. Our final destination was Pristina (the capital of Kosova). Took us 9 hours to get there!
Anyway, that's pretty much how we spent our time in Greece! 
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