Days 10-15 - Hanging out in Houston

MAY 24th-29th

Our first week in Texas was filled with so much fun. We were able to catch a little down time with family and friends as well as meet with some dear supporters in the area.

The Pigotts - Jason, Jennifer, and Halie

Many of you know that the Pigotts are one of God's sweetest gifts to us in friendship. Jason and Jenn even came and visited us last December in Albania for a week. When we arrived in Houston, we learned that their 3 year old, Halie, had just been diagnosed with an agressive form of cancer. They have 3 other children as well. It was an immense blessing to us that we were able to be here and to visit with them at Texas Children's Hospital during this overwhelmingly difficult time. We continue to be amazed at the faith and fortitude that they are showing in the midst of this trying time. At this time, Halie has finished her 2nd round of chemo and is doing well. Please pray for her!

Taste of Texas restaurant

Kaitlyn, always the melodramatic one, plays around with a bronze statue of a true Texan cowboy. This photo was taken outside Kris's and my favorite restaurant, Taste of Texas. We had a fantastic lunch and great fellowship with family and friend, Jeff Wood. Thanks, Jeff, for a super lunch! We LOVED every minute of it!

Incredible Pizza Company

One highlight for the girls was a night out with just us 6 to the Incredible Pizza Company. We got a deal with games included and the girls played to their hearts content. Kaitlyn won the jackpot on this game and won 200 tickets (which "bought" a few do-dads at the toy center). However, the lights and smiles on the faces were worth the price of admission. We had a super time together and they made some fun memories doing bumper cars, miniature golf, racing cars (Whitney won), and bowling.

Lunch with the Taubers

Chelle and Kris were privileged to get to spend some quality time with dear friends, the Taubers. This amazing couple have been a source of great encouragement and support during the past 3+ years. We had a super time with them talking over a yummy Mexican meal. We are thankful for their faithful example of remaining steadfast and pliable to God in the midst of difficult times.

Sprinkler time for the girls

The hot Texas weather has allowed plenty of time for the girls to get out and play in the sprinkler. Dad and Amanda also set up a little pool with lawn chairs, an umbrella, and a cooler like a little beach area. The girls are having a blast running in and out of the pool and spraying each other with the sprinkler. They are such hams for the camera! They are loving all the Poppy, Mimi time too.

Rite of Passage - ear piercing!

Kaitlyn, age 13, finally got her ears pierced. She has been waiting ever since her 13th bday in December to get her ears pierced and she finally got it done. She did a super job and looks so much more grown up with earrings. It was a fun girls day out with Chelle, Kaitlyn, and Mimi. We went to the mall to get her ears pierced, had lunch, and shopped for a few clothes for Kaitlyn. What a super memory we made!

Day 9 - Second Baptist Houston and Boyd family Thanksgiving (in May)

Our first Sunday in Texas brought us to my dad's church and Sunday school class at Second Baptist in Houston. After coming from a small church in Tirana (about 120 people total) this church campus and people gathering to worship (well over 8,000) was a bit overwhelming. What a great joy and blessing it was for Kris to be able to communicate with the dear folks in my dad's Sunday school class how grateful we are for their faithful prayers for our family and to give them and update on what God is doing in the country of Albania.

Everyone was so gracious and warm to us. We had a splendid day of worship together with this dear body of believers.
Happy (official) 11th birthday to Whitney Laine Stire! This may the 11th year of her physical life, but it is the first year of her spiritual life. ON April 26th, Whitney came downstairs with a paper that had these words on the front "The Prayer of My Life". Inside was this prayer that she had written to God:

"God, please forgive my sins in the past and in the future. I know I don't deserve to go to heaven and I am sorry that You died on the cross for my sin and You took the blame for me. I am thankful that You are King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but please send me to heaven where there is no sickness, no cuts or bruises, and no sin, just You. In the name of Jesus, Amen. "

Praise God for opening her spiritual eyes and awakening her spiritual heart to seek Him and find salvation! So, this birthday is an extra special one for us!
There is nothing like a traditional Thanksgiving meal - especially in May. We certainly were thankful for all that God has been doing in our lives and for bringing us together with our family again. My mom, sister, dad, Amanda, Aunt Wanda, Uncle Tom, and my cousin Elise with her sweet husband and 4 kids all gathered for a huge thanksgiving feast! Boy, was it good!
The girls had a wonderful time re-connecting with their 2nd cousins, Brooke, Bradley, Bethany, and Brenna.
Chelle and her dad, Bill Boyd.
Stephanie (Chelle's sister), Elaine (Chelle's mom), and Chelle
All the adults enjoying turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole (!), etc. Also, brownies, cookies, lemon meringue pie... for dessert.
Stephanie, Elise (Chelle's cousin), and Chelle
Chelle and Steph
Chelle, dad, and Steph
It was such a blast to talk, catch up, and play games together. One fun game involved blowing ping-pong balls across the table to try to get it off the table at other players spaces. I almost passed out from blowing so hard. I think Kris was victorious.
Brad and Kris were like long lost brothers together. They are hilarious playing ping-pong by their own rules. It was driving Amanda and Steph crazy.
Cousins - Stires and Groenemans
The Groenemans and the Stires - what a blessing to be together.
What a fun photo of all the kids! Memories in the making.
Uncle Tom (Bill's brother), Aunt Wanda, Bill, Amanda, and the Stire family.
What a tremendous day we had! Praise God for the church family and for our physical families. We are blessed indeed!

Day 8 - Houston or bust!

We were on the road long before the sun rose over the Texas hill country. As we drove, the slate- gray clouds raced across the sky allowing us glimpses of the splendid sunrise beyond. As night gave way to day, we saw the variegated greens on the gently rolling hills contrasted with the gray/blue sky as they met on the horizon. The smell of rain was in the air. Wildflowers - vibrant reds, bright yellows and rich purples - lined the strip of highway we travelled. Altogether, this stunningly gorgeous scene caused my heart to rise up and worship the ONE who spoke all of this into existence with a word.

The wonder of this all led me to ponder Psalm 65:8b and following, "You made the dawn and the sunset shout for joy. You visit the earth and cause it to overflow; You greatly enrich it; the stream of God is full of water;...the hills gird themselves with rejoicing...they shout for joy, yes, they sing." If all of yesterday's unexpected delays were soley to allow me the intense pleasure of these moments of worship, it was worth every second. Ahhhh, if this fallen nature is just a mere shadow of the beauty of the Lord, how I long for heaven to worship the glorious splendor of His majesty in all it's true splendor!
I drank in the beauty of the country side. I had forgotten how beautiful Texas country is. It's gently rolling hills, green plains, fence lined roads, content livestock feeding in the pastures, and windmills, made me thankful to be back in Texas (as they say, "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could"). I have surely missed this land.
The girls continued to sleep contentedly as the miles rolled by. I just love to watch them sleep. Their sweet faces are so dear to me! Thank you God for giving us these gifts, blessings, and rewards (Psalm 127).
Everything is bigger in Texas - including the American flag. You can't really tell from this picture, but this flag is enormous!! I was so thankful to see it, not only because it reminds me of how thankful I am for America, but also because it is in Houston!!! Yeah, we had finally arrived (a day late) to the Houston city limits.

We pulled up and sounded the horn (which played the song "Somewhere over the rainbow"). What a great joy to see my mom, my sister (a wonderful surprise!!!), my dad, and his wife Amanda all at my dad's house. We laughed, cried, and thanked God for bringing us safely to Houston.
Then we ate a wonderful Mexican feast!
What a supreme blessing it was to look around the table and see the faces of all my dear loved ones. God had brought us safely home again to see their faces on this side of eternity! Praise His mighty name!
Whitney also celebrated (a day early), her 11th birthday. The presents were great, but the most wonderful part of the celebration was being able to be with family.

I love this photo! It captures the sweetness and fun that is all rolled up to make Whitney such an immense blessing to us!

Visit from Poppy and Mimi

For those of you who have been following our blog, I know that the posts have been quite sparse lately. Sorry about that. My goal this summer is to have the girls keep a journal everyday with events of the day, directed story writing and prayer requests. Since they are going to be doing this, I plan to try to keep up with some kind of post or photo of my own on the blog. So, here are some photos of the trip my dad and step-mom, Bill and Amanda Boyd, took to Albania last month.



Amanda, or Mimi, to the girls, was not feeling too well when she arrived in Tirana, but that did not keep her from giving lots of hugs or even playing a rousing game of Monopoly Jr. Everyone was so excited to have them here for the second time since we moved to Albania.



We so enjoyed touring city on foot. The weather was beautiful and not too hot (a note for those of you who want to come and see us - May is very pleasant. Hint, hint). We have the national park across the street from us and one day we strolled through the park and had coffee at the Sky Tower (the restaurant on top of a slowly spinning tower) in order to get a great view of the city. The best view though, was the smiling faces of our family as we fellowshipped together.



Kaitlyn and Mimi snap a perfect shot together. Love it!



Who's having fun now? There was no need to say "smile" for these shots, Sierra was missing Mimi and Poppy so much that she couldn't stop smiling once they arrived.



Dad and Amanda in the park. There are tons of trails to go hiking on. The park was created during communism and there are many reminders of that era - was memorials, a military installation, and broken sidewalks. One of my favorite things about the park is the people watching. They come in droves to walk in the park or sit on big stumps and play dominos or checkers.

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We played plenty of games ourselves during the week. The game of choice was backgammon. Even Breanna got in on the action. I think that Amanda was the over-all winner, although dad came in a close second. The girls even began carrying a small backgammon board with us around the city so we could play while we waited.



While we were playing games, Kaitlyn was doing what she is always doing - reading. She is a voracious reader! "Readers are leaders", that's what my dad always told me. If that's so, Kaitlyn will be some president or something when she gets older. The difficult thing about her rapid reading program is that I can't keep enough books in her hands. We can't just go to the public library and get more books for her, so she has taken to reading many of my books or even re-reading some of her old ones (she has read the Little House on the Prairie series 6 times!).



One day we took the 2 hour drive to a local beach. It was really nice because everyone else was still in school. The girls made a sand fort, played in the tide pools and jumped in the really cold waves. I enjoyed my book in the shade.



Mimi introduced the "Rubber Ducky" song (Thanks Mimi, they still sing it all the time). Kaitlyn dressed up like a yellow rubber ducky for a skit the girls put on and hijacked Poppy's hat and glasses. She is so hilarious. Here are dad and Kaitlyn pretending to read the Albanian newspaper. I was using the newspaper for language translating practice.



So, Uno even got in on the game action. Breanna is such a stinker - she is checking out Mimi's cards during the photo. She is so hilarious!



On the last night together with dad and Amanda we enjoyed a traditional Albanian meal with a meat platter and kos (a yogurty sauce), fried potatoes, salad, bread and pizza (for the girls). It was really great!



What great memories we made together! We praise God that He provided this small bit of encouragement and refreshment with our family. We were so blessed to receive spiritual strength and wisdom from them during our long talks, walks, and prayer times together. Thank you Lord!

Photo journal of our last week and a half in America

Fellowshipping in Montgomery - October 4th-5th



I was so thankful to get together with a handful to dear friends the last Sunday that we visited our home/sending church, Lakeside Bible. Our pastor and his wife, Ken and Kelli Ramey, we so gracious to have us in their home.



Whitney remembers this day as one of the best of the whole trip because she got to jump on a trampoline. She is such a sweet blessing from the Lord!



Here is Whitney with some of her little girl friends on the trampoline.



Amy Jacobs and I are caught on film (or jpeg or whatever digital cameras do) laughing at something funny. I am so thankful that God gave us this refreshing time with friends that challenge me spiritually as well as rejoicing my heart with lots of fun and laughter!

Benihana with the Drumms. October 9th



Whitney and I were honored to have dinner at Benihana (yeah!) with Claire Drumm and Katie Drumm (and their husbands who are brothers). God has knit our hearts in a special way because I was privileged to disciple each of these women and see them grow from new birth as Christians to mature, committed disciples of Christ who serve Him faithfully in the their families and at church. What a joy to see them flourishing in the faith.

Last days with Poppy and Meme. October 10th-11th



One of the places that Whitney frequented the most was the local Shipley's donut store. It was a morning routine for Poppy and Whitney. There are on better donuts in the world (in my opinion).



I made sure to get lots of hugs from my dad to tide me over until I see him again.



Whitney loved spending time with Meme. They talked about all sorts of things and had a great time together. Whitney is blessed to have such amazing grandmas and godly women in her life.



On our last night out on the town we had a yummy Mexican meal and caught a movie on the big screen. It was a real reminder of how different things are in the states. Despite all the comforts and neat things about being in America, I was ready to get back home to Albania.



I have a mental picture in my head of me, age 9, sitting on my dad's lap driving our old Oldsmobile down the dirt road to our house in Colorado. It looks so much like this photo of Whitney sitting in my dad's lap driving the last bit of road to his house in Houston. Dad was so comfortable with her driving ability that he even took a call on his cell phone! She did a super job. However, she will NOT be driving in Albania any time soon!