December 9, 2018 by themeeseletters

Our side of the city

There are about five blog post ideas that have been siting in “Draft” tab of my life for so long that I forget when we actually started them. Note to self: one can’t expect perfection to be achieved in an update, so don’t put everything on hold in hopes of finding it.

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We are surrounded by mountains on nearly every side, much to Bryan’s satisfaction.

The mountains to the north and west are far enough away that a good bit of mist or clouds (or smog) will hide their existence. But the range just to the east is close enough that we enjoy the shadow play among the ridges almost every afternoon at sunset.

The parts of Prishtina that are nearest to us consist of an eclectic mix of city and suburbs: newly constructed apartment buildings, old apartment buildings that have been renovated on the inside, small storefronts on the bottom level of a home, and brightly colored houses.

There are several traditional Albanian style houses, where one floor was built for each generation living inside if I understand correctly, but many unique styles are visible as well. I even spotted a log cabin on the way home from school one day, and decided that if we ever bought a house here it would be that one. A handful of lots are still vacant in the outskirts where we live, in Matiqan. Although the construction business is booming and we see dramatic progression everywhere, I keep on hoping the two lot next to our apartment building will stay empty for a little while longer

We love our 5th floor apartment, both for the scenic view of the city and because we’re under our landlord’s balcony so there are no footfalls to ignore. But we thank God for the existence of the building elevator which makes our lives infinitely easier. Especially on grocery days.

Everything we need on a regular basis is nearby, which is the benefit of living in a culture that is centered around walking and public transportation. We frequent the small family owned store less than a block away, and they now recognize us with a friendly greeting every time we stop by. Once, when we didn’t have exact change for our purchase (and neither did they) the owner waved it off and said in his broken English “Ska problem, pay next time”. I was surprised, but grateful for their generosity and clear trust that we would pay them back.

Our bus stops right in front of the mosque pictured above, which is a 2 minute walk from our front door.

One direction takes us to the end of the bus line, which is about five minute ride. From the end of the line, school is only a 7 minute walk or so. Taking a bus in the other direction winds down through the city, leading toward the center of town. As helpful as they are, I still find myself mentally listing the inconveniences of public transportation on a regular basis. Even on the best of days, you can spend 30 minutes to an hour waiting for a bus, particularly if you need to take two different lines to your location. Timeliness isn’t the greatest concern for people-centered cultures. And busses are rarely on time, no matter where you live. Still, we are grateful to have an alternative to walking.

Life thus far is very simple here, in some ways. Many of the things that encourage us to engage in a mad rush of busyness (such as the convenience of cars, relationships with a large community, or investment with numerous causes and organizations) are missing from our lives here, or have yet to be developed. Getting into a new rhythm has taken a longer period of time than anticipated, and exploring this city requires more planning and effort. We are grateful for the slow transition. We are comforted by the faces that have become familiar and the trust that is being built. We are encouraged by the community of people that we work with. And we are slowly learning more about this country and this city, bit by bit.

October 7, 2018 by themeeseletters

Two Lies and a Truth

Preface:

Our desire is that this medium not only serve as a form of communication but also as a record of some steps along our journey. This is somewhat discouraging when the steps are shaky and we reach the awareness that recording also means sharing. Sometimes vulnerability feels like too much of a risk – particularly when we are feeling especially broken.

So in those sometimes, we wait. Just until we can catch our breath.

That being said, some posts will record details of an event or physical adventure. Other posts will consist of the ramblings of an external processor who is trying her best to figure life out.

If you’re less interested in the latter, feel free to skip this post. We’ll share pictures and details of some of our other adventures soon 🙂

What do you say when your heart is weary and your mind is tired.

When plans seem to elude and structure slips through your fingers.

When you feel exhausted and overwhelmed by a myriad of emotions almost all of the time – for no apparent reason.

When you want a taste of home and comfort from those you love, but you don’t particularly want to talk about “How things are going”.

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This has been our life for the majority of the past six weeks. We struggled and felt ashamed for it. We were discouraged and felt as if we had to hide it. The worst part was knowing that we had access to the ultimate Peace, Hope, Joy, Encouragement… and feeling shame because we just couldn’t manage to take hold of it. These past few weeks, I felt some of the heaviest discouragement that I ever have struggled with in my life.

Feeling purposeless and trapped (in a country where we know next to nothing) has been especially damaging as a people-pleasing-busy-body who just finished a whirlwind four years of working, traveling, studying, learning, serving, leading, and growing at the expense of sleep. All of a sudden we have too much time on our hands, barely enough knowledge to get around, and very little to pour ourselves into. All that we had left behind suddenly became very apparent – and we had very little motivation to put much effort into re-building a life here.

In short, the transition was significantly more dramatic and slightly more paralyzing than anticipated.

I commented to a friend a couple of weeks into the move that I felt like I had no control over my life here. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt completely and entirely lost.

“Of course you do. It would be concerning if you moved to a new country, started a new job, and built a new home three weeks after getting married and felt like you had everything under control.”

Not really the comfort I was looking for. And the fact that she was right didn’t really make me feel much better.

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Enter the lies. As time passed and discouragement thrived we began to believe a plethora of sneaky lies: Our move had become a failure. We were never going to feel comfortable here. We had no purpose or direction. The tremendous community we left behind would never be replaced. All of these, plus many more lies that didn’t take the form of coherent thoughts. They were merely an ever-growing mountain of baggage.

I wish I could say we had a great revelation, or that we received a bit of wisdom that instantly changed our perspective. That would have been fun. But nothing seemed to help.

Instead, we struggled. Seemingly alone. For many many days.

In the midst of it all, I was finally able to identify two key lies that fathered all others.

Lie #1 – Our Life Here Has To Be Different

I don’t know any other way to describe this lie than to say this: I felt that I wasn’t allowed to be ME now that we made this “massive, impressive, sacrificial move”.

We fell captive to the lie that moving to a new country altered what we were and weren’t allowed to do. The fact that we were committing to love Jesus and His people here instead of there meant that we had to live life differently. I couldn’t pursue my interests like art and photography. Bryan couldn’t invest in music the same way. I couldn’t continue to learn about the things, investing time in researching history or science or just plain reading for fun. We couldn’t invest money in decorating our new home. We weren’t allowed to go kick a soccer ball or go for walks just for the fun of it.

It felt as if we were suddenly required to give up the part of our life routines that gave life to us because now we were held responsible to accomplish bigger and better things for the Kingdom of God. I could never identify the specific standards that I felt like we were being held to, only that they were ambiguously present and that I was probably continually falling short.

Lie #2 – Success is Measurable in Accomplishments

Honestly, who doesn’t believe this at one point or another? Family, career, college degree, certificates on a wall, photos in an album. All “accomplishments” that we may point to as a measure of success. I’m not bashing accomplishments, and I’m not trying to come up with a worldwide definition of success.
But I do know that, according to the values that Bryan and I have chosen personally and together as a core value of our marriage, our success is Not measured by our accomplishments. Our success comes from our obedience to God and our daily, personal growth in our walk with Christ.

That does not, however, mean that I am impervious of falling prey to this lie.

College certainly didn’t do wonders for me in breaking down this belief; I accomplished an awful lot and I honestly felt like it was quite a successful time of life. Doesn’t matter that those things weren’t directly correlated – it’s a lot easier to pretend that you’re successful because you have a pile of accomplishments to point to.

However, after moving our accomplishments quickly became:

“I walked all over town and bought all the groceries we needed.” Well, whoop-dee-do.

“I figured out how to run the washing machine.” Amazing accomplishment, really.

“I worked all day and then made dinner.” Literally like every other normal human being.

I felt pretty lame pretty fast. Never mind that everything at the grocery store is Greek, Croatian, German, or gibberish. Never mind that there are literally no words on the washing machine, only these strange little drawings. Never mind that work consists of trying to help second-language English speakers master all the normal 3rd-grade concepts when they don’t even have a normal 3rd-grade vocabulary or phonemic awareness.

Life felt rather overwhelming and unimpressive at the same time.

And remember lie number one? That life here was supposed to be filled with grand and amazing Kingdom-Oriented gestures? This especially meant that all of my “accomplishments” were falling short of any measure of “success”.

Aka, failing once again.

Truth:

It took me a while to recognize that these lies were in no way, shape, or form the fault of others. It was easy for me to blame them at first. After all, weren’t “they” the ones who expected me to be a “great missionary” and make a tremendous impact for Christ within the first month? Weren’t “they” they ones waiting with bated breath to hear of the amazing accomplishments that we had achieved?

No. I was the one to blame.

I was the one believing the lie. I was the one who thought the “Nashana” who lived in Clarksburg and Cincinnati wasn’t enough here in Kosova. I had succumbed to the lie that living my life as a child of God was not enough. That I had to do more. I had to impress. I had to prove that I was worthwhile.

Had we stayed in Cincinnati, life would have likely continued much like it had before. I would have continued to work alongside creative and inspiring people. Bryan would have found ways to invest in the Church where he served and learned and grew. We would have spent time with a community of friends. We would have continued to host gatherings and dinners, attending the same in the homes of others. We would have explored more parks, coffee shops, restaurants, and probably spent too much money at Urbana Cafe. Bryan would have continued to create music. I would have continued to play around with creating art by my camera and my hands.

And here is the truth: through all of these things, we would have continued to live and grow as Children of God, encouraging and challenging others along the way.

So how come all of that has to change now that we are here?

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Now, as a disclaimer, when I started this process of thought-expressing I had only identified two lies. Upon further reflection, I recognized a third. This lie had escaped my reflection (quite intentionally on a subconscious level) because, frankly, to recognize it would require a response and I just wasn’t quite ready to do something so humbling.

The third lie that plagued us was actually the fear that we would never find the community we were looking for. As a newlywed couple, fresh out of college, we were in the same season of life as a lot of the people we had chosen to surround ourselves with. Dozens of couples who were experiencing the first five-or-so years of marriage were our friends and mentors. People that we had individually invested in throughout college had claimed a part of our hearts. These were our go-to people for theological conversations, marriage questions, adventure explorations, and much much more.

And then we moved. And left them all behind.
And suddenly we had nothing to take their place.

If you’ve ever moved, like ever, this isn’t new to you. But it most certainly was a new experience for me. I’ve never left a tight-knit community behind and watched it continue to grow and thrive while I was left on my own. The pain stung, it left me wounded and hardened promising to never build another deep community that I might someday have to leave.

If you’ve ever moved, you know this only leads to further pain. There were plenty of people here, waiting to welcome us into community. I was just too stubborn to admit that I needed them. I simultaneously complained of not having a community and methodically locked my heart to the people around me who could meet that very need.

I believe that we are made for community. The Body of Christ is literally supposed to be the most life-giving and encouraging community.
The recognition of this fear does not fix all the problems. There is still pain, and there is still pride to be conquered. But with this recognition, we can at least begin to grow, to reach out, and to invest in the lives and hearts of those around us.
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Epilogue

As this is a continuation of our Journey, I cannot wrap this up with a bow and say we’ve learned our lesson and shall never make the mistake again. Some days are filled with encouragement, drive, and community. Others, we feel drained, aimless, and alone.

But we’ve begun to identify the lies.

We’re fighting against them with Truth.

We are seeking to daily recognize our identity in Christ and allow that to be our motivation and purpose. And because of that, most days it’s not so hard to get up anymore.

This is an important part of our journey – as well as the reason behind our occasional silence.

So after we waited for a bit, we decided it was time to share.

August 25, 2018 by themeeseletters

Week 1 of School (Kind of)

We’ve survived our first week of training and planning. New teachers are officially integrated and all returning teachers have joined us as well. Next week holds a lot more focus on planning for us, somewhere between all the other activities that have been set up. A shopping trip, a sightseeing trip, a friendly game of volleyball, capped off with a meet-the-teacher night for parents and students.

Oh boy. . .

Both of us have reached a point where we are feeling kind of low as we look forward to the school year. Classroom situations aren’t the most ideal. Coming up with curriculum can easily feel like an overwhelming task.

I think the hardest part right now is that we can’t see results yet. We’ve put in a lot of work, but it doesn’t feel like any progress has been made. No matter how much we accomplish, there is always something else after that. I know I feel pressure to have the entire year planned out to extreme detail (because I like having a plan). But I am trying to remember that, while I shouldn’t be irresponsible, there is an element of flexibility necessary. A teacher must consider and respond to the students as they engage in the process of learning.

We are grateful for the community of other new teachers as we all find our feet in a new culture and career together. Veteran teachers have also gathered around us offering advice and encouragement in whatever ways the can find. Staff at the school are eager to help us every step of the way. The people around us have shown so much love through the smallest actions.

One group of teachers met up to walk down to what is known as the shesh, which is the main walking street in the city center. Once there, we walked into a restaurant which specializes in cake. And it did not disappoint. I have been especially thrilled by the recent introduction of Oreos to the country, which I took full advantage of here. The picture below also features the famous Kosova macchiato.

Surprisingly, some of the most heartfelt gratitude shown to us has come from the local people here. It is not uncommon to receive many thanks from Kosovars upon finding out that we are from the United States. In one extreme case, the proprietor of a small coffee shop we spontaneously walked into gave us our order on-the-house. Simply because of the aid the US gave to Kosova in gaining independence.

I cannot help but feel unworthy of such response. I was 7 when war broke out. Nashana was 3. We had no idea what was happening halfway around the world. But they experienced it and now hold such a strong desire to express their appreciation.

Pristina continues to feel more like home. Our apartment is becoming more our own. We feel confident moving around the city and finding what we need. Communication may not always be the most efficient, but we use what we know of Albanian and there seems to be an appreciation for it. So for now, we keep stepping forward.

August 20, 2018 by themeeseletters

Week 1 – Settling In

I severely underestimated how much we would sleep this past week.

One of the nine or so naps over the last seven days,

Seriously, the amount of rest the human body asks for when undergoing change seems ridiculous. As long as you don’t actually consider the details of the physical/emotional/spiritual transition, that is, and the energy that each requires. Then the copious amounts of sleep make perfect sense. “Sleep is for the weak!”; this used to be my motto. Any of our college friends will confirm that in a heartbeat. However, the silly motto died last week, as we identified in the last post that there can be no shortcuts to transition and that includes sleep. Ultimately we made the better of the two choices, I think.

The walk down the hill toward one of our favorite cafes.

Besides sleeping, this week consisted of the tricky yet somewhat enjoyable process of setting up a home in Kosova. We made multiple trips to phone stores in an effort to figure out why one of our sim cards worked and the other didn’t. We went on several exploratory adventures through different parts of Pristina, led by our kind and generous neighbors. We exchanged the cash we had brought for euros with a friendly fellow on the side of the road who “cut us a deal” after we refused his first offer. We learned the bus routes that are relevant to our lives right now, as well as where to find the 50 cent taxis.

The best 30¢ ice cream in town, according to Grace. And I’m not one to question ice cream!

Some of our kind neighbors drove us to the mall in search of a trash can, hangers, a fan, and a few other immediately necessary household items. Another neighbor showed us her favorite ice cream shop and vegetable stand. Our apartment has gone through three transitions as we set things up, then take them down to set them up somewhere else. We went grocery shopping at approximately three different stores, buying only a few items at a time due to the fact that we had to carry whatever we bought and walk at least four blocks back to our apartment.

Stage Two of Unpacking: Finding a home for everything

But don’t forget, this was all over the period of seven days. And for every hour we spent running errands, I’d bet we spent about three hours sleeping afterward trying to catch up on energy.

One of many lovely sunsets from our balcony.

The whole week wasn’t all work, however. About halfway through the week, we were starting to recognize the need for a break when our friends Heather and Caleb invited us out to visit their new apartment in a village about an hour away. The hour-long bus ride afforded another nice nap, and the rest of the adventure was equally refreshing.

Caleb and Heather graciously treated us to a lovely lakeside lunch and we got to snuggle with their little sweetheart.

Side note, the coolest part of lunch was hands down Bryan’s cook-your-own-meat-on-a-lava-rock order. We had no idea that was what it meant when the menu said the meat was served on a lava rock. But it was pretty awesome and tasted Ama-zing.

We spent the afternoon milking our after-lunch coffees (a cultural habit that we have been enjoying immensely), enjoying the lake breeze, and exploring the lake on a rented paddle boat.

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It was a much-needed reprieve from the city, and we returned home feeling ready to tackle a few more tasks. After another nap, that is.

All in all, the process of settling in has slowly begun to produce fruits. This apartment is beginning to feel like a home, we’re slowly becoming familiar faces at our favorite grocery stores and coffee shops, and we made it to the bus stop on time today.

Even though the week kinda felt like a long nap with lots of little breaks, I’d say we’re doing pretty good.

August 20, 2018August 20, 2018 by themeeseletters

Shortcuts in Kosova Always take longer

Our new friend and coworker repeated this phrase about a half dozen times during our first weekend here. Whether a cultural saying or a personal motto, the phrase stuck in our heads and we’ve repeated it several times this week as we find ourselves considering: why take the normal route when we can try the shortcut instead?

Our mission this week has been settling into our new home. And we’ve faced the temptation to seek out the shortcuts. Adjusting to sleep schedules (or not adjusting and simply sleeping til mid-morning); setting up phone contracts, bank accounts, and internet. Finding grocery stores, coffee shops, butcher stores, and bakeries. Adapting to the set (and yet fluid) schedule of public transportation. Plenty of opportunities to seek out shortcuts.

Spoiler alert: Shortcuts in Kosova always take longer.

Everything is accomplished in its own due time, and seeking a shortcut has often elongated the process. This lesson has been learned with patience this week as we settle emotionally, not just physically, into a new culture. This week was set aside to work through details and to work through emotions. The past few months have been busy: graduation, marriage, moving overseas to establish a home and ministry together. That’s a lot of change on top of the stresses of living in a new culture. All of it good, but all of it hard.

We have both experienced this process of adjusting through previous international internships. But setting up a new home brings its own unique challenges. Annoying cultural practice? We can handle that for a couple of months. Spotty internet connection? Not a problem for a few weeks. Interesting foods? Completely doable when we’re going home soon. But living here? Potentially for years? You better believe we want to make the process of adjusting quicker and easier.

But as they say: Shortcuts are always longer.

We kept falling prey to the lie that shortcuts work. In the end, we cannot shortcut the processing of change, the sorrow of loss, the development of relationships, or the understanding of a new place that we are learning to call home. We cannot shortcut our own emotions or the journey that it takes to learn from them. We cannot shortcut the growing of our faith, our character, our trust, and our purpose

It’s been easy to feel like this week was a waste of time. Easy to believe the lie that we could shortcut jet-lag, learning a new city, or the emotional process of change. But we can’t. In fact, the attempt always ends up taking longer.

Take the time.

Feel the feelings.

Embrace the tension.

That’s what we’re learning this week. Choosing the long, painful route has already begun to produce a refreshing peace and renewed sense of purpose. We still have a way to go. And it may seem like a waste of time, but we’re learning that the end result is worth the effort.

The Meese Letters

A life of journeys in pursuit of Christ.