White Christmas

This is the front of our apartment building. Our entrance is the lower stairwell in the center of the picture.

We enjoyed a quiet, peaceful white Christmas this year. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well.

Church Christmas Party

This year we debated about where and how and when we ought to have a church Christmas party. We knew it would be a great opportunity to invite friends who normally wouldn't come to a "church event". Our issue was, if 20 adults plus kids all come and they all invite their friends, where are we gonna hold this 50 person party? The Masseys sacrificed their house as it was really the only option. We decided to have a big feast with a huge spread of Croatian Christmas dishes, then have some singing after which Goran would share a quick message, then we'd give gifts to the kids. My part in this was the singing, which was an interesting task. This was not an easy task as it meant learning Croatian Christmas songs...and I don't just mean "Jingle Bells" translated (although we did sing that). What ended up happening is Croatian Christmas tunes are all from the Catholic Church and there are only a few in our church that have a Catholic background. (Many of them grew up atheist or just not attending church, therefore they did not know the songs.) I ended up having one of our brothers help lead a few traditional Croatian Christmas carols which turned out to be a lot of fun. Anyway, the whole night was really great! We had a bunch of people there...I'd guess some where around 35 adults and 15-20 kids. It was crazy, but really successful. So, here's some pictures from the evening.

Above: The table of feasting. Pictured are (left to right) Jaksa (new church member), Damir (my worship partner), a guest (I didn't catch her name), Marica & Stef (the Masseys neighbors who sell them goat milk).

Above: More feasting. That's Roger Massey in the foreground on the left.

Above: Dalia (just got baptized last month) and Maja Mehanovic (Damir's wife)

Above: From left to right - a guest who came with Nerka (the girl in the middle), Nerka (new member of the church...engaged to Jaksa who was pictured above), Erin Massey (our teammate).

Above: Besim with our little girl, Bekah. Besim is a long time friend of ours who Laura knew even before we came to Croatia. He's a true friend and feels more like family than friend.

Above: The kids sit and listen to a beautiful Christmas story read by Dalia (pictured above) complete with slides on the TV.
Above: Who is that freaky looking Santa?!? That's right...it's Roger Massey (our teammate) handing out gifts to our little ones. The kids loved it!

Week of milestones

Well friends, this has truly been a week of milestones. First milestone is, today is Bekah's 1st birthday! That's the good news. The sad news is that Bekah has bronchitis for her birthday. :-( Bummer for all of us. (Sick babies are the worst!) Second milestone is that last week Bekah learned how to stand up. She's just starting that whole "cruising" thing they do. So, that's fun...and dangerous as we have hardwoods throughout the apartment. Third and final milestone is that Lizzie went pee-pee on the potty for the first time today. She's been telling us she wants to go to the potty all week, but she was bluffing. We kept at it though wanting to encourage her, and finally today I heard those beautiful little drops falling in the toilet. :-) Laura and I yelled with joy and then we rewarded her with gummy bears. (It's amazing what a kid will do for a gummy bear.) Next stop: poo-poo.

Just wanted to update you all. Have a good week!

1st Snow

This weekend we had our 1st snow here in Zagreb. It was a wet, sloppy snow...nonetheless a snow and very fun. I'm a huge fan of snow and love this aspect of living in Croatia. After church on Sunday the kids had a big snow ball fight. Of course this ended with multiple kids crying due to snow in the face. Oh well...they survived. Lizzie just laughed at all of it. Anyway, we had a great time this weekend! Enjoy the pics.

Travels with my parents

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated the blog. If we ever did have any faithful readers, I've probably lost them at this point. Please forgive me. I promise to do better. :)

Well, my parents just left a week ago or so after a month long visit to Europe. They spent the first 5 days here in Zagreb helping me watch the kids while Laura went on a trip to Rome with her mom (1st time without kids in 2 years). The next week, our family and my parents went on a road trip to Tuscany in northern Italy. It was a blast and I highly recommend it...even with little kids. It's full of little towns set on top of a hill and vineyards as far as the eye can see...then olive groves after that. It was very relaxing. Anyway, after our trip to Tuscany they came back and spent 5 days or so in Zagreb with us while we got back to work. Then they took a trip to beautiful Dubrovnik on the Croatian Adriatic coast. A few days later they returned for America. We got very used to them being around as did the kids.

For those of you who might one day consider or who have already gone to Tuscany, we stayed about 10km from San Gimignano...the town with all the cool medieval towers. We spent a lot of time there. We also went to Siena a few times which was beautiful. Other towns we visited were Florence (of course), Volterra, Pienza, and Montapulciano. It's so great because you can choose a couple of towns to visit one day and on the way you'll pass by a bunch of vineyards with wine tasting. You choose a vineyard to pop in on and enjoy some of the local wines. One of my favorites was "Rosso di Montalcino". I haven't found it for sale here yet, but maybe you can get it in your part of the world.

Anyway, it was a very enjoyable vacation. The location was great and the company was even better!

Flooded River

I've started a habit of going up to pray at a levy along the River Sava which winds through Zagreb. It's just behind the student dorms, about 5 minute bike ride from our apartment...it's a great location to pray for the city and for students specifically. As I've told you about in the past, there is a prayer movement which has started among us. Currently as a church we are praying more than 24 hours in a week for our city and nation. This number is only increasing. Along with this, I feel God stirring in me to round up intercessors in the city to pray more specifically for this younger generation of college students. You see, the spiritual atmosphere here in Zagreb is suffocating. People are not open to listen. Generally speaking, there is a lack of spiritual hunger...and if for some reason hunger does exist, this post-Christian culture turns to other answers. We're praying that they'll come back to reality...to the way we were meant to live...in intimate relationship with our Maker. This turning in people's hearts (in my own heart) is only a work of God and must come through prayer. So because of this, we need to pray for our city and change the spiritual atmosphere.

Back to where I started...I was up praying on the levy the other day which has now become my habit. Well, one night we had some strong storms come through our area. When I woke up that morning and went out the levy, the river was flooded over it's banks and into the flood plain. It had doubled it's size in a matter of hours and was now strong enough to uproot and carry entire trees and bails of hay. I saw all kinds of crazy things floating down the river! It struck me as a picture of what these prayers are like. The river is always there flowing through the city just as our prayers are. Then one day, due to a downpour of God's "rain"...His Spirit, the prayers increase to flood stage. This flood will totally change the face of the river bed. It will wash away all kinds of junk out of the city. It will be noticed by all who pass by...and people will watch in amazement at it's strength. This prayer movement is the same way. Only may it never die down! May it be passed on from person to person and from generation to generation.

We praise God for all the miracles He's performed since this movement began. In our newsletter (which I am currently writing) I'm giving more detail about all the Lord has done around us. If you are not receiving that newsletter and would like to, please send me an email at albrights@sharelifenow.net. We're encouraged. Please pray for steadfastness. -James

Lizzie Vocab

Well, our little (near) 2 year old has developed quite an interesting vocabulary and we thought you guys might laugh along with us at some of her words. If you're ever trying to communicate with Lizzie, here's a little dictionary you can use.

Dora (as in Dora the Explorer) = duda

Penguin = mingo

Triangle = gyno

Outside = side

Please = peas

Nana (her grandmother) = Ma

Barney (as in the dinosaur) = Marney

Pacifier = duda (Croatian word for pacifier)

Cookies = geeky

Banana = ba

Bekah = beda (she's getting better at pronouncing her name now)

More = mo

Water = wa-er

I love you = I yuv you

Elephant = e-fant

Chip = s#*t

Shake = s@*t

My wife is wanting me to make sure you all know that Lizzie says plenty of words correctly, has a great vocabulary, and to our knowledge does not have a speech impediment. :-) Hope you enjoyed our little 2 year old dictionary. - james