Celebrating Madyson Jewel!

We had the all time best birthday celebrating our Maddy this year! The girls have been really into Little House on the Prairie for awhile now so Maddy decided she wanted to have a Little House on the Prairie party. Aunt Brenda caught wind of this idea and flew with the wind! She sent us a package with a party in a box filled with things for the entire party. I had a blast putting it together and we all had a blast celebrating!

We started with costumes, bonnets and hats for all

We then build little log cabins and read some Little House on the Prairie to set the scene

We taught the kids and the bigger kids :) how to make jam and butter from scratch. The older kids cut up the fruit and the little kids smashed it, Stephen cooked it. For the butter everyone took turns shaking to whipping cream until it turned into butter.

We then moved to the washing clothes station where the kids hand washed the clothes, rinsed them and hung them up to dry.

Then we took our country selves marching through the city to the park where people stared at us play sack races, vegetable garden race, and good ole fashioned tag.

 Back inside for Rostilj (roasted meat) and mashed potatoes and cake                                               

Stephen did AWESOME on the cake!

 And presents!

Throughout the party the kids earned coins for participating in the activities and winning the races. At the end they got to use their money earned to purchase candy at Sister's Mercantile filled with yummy old fashioned candy.

Happy 4th Birthday Maddy! You are so much fun and we are so grateful God has allowed us to raise the blessing of You!

Creative Women

So it has been forever since I've written in our blog. I will try to do better as now our language learning is slowing down just a little and we are adjusting to life more in a foreign culture. This past month Jennifer (my teammate) and me started up a Women's Event. We had a friend come and teach us painting (somewhat like Painting with a Twist in America). Our hope is to have an event every month for women here to just have time for themselves and to connect with others. These types of get togethers do not really happen here and our first attempt was a Great Success. Everyone loved their time and were excited about future events. Here are some pictures-

The Good Life

Our lives have changed so much over the past few months and I can't begin to put what God has done in us into words! We have had to cling to Him like never before. I have truly learned the meaning of praying without ceasing. I understand more what it means that He is the Bread of Life. I hunger and thirst for Him more than ever and lean on Him to guide my every moment and every day. I am currently reading through John and learning what it means to be "a disciple whom the Lord loves". Oh how good it is to bask in His love, promises and truths. I have let the enemy still my joy too many times. What He gives is Abundant Life Y'all! So with that splurge- here are some pictures of a beautiful town we got to visit this past week- Novi Sad, Serbia. It is SO BEAUTIFUL!! It was so good for us country folk to get out of the concrete jungle for a day and enjoy some refreshing, beautiful nature and a quaint city!

  "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." Genesis 1:31
Love to you all!

Expat Living

Many times I wonder- why in the world are we doing this? Why do I seem to choose the hardest avenues to pursue in life? We are not qualified for this, we are not good at this, and this life is hard. In America, we could work in jobs and feel accomplished in our family, our life, and our ministry. Here, we are like 2 years olds who have to depend on everyone else and especially on God and can't really accomplish anything.

                                      Our walk by the Danube River

My dad asked me the other day- “So what do y’all do all day?” When I actually thought about it, it didn’t sound like much. Well, it takes us at least half a day to make a grocery shopping trip, because we have to make our list, walk to the store down and up 4 sets of stairs to the other side of the highway, search the store to see if they even have what is on our list, pull out our phones to use google translate to search the Serbian words to determine what types of food we are looking at or how to order kilos of meat plus use our kilos/lb conversion app to see how much we actually want, look at prices and convert in our heads every price of dinars into dollars to see if we want to purchase the item, check out, then make the trek back to our home carrying the groceries up and down the stairs, then go to a green market to buy produce, and then do it all again a few days later because we can only purchase what we can carry and the foods do not have preservatives (good thing!) but requires that we shop every few days. Every normal every day task seems this huge when trying to accomplish it in another country, from washing clothes to purchasing a pencil. Many times I feel like a burden to others and so needy and accomplishments=0.

                                       Shopping at the Flea Market

                                             Laundry in Serbia

I am also daily overwhelmed with the burden of darkness that surrounds me, with feeling like the only Chrst people will see is in me, with the responsibility of knowing that the only Jsus my kids are going to see and learn is in me, with learning an extremely difficult language, ect. the list goes on… but I feel all the pressure is on me. I can’t take my kids to Awana club or Sunday School and have others pour into them, it has to come from me. I can’t surround my kids with g0dly influences because they aren’t here, it has to come from me. I can’t slack on my job or people will not hear the Good News, it has to come from me.

                                              Our Cubbie group

Then I am reminded that I am but dust and this life definitely proves that I am dust, but that G0d is the One that does the work. It is refreshing to be reminded that we can’t. We can’t do anything on our own power. In America, I often forgot this and tried to do things on my own power and abilities. We need more than ourselves, we need something/Someone bigger. It can’t come from me and never will it be able to come from me. I am not enough and I do not have the strength to be enough.

G0d knew this from the beginning of time. He knew that we couldn’t. We couldn’t give enough, we couldn’t be kind enough, we couldn’t obey enough, we couldn’t love enough.  He knew we would never be enough. I am so grateful He came to earth to give us Himself and to accomplish that which we could not and never would be able to. I am grateful for the reminder of our desperate need for Jsus! Whatever place you find yourself in where you are not enough- cling to the One who Is the I AM and know that He is enough.

30 Things I'm Thankful to God for in 2014

I started this list wanting to do a thanksgiving for each day of November and also walking through what all He's done for us this year. I thought I would be overwhelmed trying to come up with 30 but this list took me less than 10 minutes and I could have gone on for so much longer! It was great to remind myself that God has given me SO VERY MUCH to be thankful for each and every day!  I am so thankful to my God and Savior this Thanksgiving day for being a living and active God in my life!

1. creating the job description within our company that matches our passion for University students and Serbia.
2. The sale of our house within 24 hours for more than our asking price.
3. The spiritual growth that came with selling all of our belongings, trusting Him, and this move.
4. The friends and family in our lives that allowed us to stay with them, eat their food and consume their space with 3 littles who were not yet sleeping through the night or potty trained!
5. The wonderful ministry and team we were able to be apart of at Tech BSM.
6. Our great church family in Lubbock who was everything God made the church to be.
7. Our Lubbock friends who walked with me through some of life's hardest and greatest times.
8. FBC College ministry which allowed us to invest in our passion and its awesome leadership.
9. For the mission house in Lubbock that allowed our family to have some stability and time together during all of our transitions.
10. For my kids' friends and their great Christian influence on my kids' lives.
11. For our grandparents who did a wonderful job of spoiling our kids and us while we stayed with them.
12. For beautiful Texas weather and swimming pools.
13. For beautiful nature for our enjoyment.
14. For the best cousins and aunts and uncles for our kids.
15. For our extended family love and support.
16. For our many pryr partners who choose to support us and walk this journey with us.
17. For FBC Bellville for the love and support and special sending off service.
18. For my Bar Nun family.
19. For a safe plane ride overseas.
20. For a great team to join and work with.
21. For our company's leadership and their character and examples.
22. For a friendly warm hospitable culture to live in.
23. For rivers.
24. For friendships already made.
25. For neighbors.
26. For the believers in Belgrade.
27. For a great home.
28. For hot water.
29. For jalopenos.
30. For my beautiful family God has blessed me with- Stephen, Makayla, Maddy, and Nate

and on and on it goes...   Thank you Jesus for each moment!

Welcome to Serbia

So much has been going on and I have so much I need to write! I apologize for the lack of posts since we’ve arrived in Serbia, every day seems to be full of a new adventure and it takes awhile to do even the everyday things when in a new culture and foreign language.

Arrival

We arrived to an amazing welcoming crew and much to our surprise, zero customs- we just got our luggage and walked right out of the airport! Our team leaders took us to eat and show us around our block the first night.

Our neighborhood

 We live in New Belgrade. Everything we need is within walking distance and we have a mall just a few blocks away. Stephen's work is in the apartment complex right next to ours.

Our home (I attempted to plug a video tour of our new home here but couldn't get it to work) you can check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/mandy.alexander.18

The City

                                         The Sava River
                                         (1-2 miles from our house)  

                                                               

                                          Walking Street (tourist area)

Orthodox Church in New Belgrade

(right by our house)

Happenings

                                                                       Playgrounds

                                                 Bus Rides (usually they are jammed packed)

                                                                      Flea Market

                                                               Eating European Style

                                                                    Chasing Pigeons

We have been doing lots of furniture shopping trying to set up our new home, exploring the markets and our neighborhood, and learning culture. Things take a lot longer to get something done here when you have to walk where you want to go or use the bus system, when you can’t speak the language and can’t read signs or food labels, when you have to google translate messages in order to communicate, and when you don’t have a dryer and have 3 messy kids J  We are enjoying our time though and love learning.

Fun Story to End With (I could tell so many already!)

We had been in the country right at 1 week. We had learned that this culture is very laid back and an appointment doesn’t always mean anyone will show up (3 out of 4 scheduled appointments were no shows that week already) and this is a night culture so you never know what time someone might come by.  It was 8:45 that night, the kids were asleep and Stephen and I were in the living room. A plumber was supposed to have come by that day but did not show. All of a sudden we hear keys rattling in our door.  3 people proceed to enter our house, 2 men and a woman. I met them at the door and it shocked them. None spoke English very well. I assumed maybe it was the plumber and an apartment manager who was letting him in, not knowing the customs for this culture. I did wonder why he didn’t have his tools and why all three of them? But I proceeded to direct them to the bathroom and explain in hand motions what was wrong with our plumbing. They were nodding there heads and saying “Da Da” (Yes, Yes). After that, they pointed to the kids’ rooms and wanted to enter. I told them (in hand motions) my kids were sleeping. So they then started going into our kitchen. By this point I realize they are not here to fix our plumbing issues. One man who spoke very broken English managed to say they wanted to buy the place. I was thinking maybe like in America, sometimes people can rent a place while the owner is still trying to sell the house. I asked if he knew our landlord, the owner of the apartment and then explained/ motioned that we had just signed a 2 year contract. When they understood, everyone started laughing and they were on their way. Stephen the entire time was thinking, “Who all has keys to my apartment?!” It turns out, our owner forgot to tell one of her realtors that the place had been rented. Oh the adventures!