Lithuania Journal

Dec 26th

We didn’t actually get here until today (two days late). The reason for that is because the flight out of Billund, Denmark had been cancelled but for some reason we did not get notified. Therefore, we were stuck in Denmark on Christmas Eve and NOTHING was open. Seriously, I am surprised we found a motel because we didn’t find anywhere to eat and missed lunch and dinner that day and didn’t eat again until breakfast at the hotel. So basically we sat in our room and played board games and watched movies on TV for 2 days until we got on the next flight to Palanga (free of course). I’m sure there was a reason that we weren’t supposed to be here yet, or a reason we should have been in Denmark (hopefully we’ll find out before we leave and let you know). But we are here now and ready to serve!

Karolis and Jorune followed the plan and took the Christmas presents to the children at the orphanage, we had the craft supplies with us so we will do them on Saturday. They said there were only 4 group members here and that a lot of the children were gone so most of the presents are still in the office. We may take a few more gifts with us on Thursday/Saturday for anyone who is back, or just let you handle the rest, we’ll see.

We watered your plants, found the guitar music (and pulled out the pages that we knew), read all of your notes (thank you for the chocolate) and feel a lot better now that we are actually here.

We decided to try to have the Christmas party (pizza party) tomorrow evening. We will call everyone in the morning – after 10 according to Jorune. So our schedule for tomorrow consists of finding our way around, going shopping, maybe finding internet to contact our parents and shoot you an e-mail, and then preparing for the party. After that, we’ll try to follow your schedule a little better. hehe I’ll update you tomorrow.
Good night, Viso Guero

Denmark:
It was very amazing how everything was shut down. I thank God that we found a hotel and that it took our credit card. The only food place open was in the bus station and they wouldn’t take our card because we didn’t know a pin number. We have since called the credit card company and they informed us that the card came with a pin when we first got it and the only way they could tell us what it is was if we called from our home phone number. Bah, that seems kinda dumb to me, but then again we didn’t even know credit cards had pin numbers. Thankfully the hotel could exchange a small amount of money for us, but it wasn’t very useful since the only thing open the next day was a gas station. We bought snack food and sandwiches (which I ended up not liking). I think we would have enjoyed our stay in Denmark much more if it had been any other weekend of the year, but we didn’t have any control over it.
More people spoke English in Denmark than in Lithuania, but we at least were somewhat prepared for Lithuanian speech. We did see a beautiful full rainbow while we were trudging through the nasty sludge trying to find a hotel after we had discovered the main one was closed, . . .we stopped to admire it, then it snowed/rained on us. :/
Note to self (check this out), Legos were invented in Billund, Denmark and they have an amusement park called LegoLand there. It would be neat to come back and visit some day.

Karolis: 19. Wears all black. Very educated, at least in English and world event type things. Majoring in business with psychology minor.
Jorune: 21. Much quieter, likes pink. Also very educated. Majoring in business with psychology minors.

Dec 27th

So far we haven’t done too much stupid stuff. We went shopping first thing because we didn’t have anything for breakfast. So I think we found everything we needed for sandwiches without too much problem. Found almost everything we needed for the pizza party tonight (except I bought salmon stuffed olives). We also got something that isn’t milk. I’ve decided it is really gross. Also couldn’t find biscuits, but didn’t look too hard. I guess we need to go back to the store to get milk so we can eat cereal in the morning.
We stopped at the BIG and walked around, they do not have an interneto cavine [we went back and found it the next time, its in the electronics store] so we got back on the bus. Stopped at the first Omnitel we see which doesn’t have internet and the guy doesn’t think Omnitel does that, but we trust you so keep riding the bus. We miss the stop for the correct Omnitel and end up riding the whole rest of the circuit (not that long) before we get back to the correct place and get to check our mail. Yay!
We get back to your flat without any mishaps and find the correct place. Yay again! Now we are preparing for the party which I think only Karolis and Jorune are going to be at, we got two other maybes, but I’m not sure they will come. We will have a great time no matter who shows up. Plan on sending out a mass text message tomorrow to remind everyone about the group meeting and that we are here. More updates later. . .

The party and the pizza turned out great. We had Karolis and Jorune and a bit later Oksana came (she had a Christmas party to attend). We made two pizzas and those went pretty fast so Jorune made us a ‘Lithuanian’ pizza and then when Oksana came we made another one. We have quite a bit of leftover mixings maybe we’ll make more pizza before we leave. The conversation went well, everything from gothic people to all music to President Bush. We sang some songs and everyone seemed to enjoy it, so Wednesday those three will help us get the others into it. Akville messaged us and hopefully we will be able to see her when we visit Vilnius. We don’t have any plans for tomorrow yet, we are thinking that we should try to have lunch or coffee with Giedre since she could not attend the party and is one of the few who is actually in town.
Wednesday evening has been planned by you and we’re excited about that, we of course will also go over some Christmas stuff since we missed Christmas.
Thursday we will go to the orphanage and play with the kids if we can get a translator with us, but we’ll do the crafts on Sat. We have been invited to a sauna (I think Jorune will be finding me a bathing suit) and to Karolis’ mother’s house for dinner. He said she was worried about us being all alone here.
So there are our plans, we will see how well we follow them.

The weird milk stuff that is kinda like yogurt/buttermilk (kafyras) has been explained to be very good with any potato product. Fries and potatoes says Karolis and Jorune explained that many Jews and Russians use it and that it can be found in the US. How ignorant of my own home. We also learned that Chicago is the main US city that Lithuanians have immigrated to and that Karolis has an aunt there. Apparently, the Lithuanians followed our elections much more closely than their own even though their most recent president had been impeached and they had an early election this year. [I believe that most other countries followed our elections due to the fact that a change in presidents would have very much affected foreign policy and since we are the bullies that we are, most countries want to know who’s holding the reigns in the US.]
Karolis: New believer, eager to share his story with us. Very exciting to get to know him more over the rest of our stay.
Jorune: Sings beautifully. I believe she loves music, she seems to hum to herself a lot and we found out that she knows how to play the guitar. She was very exact when making her pizza, each piece of meat and cheese had its place and she put it there.
Oksana: We spent very little time with her this evening. Also enjoys singing and knows most of the songs we do out of the binder. Is not Lithuanian, I believe Russian. Don’t know her age, but place her around 21.

Dec 28th

Didn’t do much of anything today, tried to get either Zevile or Giedre to have lunch or coffee with us and both were busy. Decided not to bother anyone else since we saw them last night and will be seeing them tomorrow. I’m getting a little better at this text messaging thing and sent out a reminder for tomorrow to everyone that is in town (7 or 8 I think).
We went out to find the interneto cavine in the Hyper Maxima [Its in the Omnitel and there is only one computer] and ended up using the internet in BIG that we did find this time, its in the electronics shop. We looked up some more of our songs so we could teach them tomorrow since they enjoyed the singing and it’s easier for us to teach than for us to learn with Nate playing the guitar. We also ate in a cavine there, Cili Pica, I had dumplings and Nate had some type of breaded hamburger, both were very good.
So far we haven’t really noticed anything that would be considered ‘Lithuanian’, except the kafyras, which I won’t be taking home as a souvenir.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s group and hopefully meeting more of the members.

The building/flat:
Nate has remarked that he never would have dreamed that he would be sleeping in an old Soviet housing block. It is pretty run down looking on the outside. But the inside was very surprising, whoever owns this rents it to Kel and Sharon fully furnished. Each room is a different color scheme and everything is very nice. I think Kel’s plants make a nice touch and I really enjoy the wooden floor. Most of the city’s buildings have heat that is controlled in some central location. We don’t have any control over the heat and its kind of nice not to have to worry about it.
We learned that Lithuania is the most dependent country on nuclear power, so I suppose that is how the city gets their electricity. They also have air power. Makes so much sense, I don’t know why they aren’t everywhere.
We are right on the coast (actually it is a little canal, kind of) but no one can get to the water’s edge without taking a ferry or driving a ways because it is blocked off for the ports and fishing ships. Also, the old town downtown cannot be driven to. The buses can drive through and you can walk. We think that is where the fireworks will be and there is a lot of shopping there.

People:
The people don’t really dress any different here, although it seems the girls make more effort to look nice, and nobody wears tennis shoes. I have also noticed a lack of blondes, many girls have dyed their hair red or bleached blonde. Nate seems to think that we stick out and we haven’t really been able to figure that out. It may be because we do not dress up as much as most of the people do. We have noticed the way people are concerned about appearances, and haven’t seen anyone who is overweight or that looks like they are starving. Also, we haven’t noticed any prostitutes or homeless, but that could be because we haven’t been out in the evening.
It is refreshing to see how young the children ride on the buses and seem to get around town without parental supervision; we have taken that to mean that the town is safe (at least during the day). It has also been nice that no one smokes on the buses, but they do everywhere else.
Jorune and Karolis told us that Subway did not survive here because it was too expensive and unhealthy, but there are a few McDonalds, we will have to ask them about that tomorrow.

Dec 29th

Thanks for waking us up. Actually, our alarm went off at roughly the same time and it was a little confusing for someone who was half asleep to realize you were calling us.
We didn’t have anything planned until Namisku Grupe so we spent some time looking through the guide book and your notes and took our votes. Nate wanted to go walk through Old Town and I wanted to go to the beach, so we found our way to bus 6 [which does not go to the beach Nate thought it did] and then found bus 4 which got us where we wanted to be. We were surprised at how clean the beach was since the sides of the road are fairly littered and the rest of the city is somewhat dirty, but the beach was very nice. I picked up some rocks that I liked. Nate stood on a little island of sand with an ‘ocean’ river passing by, we’ll send you our pictures. I was surprised to see the girls walking in the sand with their high heels. hehe
Then we got back into town and did a bit of walking until we got to El Dorado. We recognized that name from the guide book so we looked it up and decided to try to have lunch. We had our first taste of katpa dona (spelling?), fried bread and some soup. Just after we had finished eating Vilma phoned us asking if we would like to go to the beach. Awesome! She and her friend Elo from Estonia and her brother Andreus took us to Palanga to see the beach there, because ‘It is prettier’. We walked out onto a pier and it was a lot colder out there than on the land. Then, Vilma took us to some place that created the recipe for katpa dona and ordered us some. It was better than what we had earlier, but we were still full so did not enjoy it as much as we could have. We had great conversation in the car (with Vilma at least) on the way back and she and her friend stayed for N Grupe. Karolis and Jorune also showed up, though a little late. I think the study went well, we decided to go ahead with the Christmas story since we missed it. Nate thinks they were bored, but I think we pointed out new things and hearing about our savior’s birth is always exciting. We sang quite a few songs including Jesus, Be the Center. They seem to dislike the Lithuanian versions of English songs (they say they don’t flow), so maybe you need to find some Lithanian songs so they will sing them. Nate also had the idea that they could write their own version of songs that they like so that it will flow better. That could be a fun bible study/event!

Vilma: It was nice of her to ask us to come with her to the beach. It was prettier, but we had just missed the sunset. :/ She and her brother seem to get along well; I hope that is a standard of families here. They do seem a bit far apart in age, over ten years. She did say she has a sister, don’t know her age.
We asked Vilma what she thought about becoming part of the EU and she said she was excited because it would bring change, but that is also why many older people are upset about it. And she explained how the new regulations would create hardships for the small farmers trying to meet EU standards. She thinks that the government officials will profit from it, but the normal people will not. I hope that whole country can profit from being part of a larger organization. Although, Lithuanians do not yet really know who they are so becoming a member of the EU might keep them from finding their identity and they may just become Europeans.

They eat a lot of chocolate here. Karolis and Jorune brought the Lithuanian kind that has air pockets, it was very good, they ate the whole bar during the grupe AND a couple of cookies.

Dec 30th

I haven’t been typing my own sections, but I have been reading and editing Becca’s sections. However, yesterday I decided that I had too much in my head, I had to start writing things down. Everyone who knows me will tell you I’m a list maker. I think my favourite part of travelling is just discovering the major and minor differences between here and home. I started making a mental list of these things, but very quickly the list got too big, so here it is:

• Becca and I were somewhat fascinated by the round door key and the lock that has 6 dead-bolts. Crazy…

• I knew the electricity would be different, but the electrical plugs here are so huge! A standard electrical plug in the US is half this size.

• The light switches are very high on the wall, which is surprising to me because it seems there are many short old ladies around who would have to reach up to push the switch.

• The entry hallway is unusual for Becca and I, though I’m sure it’s quite common for many homes where it gets cold. Taking off shoes before entering the home is a per-family tradition, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an entrance with a chiffarobe (sp?) for coats. Makes perfect sense, especially for guests, but in my history of homes I’ve always just taken my coat to my bedroom.

• The telephone/power poles here are made of concrete; in the US they are made out of wood. I guess concrete makes good sense, however now they engineer our wood poles to break easily so if a car hits it the pole does not kill the passengers. However, I see many of the concrete poles have additional support wires/poles, so maybe they aren’t stuck into the ground very deep, thus they too might fall easily if they get hit by a car. Anyway, I think our wooden poles are easier on the eyes.

• We’ve already mentioned that we noticed that kids ride the bus by themselves here very young. This is a good thing. It is a shame that our country is so concerned about crime that we cannot allow our children to go out alone. However, I wonder what kind of mischief that could lead to at an even younger age. Would definitely require better parental skills than what I think most Americans have.

• We’ve noticed that everyone has a cell phone, and several people have commented that it is a status symbol. Even if you cannot maintain the cost of it or even if you don’t really use it, everybody wants a cell phone. The cell phone frenzy in the US I think has reached its peak. True, most people do have a cell phone, but only once have I ever heard somebody say they cancelled it because they could not afford it, in which case it’s good that they made a responsible decision about it. And those that don’t have cell phone seem comfortable without one, because they don’t have a need for it.

• Nobody wears tennis shoes here. Understandably, I can see how boots would be warmer and more water proof. I think Europeans have a wider variety of shoe designs, or at least, they seem to have shoes that look different from the US even though the rest of the clothing looks the same.

• Girls seem to feel the need to dress up when they go out into public. Vilma mentioned that in the US people don’t spend as much time in public because they go directly from their home to their car to their work and vice versa, so they don’t see anybody. But here people are dependent on public transportation or walking so they see people. I don’t know… If that were the case then why hasn’t the “dress up” phenomenon taken hold with the guys? Who are the girls dressing up for? I fear it’s a western influence. I know that in the US image and fashion are advertised hard, but I get the impression that the Lithuanian women are really buying into it whereas in the US people have become accustom to it and therefore have a more independent thought about what they will wear. Yes, many people do dress up in the US, but there are also a lot of people who don’t care. I think it has something to do with the maturing of a free country.

• Most people do not have cars here, but that is to be expected I guess. I think Texas, southern, central, and mid-west states are somewhat unique in that most people do have cars due to the large distances we drive. I know for North-eastern cities especially this crammed living and public transportation life style is the norm.

• Back to status symbols, very early on Karolis asked me about my watch. He was surprised that I was wearing a Timex. I guess he considered them to be low quality (or low status). Same for cell phones, he wanted to know what kind of cell phones we had.

• Karolis was very interested in what kind of music I listen to. It was hard to answer that because I haven’t followed any particular band in a long time. I just listen to the radio now mostly where you rarely learn the name of bands or songs, and my music collection is rather out-dated.

• Many cars here run on propane. I think that’s a wonderful thing, though I don’t think the world’s reserve of propane is substantially larger than gas, ie it doesn’t solve our energy crisis, just delays it. Jorune and Karolis think propane hasn’t caught in the US because of the cheap gas prices, but I think it’s because we are already outfitted for gasoline and nobody wants to incur the cost of refitting everything for propane.

• All four wheels of the shopping carts here swivel, making them more agile down crowded lanes and more fun to drive! I wish we had these in the states!

• Jorune made sandwiches with butter and meat. My dad used to combine butter and meat, but I always thought he was weird, turns out that’s normal here.

• The lights go yellow before red and before green! I think that is very kind of them to let us know when it is about to be my turn. I am always looking at home to try to figure it out.

Dec 31st

What a day today has been. Mostly good, can’t complain, but my body is ready for a hot shower and to lie down. This is ironic because Becca and I have been spending a lot of time in bed. We’ve been going to bed about regular time for us, about 11pm, and sleeping until about 10:30am. This is very odd because we usually can’t sleep past 9am. It could be many things, perhaps some type of jet lag… I wake up about 5am and have a hard time getting back to sleep until about 8am it seems, but then I’m in a deep sleep again until 10am. I guess I could just get up at 5am, but I’m not a morning person. My next theory is that we sleep late just because we have nothing better to do. This is the first time in years I can recall having an extended period of time where we basically have no responsibilities. Obviously we have responsibilities to our group, but since everyone here sleeps until noon unless they have a job, there’s no reason for us to get up. Kind of nice, but it also makes me feel like a bum. [Nate also has been having dry skin and that makes him itch, which could be a reason he isn’t sleeping so well, I am sleeping fine!] The last reason is because it never really gets dark or bright here. The lights from outside keep our room at a dark glow, brighter than I’m used to, and in the morning the sun doesn’t really shine so I don’t get up naturally. Oh well, no big deal.

So today we went with Jorune and Karolis to a sauna on the north end of town. Becca and I discussed this at length after being invited because we had no idea what to expect. For one, saunas aren’t very common in south Texas and two, they are primarily in health/fitness centers which Becca and I have never been a part of. So, other than it being a steamy hot room, we had no idea what to expect. Obviously we wanted to accept their invitation, experience a part of this culture, and have a chance to socialize with some of their friends, but we wanted to be prepared in case a situation arose that made us uncomfortable. We were particularly concerned about nudity, not knowing what tradition here was. Another small obstacle was clothing. I brought a single pair of shorts to sleep in that I could use as swim trunks, Becca brought nothing. Jorune lent her a bathing suit which worked well enough but was a little too big, particularly in the bust. [Becca: I seem to have that problem] That worked out alright, and it turned out that only one girl wanted to be nude, but to my relief the girls wanted to isolate from the guys while she was nude. I’m not sure how Becca felt about this. I’ve been naked with guys in locker rooms, but never in a setting where people just “hang out”. Anyway, I was glad to not be put into a situation where I was pressured to strip or in a situation where I had to face temptation. Sounds funny from a guy who has a history of skinny dipping and streaking. Either I’ve grown up some or I’m just more comfortable doing that with my own friends in familiar surroundings. Probably both… Anyway, the sauna turned out to be nice, but not something I would ever go pay money to do, the idea of putting your body through extreme hot and cold conditions just doesn’t make sense to me. I was also surprised that everyone brought beer and chips to the sauna. Evidently its not a health thing at all, just a social hang out. However, all in all, I was kind of
disappointed with our time at the sauna. All of the people there seemed to speak pretty good English when I would ask them a direct question, but if the other person does not engage in a conversation with me I can only ask so many direct questions before I start to sound annoying/desperate/bothersome. Only one guy seemed interested in talking to me, for which I was very thankful. The rest of the time everyone just carried on conversation in their own language, leaving Becca and I out of the conversation. Another problem is names. I think I am better than most for short term name retention, but when the names are difficult to pronounce and hard to visualize, it leaves me almost immediately. I know the same will be true at the orphanage. This makes me want to not even make an effort to verbally communicate and just put on a big goofy smile, hoping everybody sees that I’m a nice guy. I know God can say a lot with a smile, but it makes me feel like I’m a big dumb American. Oh well, I went where God sent me; I hope I was able to make the best of it.

Oksana went with us to the orphanage tonight. We had a great time playing with the youth, though it wasn’t quite what I expected. From the letter I thought we’d be playing with games and equipment they provided. However, when we got there they seemed a little surprised to see us and just put us in a little hallway area with a water fountain in the middle. It was enough room to play with the group we had, about 10 kids. I was amazed at how quickly some of them took to us, wanting to play and sit in our laps, etc… Wow, what a tough life they must have to want love from complete strangers. We could also see the result of a lack of parenting, lots of me-me-me, pushing, kicking, etc…
Becca did a wonderful job of getting their respect and obedience over the course of the night; it’s a sight to see. I think I do pretty good, but I let the kids play rougher on me so I think its harder for them to differentiate what is acceptable or not. I was human monkey bars, bucking bronco, and airplane most of the night. I got quite a work out, but it was fun and the kids enjoyed it. I scared a little girl though, she cried… I don’t know why, we were playing a game of peek-a-boo, and then I ran up to her like I was going to tickle her and she just started crying.
I sat with her for a while and she seemed okay but she didn’t want to play with me the rest of the night. She seemed to take to Oksana though. I enjoyed watching Oksana play with the children. Her smile lights up.

Time for a shower!

Becca:
Jorune and Karolis: The group of friends was mostly from high school, it’s nice to be able to say you still have ties to younger life. The girls are always more talkative so it would really have been better if I was the boy and Nate was the girl because I don’t like making small talk so much and he does. Oh well, they wanted to tell the best places to hang out and the bars to go to. I don’t remember any names, but at least they made a try for me.
Oksana: Loves the children, it was great that she helped us out.
The Children: All of them are definitely deprived of love and attention and you can see it in the way they act. At first they did a little bit of testing the waters so to speak to see how much they could get away with and how we would play with them. They learned quickly that I wouldn’t be slinging them around the room and they went to Nate for that. I eventually got it through their head that they had to take turns and got them into a sort of line for the “Nate Ride”. I understood enough to know that they didn’t understand me, but pointing to the light switch and saying ‘NE’ was definitely understood. We got them to sit in a circle to hand out the cookies, and they were very greedy. But when I put them away I guess they understood and forgot about them. I wish we knew a song to teach them, which is always the best way to get the children we work with to quiet down or pay attention. All in all, I think the night went well and they will be happy to see us on Sunday. A couple of the older boys came upstairs to see what the commotion was and we both wanted to go talk to them, but unfortunately we had small children clinging to us and the boys left pretty quickly. Maybe we can get to talk to them or to participate in the crafts.
Giedre: We sent her a birthday sms and it seems like that was a good thing to do. I hope we get to meet her soon.

Dec 31st

Today Becca and I explored the rest of downtown. We stopped at Omnitel and spent a long time on the Internet. Becca’s parents had sent out Christmas pictures so it was nice to see some of the family and stuff we missed. We went passed the ferries (which were closed today) and saw the big ships at the harbour. We also saw the clock museum and the old post office but decided not to go in. After that, we had lunch at the Klaipeda Hotel Restaurant and I got to try Zeppelinis. It was good. Becca had gira, she didn’t like it. We decided that we really like the dumplings here.

Vilma invited us to a party downtown, but we decided not to go because we weren’t sure where it was and who was going to be there. We also heard a lot of stories about how crazy people get here on New Years so we decided to stay in. We had Champaign, crackers, and cheese, and talked about 2004 and hopes for 2005.

Two boys came by and asked for food, we gave them bread, cheese, and hot dogs.

We sent out New Years greetings and invitations to Sunday’s activities to everyone in town.

Zivile, Ruta, Giedre were invited for lunch, but no one could make it.

The New Year’s celebration was definitely cultural, though basically the same thing happens in San Antonio. We enjoyed a lot of the fireworks from your windows and heard a lot more. There were some boys playing with sparklers right outside the window, so we watched them for awhile.
It was really neat because a fog rolled in around 9 PM and it was difficult to see across the street, then when everyone started shooting off their fireworks, the smoke made it harder to see. It was very thick. Becca is glad she didn’t have to go out in it.

Vilma: she seemed a little put out that we didn’t come with her to the party. I hope we did not offend her in any way, we didn’t mean to. We were just a little leery of a different place, lots of people getting drunk, and things that go ‘boom’. I think we had a nice evening together, talking and relaxing.
The boys: They didn’t look like they were hungry, but I couldn’t understand what they said or why they wanted the food. I am not sure if they were happy with what we gave them or not. Hopefully we helped someone, somehow.

Jan 1st

The group members made it quite clear that going to the orphanage wasn’t a good idea for Saturday after New Years Eve, so we had rescheduled that for tomorrow. We also decided to make everyone fajitas for a Mexican treat and we will do that at 6 PM at your place. Karolis had mentioned that you usually don’t do a ‘bible study’ per se on Saturdays so we will be sneaky and do ‘discussion questions’ which will give us a chance to say bible type things without actually giving a message. 😉
Since our schedule was basically cleared for the day and since most places were closed down for the holiday, we decided to do a little more exploring. We found the Lutheran Church after a bit of wandering. It doesn’t look like a church from a distance, but when you get close you can tell by the stained glass windows. We noticed a lot of trash from the fireworks yesterday and wonder who will be cleaning it up. The BIG was closed (that’s where we saw all the ethnic foods) so we tried to find all the fixings for fajitas at the HyperMax but didn’t find tortillas or dirty rice so hopefully the BIG will be open tomorrow between the orphanage and the party.
We finally ate Lithuanian pizza; we hadn’t had any since we had leftover pizza in the fridge for awhile after the pizza party. It was good. The crust is more like bread than our pizza, but I think it’s still the same idea and it’s still great. Maybe they should call our generation the “Generation Pizza”, it seems to be the food of choice almost everywhere!
When we got back we prepared the crafts for tomorrow and made a couple demos to show the children. We were concerned about how long it would take for the glue to dry on the Popsicle sticks, so we pre-glued about twenty but have the stuff for more in case we have more children than the other day. I know that Karolis, Jorune, and Oksana will be there tomorrow. We also sent a message to everyone else in town and called Agne, Tatjana, and Violeta. I don’t know if any of them will come, but I hope so.

Oh, I keep forgetting. Karolis said, “It’s good that you came because otherwise the group wouldn’t get together at all.” 🙂 yay

Jan 2nd

This morning at the orphanage turned out great. Karolis and Jorune were the only ones who came; Oksana messaged us this morning as a no. We had about 20 children and we made God’s Eyes, two sticks and some yarn. We had quite a bit leftover yarn and left it in the cupboard for you. I was very impressed with how we kept their attention for about an hour. The younger children only were interested in making one and they liked the idea of making them into necklaces, but the jr. high boys spent a good amount of time making theirs look nice and also making more than one.
I gave them all presents of mechanical pencils and erasers which the little children had more fun playing with than doing the craft. I don’t know if there is any lead left, a lot was on the tables when we cleaned up!
I also gave one of the nannies a box full of soap and combs; hopefully she understood that it was for the children when they needed it. We also told them we would be coming back on Thursday. I am glad because we forgot to give them all little wooden crosses that we brought with us. It will be a nice treat to give them then.

Again a couple of older boys showed their face to see what was going on, but despite our invitation they didn’t even come in. One older brother came in and I tried to get him to do a craft with us, but I think he just wanted to ask his sibling something. He didn’t seem like he resented me or anything, but didn’t really want anything to do with me.

We have called everyone on the list again and for our party tonight it looks like Karolis, Jorune, and Victoria, although Oksana might come. It is difficult to get anybody to commit to anything. That’s common in the US too I guess, but I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that we’re strangers.

Nate: We just had a lovely evening with Karolis, Jorune, and Victoria. The fajitas turned out so-so by our standards but everyone else seemed to really like them. The guacamole we bought at BIG was a big hit, nobody had ever tried it before and they were surprised we were able to buy it here. We have quite a bit of left over though, too bad we’re going to be travelling the next couple of days, hopefully some of it will still be eatable when we get back.

After dinner we started asking questions from our Ultimate Question List. Some of the questions are very easy to answer, others are very difficult. Each person took turns picking a random number from 1 to 200 to choose their question. We did this a couple of times for each person and then we tried answering the questions for other people. They seemed to enjoy it, but it didn’t lead to any earth shattering conversations. But it did soften the entrance to our discussion question for the evening: How do we know God loves us? We had a myriad of conversations that went off in about every possible direction. They were good tangents but most of them were the kinds that leave you scratching your head saying, “only God knows”. Although I (Nate) typically enjoy these types of conversations, I was frustrated because I could see how Karolis was struggling with these stumbling blocks to his faith and I feel like I did little to help him remove them. But just having people to listen to your questions is valuable to someone on their faith journey, so I know I certainly didn’t do any harm. Despite the tangents, we were able to reel the conversation back into the prompted question a few times and good conversation was had. I was slightly disappointed though that the common thread between the answers was that they feel God’s love when God does something for them like answer a prayer or perform a small miracle. These are truly special gifts from God that make a big impression on our faith, but not things to hang our faith on… I was thankful for the good conversation and honest answers.

Tomorrow Becca and I are heading to Vilnius with Karolis and Jorune. I’m looking forward to this, both the exploration and the conversation.

Jan 5th

Becca and I just got back from our whirl-wind tour of Vilnius. It was nice. Karolis borrowed his father’s car and we chipped in for gas and meals. On the way there we made a minor detour to visit the Hill of Crosses. Karolis had never been there either. We were all impressed; though don’t know what words to use to describe it. It certainly isn’t beautiful, some might say its bad practice to allow crucifixes to become ruined, but it is amazing to see how many crosses are there. Given its history of oppression by the Soviets it is an impressive witness about people’s faith.

Monday night we slept at Jorune’s grandparent’s house. Very sweet people, they were eager to have us and feed us. We spent little time there however; there was much to see in Vilnius. Vilnius is a cute town, generally seems to be in better condition than Klaipeda, but everything is more expensive. We took a trolleybus downtown to Cathedral Square. I don’t believe I’d ever seen an operational trolleybus that uses overhead power lines, so that was kind of cool, though a bit uncomfortable when the bus comes to a stop and it is completely silent.

I thought the Cathedral was well done, very nice but not excessive as many cathedrals are. From there we climbed the hill up to the watchtower to look out over the city lights. The variety of architecture and small streets in Vilnius makes it a fun place. Karolis was quick to point out St. Anne’s church, which is Gothic architecture, his favourite. We visited this church too, but they were having mass. We then wandered through some of the streets, which we think included Beliaz Gatve but Becca and I were never sure, bought some nice souvenirs, stopped in a café and a bakery, and eventually to the old city gates (Dawn Gates?). We caught another bus back to her grandparents’ house for dinner and conversation, and then headed for the Hyper Maxima to watch a movie, Ocean’s 12.

Tuesday morning we headed up to the Three Cross Hill and got an even better look at the city. It’s neat to see a city that is so unapologetically Christian with huge crosses looking over it. I wonder how other people feel about them… Afterwards we visited the Museum of Genocide, which we hope was the KGB museum recommended to us by Kel. It was a prison used by Soviets to torture and kill those who rebelled against Communism. This was a real eye-opener for Becca and me, gave us a glimpse into what it might be like to have a foreign nation move in and establish authority. Karolis and Jorune commented that this subject arouses feelings of anger.

Monday night and Tuesday afternoon we tried contacting Akville and Veslava, but both times they refused our invitation, though with no specific reason. Disappointing, but at least they know an invitation was made.

The last part of our trip was a visit to the Trakai Castle. Becca and I really enjoyed this, though Karolis and Jorune seemed to be a little bored having been there before. I was glad they gave us time to enjoy it, though a little disappointed that in both the castle and the KGB museum there were many places where English translations were not present and places were shut down for renovation. The weather was beautiful today though, which made the lake and castle all the more impressive. The castle is not impressive for its size, but for its location and beauty. We also tried another Lithuanian food called Kibilai, which was basically a large dumpling. It was good. We LIKE the food here, and the price.

We still haven’t gotten a decent covering of snow, not even in Vilnius which I am told is usually colder than Klaipeda, though in some areas during our trip the ground was still white so at least we got to pretend like we were in snow.

All of the cities look very similar to each other [at least from the highway], I guess that comes from having all the regulations and the buildings are all basically the same. Vilnius had quite a bit to offer and we bought all of our souvenirs there. I think we spent the right amount of time there, if we had stayed longer we might have been bored and Karolis and Jorune would probably be tired of us.

Nate has a cold today, he started feeling bad on the way back from Vilnius and he is trying to sleep some of it off. I hope it is nothing contagious because I would rather not get sick. He usually gets sick about once a year, maybe this is it and then he won’t have to feel bad again for awhile. My ear has been bothering me a little lately, I might have an infection, but maybe I’m just being bothered by altitude or the cold or something. Luckily for Nate we had a prescription of general anti-biotic filled in the US before our trip, so combined with sleep and lots of water, hopefully it will be a speedy recovery.

I’m excited about teaching on Grace. It’s the main theology of the Lutheran church so I am prepared to talk about it. I guess it is the main reason why I stay in the church and deal with my other disagreements. I haven’t found another denomination that does any better. I am looking forward to church shopping in Arizona, but my heart tells me that I really just want to find a Lutheran church that is as well run as the one I grew up in, my college experiences have left me with a sour feeling for the church and I want it to go away. I too would like to remain in the Lutheran Church, but I am thankful for finding out about the Vineyard denomination. We read through the Vineyard statement of faith and found nothing that we disagree, although Vineyard seems to put more emphasis on the spiritual warfare and gifts of healing, prophecy, etc. I think we could be very compatible in a Vineyard Community.

It’s interesting to note that in both this bathroom and Jorune’s grandparents’ bathroom the toilet seats are broken. In fact this toilet seat seems to be an add-on to the toilet. Why would the Soviets make a toilet without a toilet seat? I’m also entertained by the manner used to flush the toilets here.

Last week I spoke with all of the local guitar players about having some practice sessions while I’m here. Zivile was the only one that seemed interested. Since there was only one and New Years seemed to be putting a crimp in everything I decided to post pone it last week until after we got back from Vilnius. I was also hoping that I might be able to talk Jorune into it as well. We did talk about it on the trip, but she seems pretty adamant that she doesn’t want to play. She doesn’t want to do it because she cannot play and sing at the same time, and therefore she believes she cannot be a good song leader. While it is true singing helps, as long as other people in the group know the song well it shouldn’t be a problem, but she didn’t accept that answer. She genuinely seems to enjoy singing, so maybe she just wants to use that time to sing to God and not worry about playing. I could understand that answer. Vilma has been travelling and working, Diana is travelling, and Zaneta lives too far away, so that basically leaves Zivile. I messaged her this morning expressing my desire for the group to have a guitar player and that we could meet at virtually any time she wanted to. She replied reminding me that she told me she was too busy until Jan. 20th with work and school. I will try Diana when she gets back on the 7th, but unfortunately that is our last day here. I believe this group could really benefit from a strong guitar leader; it is unfortunate that no one will step up to take that position…

Tonight we had our second namisku group with Karolis, Jorune, and Oksana. We had a great discussion about Grace, and a few other things. They were very interested in what we believed about infant vs. adult baptism and why we are born with sin. This is ironic because Becca and I have had many talks about these ourselves. I would be interested to hear from you what they had to say about our conversations, if they recall any of the details. I am afraid they will remember bits and pieces that add up to make us sound like bad people, but it’s hard to explain why God would kill children (Passover) or why we are born with sin… Anyway, I think we did a good job (thank you God), and they seemed to really enjoy the conversation. We based the lesson of Grace on the Prodigal Son and the Workers in the Field. It’s fun to work with this group because they only seem to know bits and pieces of the New Testament, not that we’re experts but I think we do have some knowledge we can share here…

Jorune cut her finger nails and played guitar a little after our discussion finished. She still didn’t seem to want to meet with me to practice before we leave, perhaps she has enough confidence that she thinks this is not necessary. She also said she wouldn’t bring her guitar because it is very old and sounds bad (water damage), so it may be hard for us to practice together but evidently she didn’t mind playing it at her house. You may want to have members of the group encourage her so she will play on Wednesday nights.

Jan 6th

Today was another good day. Thankfully, my sore throat is gone, but for some reason my head has stored in it an endless supply of snot, which is moving down into my chest. My nose is raw from blowing it so much. Otherwise though, things are going fine. Karolis’s mother invited us over to dinner this afternoon, and we spent a good deal of time at Karolis’s listening to music, using the Internet, watching funny videos he downloaded from the Internet. Then Karolis and Jorune took us to the orphanage where we played with the kids again. We can’t figure out what you usually do with them, the people at the orphanage seem confused that we’re there and stick us in a small room in the hall. We managed though; K&J seemed to having fun playing with the kids, as did we. We had some new ones tonight that we hadn’t seen before, dang they are so cute. After a good deal of shoulder rides and swings we settled them down and actually did a few organized activities. We sang some songs that were just gibberish and included motions, many of the kids really got into it. We then played a simplified game of “Poop Deck”, which also went over well.

Tomorrow is our farewell party; we’ve invited everyone to bowling at Big. We’re going to pay for the lane; it’s only like 20L/hour, not bad. We’ll bowl for an hour or two depending on how many come, and then walk over to the Cili Pica for dinner, which will be at their own expense. Becca and I really like this restaurant. So far we know Giedre, Leonid, Victoria, and K&J will be joining us, I believe Oksana as well. I’m really surprised Giedre is coming, this is the first time she’s accepted our invitation to anything. Too bad we meet her on our last event. But at least she came to something. Karolis still has her birthday card so we need to remember to get it from him.

We have to be at Palanga airport at 7am Saturday, ugh! None of us are looking forward to that, especially after all these mornings of sleeping in. Becca and I bought a box of chocolates for K&J to say thank you for the early morning trip and for lugging us all over Lithuania.

Jan 7th

I called everyone last night to let them know about the bowling and dinner. We had a good response. Nate tried to get Diana to play guitar with him and they messaged back and forth all day long, but she didn’t want to bring her guitar and he knew you wouldn’t want him to take yours out, and she didn’t want to come bowling, and we didn’t know how to get to her place, so we ended up not getting together. All in all, it was very frustrating, but at least she showed interest, that is good.

Karolis, Jorune, Victoria, Leo, Oksana, and Nate and I all bowled. I am not sure why Giedre did not come, she said she would. We remembered to say Merry Christmas to Leo, Vicki, and Oksana which they appreciated. (on your note you said it Russian Christmas was Jan 6, but Christmas is really on Jan 7). We bowled for two hours and that was fun and then we ate a Cili Pica and even had dessert. It was my last meal of Lithuanian dumplings and I loved it.
Before all the party we (Nate) cleaned the apartment and we tried to finish up all the food out of the refrigerator so nothing would spoil or we wouldn’t have to throw anything out. Nate also did a bit of sleeping since he is still feeling a little sick, but he definitely feels better now. We left you little sticky notes all over the place, like you did for us. It will be fun for you when you get back.

Jan 9th

We had more travel trouble on the way home. From Lithuania we went to Hamburg, Germany where we were supposed to connect to Amsterdam. That flight was cancelled at the last minute due to mechanical problems, but we caught the next flight later that day. The flight was further delayed both in take off and in landing due to bad weather, so we finally arrived in Amsterdam about 7pm, but obviously we had missed our connecting flight back to Houston, which wouldn’t run again until the next day. So KLM put us up in a hotel near the airport and provided us free meals. We finally got checked into our hotel room and finished dinner by about 9pm. The obvious thing to do was to check out Amsterdam, like a free mini-trip before the end of our 2 week trip. To do this we could either pay $60 for a taxi (each way), or wait half an hour for the shuttle bus back to the airport, to catch a 15-minute train ride into Amsterdam (for $16 round trip). This put us in Amsterdam about 10pm. Unfortunately the train only runs once an hour in the evening and the bus from the airport stops running about 1:30am, so we had to leave Amsterdam by 12:30am to make it back to our hotel without paying for a taxi. We walked around Amsterdam for a while, definitely a lively place, especially on a Saturday night. Just as well we didn’t stay long, both of us got sick near the end of our trip, but it was fun.

So after leaving Klaipeda, Lithuania at 6am on the 8th, we finally arrived in College Station at 10pm on the 9th and back at work at 8am on the 10th.

One more interesting thing, before leaving on the 23rd the fire alarm in the Houston airport started going off. Nobody reacted to it so I figured it must happen frequently. I asked the lady at the ticket desk and she said she had never heard it before. But considering that our flight was leaving in an hour, I didn’t have time to wait outside for it to shut off. I figured I’d run when I saw smoke…