Lunch Program

The lunch program, where Eric works on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, continues to go well. The lunches are served at a Roma educational center, located in a Roma community that is home to at least 50,000 Roma.
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31466 This article tells a little more about the lunch program.

Olivia is here!

Our precious Olivia Caroline has been born!!
She was born on October 15, 2009 at 1:55 p.m.
weighing 8 lbs. and 20 inches long

She is so precious with her black hair and dark blue eyes. Her little chubby cheeks are so lovable!

I'm thankful to say that the international birthing experience went smoothly. We got Olivia's birth certificate today and we will go to meet with the embassy tomorrow to request her passport and social security card. As far as the hospital stay, the doctors and nurses took very good care of me and Olivia. I was very pleased. One interesting tidbit...Eric and I kept smelling fish in the hospital and we didn't know where it was coming from. I discovered the fish smell was coming from all the babies when I saw the nurse slather Olivia down with fish oil! Evidently fish oil has some great vitamins in it that are good for the skin but very smelly:).

Thank you all for your prayers for our family!

Sewing

Our team's sewing center just opened this week for classes. There has been a great response! There is a team from America here and they are doing a great job teaching. Women can come to sew quilts or crochet. Ladies of all ages are coming! I even tried to crochet myself but I'm going to need A LOT of practice:)The ladies were teasing me that I should crochet at the hospital while in labor!

Thank you to Union ladies!

I caught my first glimpse of snow on the mountaintops today. These scarfs, mittens, and hats are just in time. The UBC ladies sent them! Thank you, ladies! They will be fun to distribute!

Our Skype baby shower

Peachtree Community Church gave us a wonderful virtual baby shower last night! It was fun to visit with them and they had a special prayer time for me and Olivia.

Roma children

Here are some recent random pictures I took of the precious Roma children living here in Skopje, Macedonia.

Bajram

Earlier this week, the Ramazan season ended for Muslims and Bajram was celebrated. We were invited to Sheni's mother's home. He and his wife were very hospitable. They have a son, Kimcho, that is four years old, like Sawyer, so they had a good time playing together. Kimcho did some traditional Roma dancing for us. Also down the street was a huge circle of women dancing to band music. We had quite a feast with traditional salads, several meats including goat, and best of all-- baklava for dessert!