Read here about the surprising way in which the recession could make Americans more like Macedonians.  Fascinating article!

100 Years of the Albanian Alphabet
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

On the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Albanian Alphabet

Part III

(For Parts I and II scroll down.)

After Gjerasim’s death, his family and friends carried on his spiritual, educational and patriotic program. The movement that he was a part of came to be known as the National Rebirth (“rilindja”, sometimes translated “renaissance”, which is just the French word for “rebirth”). It is striking that Gjerasim and other key leaders who had experienced a personal, spiritual rebirth helped to make possible a national, cultural rebirth. Gjerasim’s influence on the Rebirth was such that his hometown of Manastir (Bitola) and his later base of operations, Korça, became twin epicenters of the movement.

The crowning achievement of the Rebirth was the Congress of Manastir, a gathering of Albanians in November of 1908 to establish the alphabet. Gjerasim had been dead 14 years by this time, but the conference was hosted in the Qiriazi family home by Gjerasim’s younger brother Gjergj. Their two sisters Sevastia and Parashqevia also participated as well as Grigor Cilka, the pastor of the church that Gjerasim had founded in Korça, and several other evangelical believers. In fact the only non-Albanian present was missionary Violet Kennedy. (She was an observer without voting rights.)

In a recent interview in the Albanian Tribune, scholar Reshat Nexhipi said that Manastir is for Albanians what Mecca is for Muslims. Here is how Dr. Nexhipi replied when asked why the Congress was held in Manastir: “Because, in addition to others, the patriotic Qiriazi family operated here, five members, three men and two women, each more patriotic and civilized than the other. Especially Gjerasim, without which Manastir probably wouldn’t have turned into a center for the National Albanian movement and the birthplace of the alphabet. The two sisters – Sevastia dhe Parashqevia – were the most emancipated women in the Balkans and beyond. They spoke 8 languages, Parashqevia was the only female at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.”

So what about the alphabet? How can it be that the alphabet wasn’t established until 1907 when Gjerasim was already distributing Scripture portions in Albanian in the 1880s – not to mention the baptism formula in 1462 and the Meshari in 1555? Of course Albanian had been reduced to writing long before the Congress of Manastir, but there was no agreed-upon standard alphabet. The language was sometimes rendered with Greek characters, sometimes with Cyrillic, sometimes with Arabic, and sometimes with Latin. Naturally there were competing interests advocating each of these options. And even among those who favored Latin letters, there was no consensus as to precisely which letters and what each one should represent.

The Congress ended up agreeing on a Latin-based alphabet with 36 characters, each representing a single sound. The choice of Latin characters was not without controversy. In the aftermath of the Congress, Muslim clerics in the city of Elbasan led demonstrations insisting that use of anything other than Arabic letters would make them infidels. (Ironically Turkey itself switched to a Latin-based alphabet in 1928 as part of Ataturk’s reforms.)

Although the Albanians are still divided by religion and by national borders, their unified alphabet has helped them maintain ethnic identity in the face of overwhelming pressure from fierce enemies. And the choice of a Latin-based alphabet was a gesture which revealed the delegates’ desire to place their nation in a European/Western cultural framework.

Conclusion

I want to be tentative here, because I’m expressing a conclusion that as far as I know is original to me – always a dangerous undertaking – and one that I have reached only recently. There’s a good chance that I’m overreaching here. If so, I’m willing to be corrected.

Christian missionary work has often been accused of being an arm of empire. This is a legitimate charge – one that we must not only repent of but continually guard against. But the story of Protestant missions work among the Albanians seems to stand in sharp contrast to this all too familiar narrative. Rather than being a steam roller that crushed indigenous culture, the Gospel seems to have functioned as a subversive force that undermined empire and fostered freedom for an oppressed people.  If this is true,  it's not because those  early missionaries to the Albanians had a healthier missiology than anybody else; in fact, it has much more to  do with the historical circumstances in which they worked.  The Gospel always seems to work better from a position of weakness than one of strength.

I can think of  a host of caveats with which to quality this thesis. Of course there were a thousand other forces battering the Ottoman Empire by that time. (Even if the Gospel played a significant role in the Albanian Rebirth as I am arguing here, that movement was only one of a multitude of nationalist movements.) Of course there is always a dark side to any nationalist movement. Of course the Protestant missionaries -- and Gjerasim himself -- had their flaws. But despite all of this, it’s a really wonderful story.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Albanian alphabet

Part II

(Scroll down for Part I.)

Buzuku notwithstanding, during those 500 years of Turkish rule, most Albanians adopted Islam. Conversions at the point of the sword were the exception rather than the rule, but there was always pressure. Christians in Turkish territory paid much higher taxes and were treated as second class citizens. The empire was organized along religious lines, so that when an Albanian, a Greek, or a Serb converted to Islam, he was said to have become a Turk. By the same token, an Albanian who belonged to the Orthodox faith was automatically considered Greek.  

In the 19th Century as the Turkish Empire began to unravel, Albanians (along with the other Balkan peoples) began feeling intense ethnic pride and a hunger for freedom. In the case of Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks, for example, religion was a unifying factor in their struggle to break free. However, Albanians were divided among three faiths: Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim. All three of these had been used at various times in history as a force for domination by foreign powers: Catholicism by Rome, Orthodoxy by Greece, and Islam by Turkey. None of the three allowed worship in the mother tongue at that time. For Catholics of course Vatican II was still 100 years away. The Greek Orthodox Church of that time alternated between denying that the Albanian language even existed and calling it "an accursed language." And Muslims must worship in Arabic to this day. In light of all this it's no surprise that many Albanian patriots came to see religion as a divisive and damaging force. A poet by the name of Vaso Pasha summed up the feelings of many of his fellow Albanians with the famous line, "The religion of Albanians is Albaianism." (Communist dictator Enver Hoxha would quote this to justify his decision in 1967 to make Albania the world's first constitutionally atheistic state.)

This was the historical context in which a young Albanian man in the city of Manastir (present day Bitola in Macedonia) was introduced to a living, transforming connection to God by Protestant missionaries in his city. His name was Gjerasim Qiriazi, and he discovered in his new faith a relationship with the God who spoke his language. He went on to study at a Bible school in Bulgaria after which he was sent to Skopje (where I now live and work) to pastor a Slavic congregation. From here he went to work for the British and Foreign Bible Society, which three hundred years after the Meshari, had begun working to translate the Scriptures into Albanian. Gjerasim traveled throughout the Albanian lands to distribute the Word of God in his mother tongue.

In the course of his travels Gjerasim rejoiced with his fellow Albanians as, for the first time in their lives, they held in their hands the printed word in their own language. But he also lamented the fact that so few of them knew how to read it. These experiences awakened in him a new passion, which led to a new pursuit. In 1892 in the city of Korça, he and his sisters opened the first ever school for girls in the Albanian language. (The first Albanian school for boys had opened just five years earlier in the same city.) Gjerasim also planted a church in Korça and established the Albanian Evangelical Brotherhood.  

Gjerasim’s life motto was, “Friends for God; light for the people; blessings for the motherland.” His faithfulness to this course proved costly. In 1884 he was captured by brigands and held for ransom for six months. Their brutality left him with health consequences for the rest of his life. Just as Pharisees and Sadducees found common cause to oppose Jesus in his day, Greeks and Turks managed to unite in opposition to this seditious book salesman despite their hatred of one another. He had to fight fierce opposition at every step. In 1893 he survived an assassination attempt, apparently sponsored by elements in the Greek Orthodox Church. As it turned out, his enemies could have saved themselves the trouble; he died less than a year later at only 35 years of age.

To be continued...

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Albanian alphabet

Part I

Disclaimer: I recently helped to organize an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Albanian alphabet. As I was writing a letter to my friends and supporters about this event, I felt compelled to help them understand its significance, but the letter I was writing was getting much too long and complicated. So I decided that I would write a blog post that would fill in some detail for those who were interested. Then when I set out to write this entry, once again it started getting away from me. I recognize a fundamental problem with what I've written here. If you're Albanian or someone who works with Albanians, you probably won't see anything here you don't know already know. If you're not an Albanian or someone who works with Albanians, you'll probably just find all this tedious. I guess I'm writing it for my own benefit as much as anything. I want to put into words what I've been learning. I'm no historian and no Albanolog, just a friend of the Albanians. If you disagree with my interpretation of events, or if I've gotten something flat out wrong, feel free to let me know.

I have a map of the Balkan Peninsula from the year 1850 -- an original, not a reproduction or photocopy. It was a gift from a friend in Taos, New Mexico, and I treasure it highly. The word "Balkan" or "Balkans" doesn't appear anywhere on my map; instead the title is "Turkey in Europe". That's what they called this part of the world back then.

One of the interesting things about my map is that it captures a snapshot of a very turbulent time when the Turkish Empire in Europe was on the verge of breaking up. On my map the southern part of Greece is not colored in because it was no longer part of Turkey in Europe; it had gained its independence in 1829. In the years that followed the rest of the Balkans would also tear away from Turkey.

By that time Turkey had ruled this part of the world for almost 500 years. At the very same time that the sunlight of the Reformation had been breaking through in Western Europe, the dark cloud of the Turkish empire was descending on the part of the world we now know as the Balkans.* The infamous battle of Kosovo Field, which is usually considered to mark the beginning of Turkish rule in the Balkans took place in 1389 -- just five years after Wycliffe's English translation of the New Testament.

But there were rays of light that reached the Balkans around this time. The earliest existing fragment written in the Albanian language dates back to 1462 and consists of the following words: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" -- 5 centuries to the year before the Catholic Church officially decided to allow the liturgy to be recited in local langugages. And the earliest book in Albanian was the Meshari of Gjon Buzuki(the Missal) a prayer book completed in 1555. The Meshari contained excerpts from the Bible, Catholic liturgy and catechism translated into Albanian.

The Meshari was completed in 1555, just 38 years after Luther had nailed his theses to the Wittenberg Door. By this time the Counter-Reformation was in full swing, and the Catholic Church was busy banning books which dared to translate the Word of God into the vernacular. Nevertheless Gjon Buzuku, the Catholic priest who compiled it, had the foresight to recognize that if Albanian Christians were going to resist the Islamic tide sweeping their lands, they needed God's Word in their own language.

Here is his own explanation of his purpose found the in postscript of the Meshari: "I, Don John, son of Benedict Buzuku, having often considered that our language had in it nothing intelligible from the Holy Scriptures, wished for the sake of our people to attempt, as far as I was able, to enlighten the minds of those who understand, so that they may comprehend how great and powerful and forgiving our Lord is to those who love him with all their hearts. I beg of you from today on to go to church more often to hear the word of God."

To be continued...

Ok, I really like Rob Bell and all, but is it just me or does he sound just like Kermit the Frog?

Most of the rest of the world is celebrating, but Macedonia is mourning.  There is a perception here that McCain is pro-Macedonia and Obama is pro-Greece.

Confession

They tell me that this drive of mine to be accepted and respected is the result of a deficiency in my experience of God's grace.  Once I am profoundly aware and convinced that God loves me and accepts me unconditionally, this pathological desire to impress and please people will whither away, they say.  

But I'm not so sure.  What if, having secured God's favor, I am left longing for a challenge?  What if this acceptance through no merit of my own leaves me all the more desperate to claim some kind of achievement?  What if the very fact that God's grace is given so freely carries with it the temptation to treat it as cheap? 

A Kosovar's critique of American culture

This is a piece that was originally posted to the facebook page of Genc Isa, a Kosovar friend of mine who spent some time in the US.  I found it pretty insightful, interesting, and even-handed. Sometimes we can see ourselves better through an outsider's eyes.  I thought this was worth passing on so I secured Genc's permission to reprint it here.  I thought it best to leave it completely unedited.  I hope you'll have the patience to read it through to the end.  (You'll see when you get near the bottom that I have an ulterior motive!)  I'll be happy to pass on any comments to Genc or put you in touch with him.

American Culture vs Kosova Culture

Hi everyone,

I was inspired by my friend Elisabeth Hansen to write her something about Kosova culture, economic issue, climate etc. I would like to share my experience in the US and how Kosova culture is different than it is in the US. 

Travelling to the US for a non US is the greatest thing that could happen. Why? Because they think that America will make their life better and fullfil their dreams. They are even to leave their families and community. There is no place in the world that you can be happy without your family. Family is everyone`s treasure. Unfortunately there are people who dont care about this.

While I was in the US, I was driving my bike and looking all these beautiful places, houses, mountains, cars, lakes etc. but something was missing on me. I was wondering how nice it would be if my family was here too. At that time I realized that there is no beautifil place in the world without your family.

Learning another language means learning another culture. In this case I have learned the American culture and now I can easily compare to my culture which is very different. Lets see how the family issue works in America comparing to Kosova:

Families in the US are separated all over America and maybe all over the world. Here families are very close to each other. Brothers and sisters of a Family in America are separated but here its the opposite. You have to live with your own brothers and sisters in one house unless you are rich and have another house to stay but still the youngest son has to take care of the parents til they die. In the US this never happens. You never see ten to fifteen people in one house. Families in the US dont make very often visits to their loved ones. They dont see each other for years. In Kosova they make visits very often. The husband in the family is the head of the house and the wife is responsible to take care of kids and jobs in the house and they would get mad if you enter the house with the shoes on. In the US you can go in the house with the shoes on. Most of the wives dont work because they have to take care of the house. Now it has become same for wives and husbands for work. There is no jobs for none of them. In America both of them work and there is someone else who takes care of the children, of course by paying for it. 

Now lets see friends relationships:
While I was in the US I made a lot of friends and they are all great. Sometimes they act selfish. I dont know why but maybe its part of culture. Here are some examples: while in the US one thing really bothered me. While I was going to work, I would see my friends coming in the same direction and they wouldn`t even say Hi to me but just pass making me feel invisible. In Kosova you would stop and sometimes shake hands with your known ones. This has happened many times to me. I would say Hi and they wont even reply. I was thinking whats wrong with him or her. Another thing is that people in America dont share when they eat something. In this case they act selfish because here in Kosova you always offer whatever you are eating to your known or unkown one. So, its very unpolite to eat something on your own and not share with others around you. Unfortunately, this did not happen in America. Its funny one time because when one of my friends was eating something and I was expecting to share it with me...ahaha. I was thinking she is acting selfish.

Marriage Culture:
In America people get married in the Church. Here they dont get married in the Mosque (lol) unless you are a Christian. Many years ago, the bride was chosen by the family and you would marry her but now its like in America, you find your own soul. Anyway, the marriage is very different than in the US. The girls of the family`s boy and neighborhood sing for a week before the marrige is done. They sing about how good is the boy. Then, after a week singing all the village or the known ones of the boy go to take the bride with a lot of cars and bring her to the bridegroom. In addittion, they still sing til the time when the bride and the bridegroom go in the room. While the bride is the living room, she cannot sit but stand and look down only. This is how it works here.

Wearing Culture:
To me this is a very big culture difference. Girls here wear very tight clothes, long women boots and heels and a lot of make-up and thats why I dont like them, for those who wear like that. They are beautiful without make-up so I dont know why they do this. To me this is very disgusting. In the US girls wear very simple clothes and no make-up. For me this is a very positive thing. Boys wear normal clothes. Old men wear a special type of wear and a special type of hat. They never wear shorts even when its very warm during the summer. They wear always the same clothes. They wash them of course. Some of very few young women wear scarf because of their belief orientation but most of the old women wear it because they are old. In the US I have seen this differene where old and young women and men wear normal clothes as well as for boys and girls. Its very unpolite for an old man to wear shorts and T-shirts with colors and nice athletic shoes. Everyone would laugh and think he is crazy. I have seen this many times in the US but I did not laugh because thats the American culture, right?

Other culture issues:
Can you please help me? We dont use the word Please. People would laugh and look you strange because you are being too way smarter than others. I had an experience with this while in the US. I saw a friend of mine taking breadrolls so I asked him bring me one too. He comes in the living room with two breadrolls and I ask: "Where is mine". He says: "You did not ask please". That was a very shock time for me, anyway I learned through that. Now I use please all the time in the US of course and when dealing with Americans.

People dont tip here. One day my friend took me and my family to restaurant who is American. When we were done and heading home she left a tip on the table. I noticed that she forgot the money so I grab it and while they were leaving I say: "You forgot your money". Then she explains what tip means. I have seen in the US how people tip and I think thats great.

Animals are not polite to keep in the house for most of the people, mostly women because they think animals make their houses dirty. There is not a lot of people that have dogs and cats in the house. If they have, they keep them outside. People say that dogs and cats are not created for inside but for outside. They hate the thing to have an animal in the house. They are very rude to them beating and throwing stones at them especially kids unrespected with dogs, cats, cows, horses etc. I feel sorry now because I used to be like that. I used to throw rocks and beat animals when I was kid. I used to beat cows, horses, dogs and throw rocks at cats. Now, I love animals and would love to have one in my house. In the US almost every house has animals in the house. 

Now, let me switch the theme:
I have seen that people in America have lost their interest in missions around the world. We have missionaries here in Kosova and they need support from their brothers and sisters. There is a family from California who want to move. They have been trying to raise their fund for two years and now its only 50%. Arent Christian Missions part of Bible and part of the Gospel? Being a missionary and saving people spreading the Gospel is a part of what Jesus Christ, isnt it?

To conclude all this is that I have had a great experience and time in the US. Culture did not really bother me because I have warmly received the American Culture and now I can act in both cultures, Kosovo and American Culture. In the future I want to learn another language and another culture. I have learned many things from my trip in the US, mostly for myself.

If there is anything you disagree, please dont hesitate to criticize me!?

All my Love and Blessings to you brothers and sisters!

Sincerely,
Genc Isa

Luke's world class kids' soccer coach

Luke's world class kids' soccer coach
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

Luke is blessed to have gotten connected with Football Club Skupi. Coach Bedri Saliu (pictured right), is a local legend. Every year he takes his 12 year olds to Norway to particpate in the largest youth soccer tournament in the world. In fact, this competition is billed as the World Cup of youth soccer. Last year Skupi took third place; three years ago they beat a team from Sao Paolo to win the number one place in the world for their age. Luke is about to turn to turn nine, so if he sticks with it a couple more years, he has the chance to play on a truly world class team. (Pictured left is assistant coach Meriton.)

Good article, bad title

Maybe we should blame God for the Subprime Mess

Bad theology has consequences!  Hat tip: Commonplace

Tetova apples
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

We went to a village near Tetova to visit an old friend and to wish him and his family happy Bajram (Id-al-fiter: the Muslim feast at the end of the Ramadan fast). In addition to the usual Turkish delight and bakllava, they served us apples from their orchard.

Tetova is famous for its apples. I'm not usually all that crazy about apples, but these were exceptionally delicious, and I said so. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than my friend's father excused himself from the room leaving me wondering why he had abandoned his guests so suddenly. (For Albanians, the guest is next to God!)

When it was time for us to leave he reappeared lugging a great plastic big garbage bag full of apples. It was nighttime, and he apologized for not having been able to see well enough to select the best ones.

So far I've made an apple pie, an apple cobbler, an apple coffee cake, and yesteday for breakfast apple muffins. We've still got plenty of apples left. I think I'm going to start the cycle over with another pie.

If you like apples and you happen to be in the neighborhood of Skopje, Macedonia, come over and help yourself. They really are delicious!

Gazi Baba Park path
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

Thanks to my sisters, my parents, and LInda Lofton for the new camera. I love the way it looks and the way it feels in my hands. I got it 3 weeks ago, and I'm just really beginning to learn what it can do.

Before I lost the old camera, whenever someone complimented one of my photos, I would always say, "Yeah, and just imagine what I could do if I ever got a real camera!" Now that I finally own a DSLR, I don't have anything left to hide behind.

That's one of the reasons it's taken me so long to post anything new to my flickr site. I haven't really been happy with the pictures I've taken so far. I'm holding myself to a higher standard, and I'm still hoping to produce and post pictures that far surpass the old stuff.

Here's an interesting link on Pentecostalism, politics, and Sarah Palin.

The puppy who chose freedom

Saturday evening we had some American friends at the house, and we all walked down to the doner shop together for dinner.  As we settled down at the cafe tables to eat, a puppy was making the rounds begging for handouts.  She was thin but not emaciated, mostly brown with white socks on her front paws and black and white stripes on her muzzle.

The kids have been wanting a pet for quite a while.  We had some turtles for a while in Kosova, but they died.  We've never had the conditions to keep a cat or dog.  Since Luke was born, we've shared a yard with the landlord (minus the two years during that time that we were on Stateside assignment).  Another factor is that we've tried to keep our house welcoming to our Muslim neighbors, many of whom are disgusted by indoor pets.  Then there's the issue of our lives straddling two continents.  We stay in Europe for four years then go back to the States for a year, then back to Europe again.  What do you do with a dog when it's time to move back and forth across the Atlantic?

I offered the kids compromises.  What about a hamster?  A guinea pig?  A nice rabbit?  But they weren't interested.  We have some colleagues here in Macedonia who work with the same organization we do, and they keep a dog.  It turns that taking a pet between countries does require some extra work but nothing insurmountable.  I know that my kids are growing up, and deep down I guess I feel that their childhood would have been deficient if they never had a dog or cat.  So I promised them that when we looked for a house, we would try to find one that had a yard where we could keep a dog.

One of the first things I noticed about our present house the first time I saw it was that tucked among the weeds and trash was a crudely made doghouse.  This was clearly a yard where it was possible to keep a dog.  (It turns out that the former owner kept, not one, but four dogs.  I'm starting to gather that a lot of neighbors were grateful to see him go!)  

So there we were at the doner shop with the kids pulling that, "Please, dad, can we keep her?" thing, and I said ok.  The black and white stripes on her muzzle suggested a badger, so I proposed the name Bella after a badger character in the book I've been reading to the kids at bedtime.  

Lydia carried Bella in her arms for the five minute walk home.   I could see that it was a bit of  a struggle for her.  While the dog was far from fully grown, she wasn't tiny either.  Halfway there I offered to relieve Lydia of her burden, but she insisted on going the distance herself.  

When we got within sight of home, I realized that we had a problem.  The house is surrounded by an iron fence with big gaps everywhere.  Only a fairly large dog would be unable to crawl out.  I don't know how the former owner kept them in unless he bought them when they were big.  Or maybe he kept them chained up.  I just hoped that once Bella tasted the affection (not to mention the puppy chow) that we had to offer, she would choose to stay.

The kids (our two and six guests) and Bella romped and played for hours that evening.  Lydia went to the grocery store on the corner and bought dog food, and we were amazed at how quickly the puppy wolfed it down.  It soon became evident that we were going to have to teach Bella some manners.  She nipped at the heels of the little ones and made them cry.  But overall we all found her very charming. 

During the course of the evening she darted in and out of the fence a few times but always came back. When our guests left and Lydia and Luke had to go inside for the night, Bella cried and whimpered at the door for a while as if to say, "Please come out and play with me some more!  Please don't leave me by myself!"

I awoke the next morning with apprehension.  Would she still be there?  She was waiting in the yard, and she wagged her tail enthusiastically when I walked out the door.  We had crossed the first big hurdle.  We fed her again and left for church hoping against hope that she would still be there when we got back.  She was.

After lunch I announced that Bella was going to get a bath. We decided that I would hold her down while Lydia would hose and shampoo her.  She firmly disliked the water and detested the shampoo even more.  It was all I could do to hold on to her while she wiggled and whimpered.  When it was done she shot through the fence and ran a little ways down the road where she rolled and rubbed on the asphalt trying to rid herself of the stench of Johnson's Baby Shampoo. That was the last we saw of her.

The kids didn't cry or anything.  The good thing is that they had had less than 24 hours to get attached to her.  On Monday afternoon Lydia was moping around the house, and she suddenly said, "Dad, is it ok if I go take a walk?"  

"Where are you thinking you want to go?" I asked.

"Oh, you know... down by the doner place."

I understood.  "Of course it's ok," I said.  

She was back in a very short time.  I knew before I even asked that Bella wasn't there.

We'll get anothe puppy eventually.  I still don't know how I'm going to do it.  We can't afford to put up a new fence even if our landlord would allow it.  I know that in the US you can string wires underneath the permiter of your yard and outfit your dog with a special collar, but I doubt that that is available here.  After having read Shiloh out loud to the kids last year, none of us wants to be the kind of person who keeps his dog chained up.  Maybe we'll build a puppy pen inside the yard -- just until our he or she gets too big to fit through the fence.  We'll figure something out.

 

What's so great about sliced bread?

Life in the Balkans certainly has its deficits, but going out in the morning to the corner bakery to pick up a loaf of bread still warm from the wood-fired oven is not one of them.  Having to slice it myself is a small price to pay.

In our early days in Albania there were sometimes bread shortages and consequently long lines at the bakery.   Let me rephrase that; there were never really lines in the strictest sense of the word.  More like a rugby scrum.   Then there was the time I chipped a tooth on a rock in a loaf of bread.  Someone later explained to me that the rocks get in there when they sweep the flour off the floor.  But none of these traumatic experiences -- having to fight for my food and having to go to the dentist -- were enough to put me off Balkan bread.

I got to talking about bread the other day with a friend from this part of the world who spent a little time in the States.  Overall I think that he was pretty overwhelmed with a lot of his  experiences, but our American bread made a lasting impression on him.  "I put in the fridge and forgot about it," he said.  "A month later, it was exactly the same!  It hadn't changed even the tiniest bit -- for good or for bad!"

I realize that the old saying, "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is probably a weak target since most people use it with a certain amount of irony.  Speaking of old sayings, remember the line from the Lord's prayer:  "Give us this day our daily bread"?  Here in this part of the world, that still makes sense.

Sworn Virgins (not to be confused with American teens who take a chastity pledge)

Here's a fasinating article about Albania's "sworn virgins" -- a unique and little known cultural phenomenon. 

Redneckism as a global phenomenon

So I’m hanging out with my friend Gary from Michigan, right? And he keeps referring to certain of his co-workers as “rednecks” – which leads me to assume that they must be transplants from the Deep South, but no, it turns out that they’re native Michiganders.* Well I’m wondering whether someone shouldn’t sue somebody -- like Greece sued Denmark to keep them from selling white cheese and calling it “feta”. Don’t we have proprietary use of the word “redneck” south of the Mason-Dixon Line?

Fast forward a year. We’re here in the Republic of Macedonia, and we’ve found the house where we hope to live for the next four years. The current owner is a surgeon and the ex minister of health**. He bought the house about a year ago, but he has never lived in it. He claims that he bought it just because he liked the location and that he didn’t even bother to look inside. I’m sure he’s exaggerating, but I can certainly see why he wouldn’t want us to assume that this house reflects his taste. As we get to know the place, I feel like I’m getting to know the ex owner, and I’m starting to believe that redneckism really is a global phenomenon.  

You know Jeff Foxworthy’s, “You might be a redneck” routine? Well there’s one that goes something like, “If the last time you mowed your yard you found two cars you didn’t know you had, you might be a redneck.” When we first rented this house, the yard was a jungle. Let’s see, how can I describe how bad it was… I mean I was like expecting a rhino to come charging out at me or something. Let me interject here that it’s going to be a really nice yard. It has grape vines, apricot and plum trees, and rose bushes. But you would never have known that before we started hacking, sawing, and chopping. Actually I didn’t find any cars, but I did find a rusty truck bumper, a rotting basketball backboard, a toilet tank and numerous other assorted objects in various states of decomposition. 

“So what?” you say. “Just having junk in an overgrown yard doesn’t make you a redneck.” Well hang on, I’m not finished yet. This guy’s idea of interior decorating was to glue parquet flooring to the walls in the entry hallway and dining room. I thought it was pretty innovative of him (though I do wish that he hadn’t left the edges so raggedy and crooked). But it really makes Mary want to climb the walls. (Get it? Climb the walls…) And did I tell you about the garage? He had some kind of pit rigged up in the floor – apparently for changing the oil.

Still not convinced? Just wait. When we were touring the house with the realtor, we noticed that the kitchen was smaller than some closets we’ve seen. We also noticed a strange floor to ceiling depression in the dining room wall about a foot wide and a foot deep and covered with a locking wrought iron door. Have you guessed it yet? Yep, a built in gun cabinet! So I would like to propose the following addition to Jeff Foxworthy’s redneck routine. “If your gun cabinet is bigger than your wife’s kitchen, you might be a redneck.”***

I have to say, I’m starting to feel truly at home!

*That’s really what you call them. I asked someone from Michigan and that’s what he told me. Which raises the question in my mind whether the female of the species should be referred to as a “Michigoose.”

** Kind of like their surgeon general. Except that the Republic of Macedonia only has two million people. So maybe it would be like the surgeon general of New Mexico. Does anybody know if New Mexico has a surgeon general?

***For those of you too redneck to recognize hyperbole, no, the gun cabinet is not literally larger than the kitchen.

Notes from Skopje, part2 – taxi drivers, ethnic etiquette, and a lost camera

Then there are the taxi drivers who wait in front of the hospital. Since our car is in storage in Kosovo right now we use their services several times a day, and some of them now count us as friends. In fact, a number of them have really taken to heart our hunt for a house. Every time they see me, they shout out: “So have you found anything yet? I just heard about a place over in Gazi Baba. Do you want me to take you to see it?” One of them ran up to me yesterday with an advertiser newspaper. “Hey, I bought this just for you. Look, it’s got lots of good houses!”

It’s hard to explain to them why we would prefer to live on the north side of the Vardar River where Albanians predominate. The streets tend to be dirtier, steeper, and more twisted over there. There are spots where one could be awakened at the crack of dawn by the call to prayer ringing out from three or four different mosques at once. Even Albanians have quietly expressed reservations. “You’d be better off on the south side of the river. They’re more cultured than we are.”

I shouldn’t give the impression that the river is some kind of solid barrier between the ethnicities. There are plenty of mosques on "the Orthodox side" and churches on "the Muslim side". There have always been Macedonian families among the Albanians on the north side; and as the Albanian population grows, upwardly mobile Albanian families are increasingly buying houses on the south side. It would be nearly impossible to find an ethnically pure neighborhood in Skopje anymore.

Those of you who keep up with me on flickr or facebook will know by now that I lost my camera. We went out on Saturday morning to meet a friend, and there were only a couple of taxis in the usual spot. I didn’t see anyone familiar, so we got in the first one we came to. As always I looked up at the rearview mirror to try and determine the ethnicity of the driver. Most Macedonians display a cross or an icon, whereas Albanians often hang prayer beads or Koranic verses. In this case, there was nothing. That would tend to suggest that he was Albanian since Albanian drivers often avoid overt religious symbols when working on the south side of the river so as not to warn away Macedonian customers. He looked a little bit Albanian – to me at least – but I’m not that good at telling them apart. However, the radio was tuned to a Macedonian station. Mixed signals.

I greeted him and told him our destination in Macedonian, which is always the safe thing to do when you don’t know. If it turned out that he was Albanian, and I switched to speaking in Albanian, he would be delighted. But if he was Macedonian and I started in Albanian, he might be offended. After a minute Mary asked him outright, “Are you Macedonian?” But she used the feminine form of the word, so it came out like, “Are you a Macedonian woman?” He didn’t seem to mind much. He chuckled a bit and said, “Yes, I’m a Macedonian”, using the same word she had used. After that I didn’t bother to try to make conversation since my Macedonian is very limited. I kept my head down and fiddled with my new mobile phone. When we arrived at our destination, I was concentrating on the phone so much that I forgot all about the camera sitting at my feet on the floorboard. I didn’t even miss it till a half hour later.

Since then I scan the faces of the drivers in front of the hospital every time I step outside hoping to see him again. Apparently he isn’t one of the regulars here. To tell the truth, I’m not sure that I would recognize him now if I saw him. If the driver had been Albanian, I’m pretty sure that I would have gotten my camera back by now. We would have chatted along the way, and he would have known where I’m staying so that if he were honest he could have brought it to me. And even if he weren’t honest, I would have known where he lives, how many kids he has, etc. – enough information to track him down.

Of course I tried to enlist the help of the other taxi drivers. “What was the name of the company?” they asked me. “What kind of car was it?” Unfortunately, I didn’t remember anything useful. “Well that’s what you get for just hopping in the car with just anybody!” one of them finally said in exasperation. “You need to learn to ride with your friends!”

Notes from Skopje - part 1

 We still haven’t found the right house. Time is running out.  It's starting to look like we’re going to have to take one of the wrong ones.

 We’ve gotten to know a lot of nice people while staying here at the Hotel 7 across the street from the government hospital -- Mehmet, the Turkish guy who runs the doner shop below us, for example. There are Turks here in Macedonia whose ancestors were left high and dry when this part of Europe broke free from the Turkish Empire 100 years ago, but Mehmet isn’t one of them. He’s a businessman who came over from Turkey, and he works 7 days a week, 16 hours at a stretch, shaving pieces off of a huge hunk meat that slowly spins and diminishes as the day passes. (Doner is the Turkish equivalent of Greek gyros, but if you’ve only had gyros at the food court in some American mall, you’ve been sold a cheap imitation; this is good meat, not processed pieces-parts.) The temperature outdoors gets almost up to 100 F sometimes, and Mehmet stands there all day in front of the grill slowly cooking with the meat. But he always has a big smile and a friendly "Merhaba!" for me.

Once when there weren’t many customers Mehmet invited me to sit at an outdoor table with him and drink a cappuccino. He is more comfortable in Macedonian, and I’m far more comfortable in Albanian, so we had to keep switching back and forth between languages in order to communicate. Sometimes we turned to his workers, all of whom are Albanian and are therefore fluent in both languages, for help with translation. He told me with sadness in his eyes that he hadn't been home to Turkey a single time in four years. His wife and daughters live with him here in Macedonia, but given his work schedule he doesn't see much of them.

 Mary, the kids and and I often sit at one of Mehmet’s café tables with our laptops to do internet. When we booked the apartment online, Hotel 7’s website promised wireless internet. Unfortunately the two-room apartment we reserved is actually on the 5th floor (that’s by European reckoning; I would call it the 6th.) of an adjacent building, so the wireless signal doesn’t reach us. But the doner shop is right outside the hotel office, and I kind of enjoy sitting at a table on the sidewalk and sipping a Coke or cappuccino while surfing the net. We make quite a spectacle since open laptops in public places are not a common sight here.

 We had stayed here at the Hotel 7 a couple of times on earlier visits to Skopje and had a good experience, so we decided that this would be an ideal place to be based while we shopped for a house. It’s clean, comfortable and there was the promise of wireless internet. The price was a bit steep, but they gave us a deal when we reserved it for a month. It was just before we left the States that the hotel management sent us an email informing us that they had made a mistake. The apartment was already booked for three of the days that they had promised it to us. They offered to move us to smaller rooms for those three days and not to charge us, and we accepted.  Moving our bags back and forth was a lot of work, but the real problem turned out to be that the air conditioner was broken in one of the rooms, and Skopje was in the throes of a terrible heat wave those days. The kids got the room with the working a/c of course, and Mary and I toughed it out.  

One morning I woke up soaked in sweat. The sun was pounding into our room, but my body clock was telling me it was only 2 a.m.  The sounds and smells of the doner shop downstairs drifted up through our open window.  I really enjoy eating doner under normal circumstances, but this time the odor of roasting meat was very heavy, almost nauseating.  As I got up and started moving about the room Mary called out, “Mark, you need to put that food in the refrigerator!” After a moment of bewilderment I figured out that she was talking in her sleep. Later on when I mentioned it again she didn’t even remember having said it. 

My year in the U.S.

We’ve been in Skopje for a little over a week. Before I start blogging about life here, I wanted do a retrospective on our year in the USA. I traveled more than 40,000 miles (65,000 km) visiting those who support us with prayer, money and whatever else. That’s the equivalent of more than 5 times around the earth! (And that’s only counting official travel – not trips to Wal-mart or my sister’s house, for example.) I dipped my toes in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans; and I went as far north as the Canadian border and as far South as the Mexican border. For the first six months Mary and the kids traveled with me in a Dodge Caravan, which was made available to us by my home church in Slidell. In January I was able to buy a car of my own so that the family wasn’t obligated to live on the road with me.

Here are some of the year’s highlights:
· Renewing acquaintances with old friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in over 10 years.
· Working with Katherine Paterson, the author of Bridge to Terabithia, on her new book, Country of the Heart. (See this entry.)
· Getting to know my nieces and nephews.
· Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. (My daddy made that!)
· Fishing, especially at my parents’ house in Bush, Louisiana. They’ve noticed that since they built the house on the lake, they see a lot more of me.
· Preaching at an open air service for the homeless in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. This weekly outreach has been going on for 12 years straight, and it was thrilling to meet some of the people whose lives have been transformed.
· Sharing the Gospel with a Kosovar woman at the home of friends in Florida.
· Speaking to the recovering addicts in the Teen Challenge program in Pascagoula, Mississippi. I’ve never had a more engaging and receptive audience than these ladies!
· Challenging Chi Alpha students to line up their lives with God’s story. The campuses I visited included Stanford, Tulane; U. of L at Lafayette, La. Tech; SE Louisiana U.; Grambling; Alabama, U. of Arizona; and U.C. Davis.
· Seeing Luke emerge as a soccer sensation in a small package.
· Daily walks along the banks of Patton Creek behind our apartment. (Check out the Alabama set on my flickr page for pictures of the snakes, otters and other critters I’ve encountered there.)

It was a year filled with blessings, but still it’s good to be back in the Balkans where we belong.