Nathan's Update

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

RSV Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross

13 months ago tomorrow Lynette joined that great cloud of witnesses that stand at the throne of our Lord and cheer us on as we continue to run the race.  I have been greatly blessed throughout these months knowing that I had a fan in the bleachers of heaven praying for me and cheering me on.  The race has had many challenges and many joys.  There have been times of great sadness and tears but also a sense of healing and well-being.

The pace of life has been especially hectic and sometimes overwhelming in the last seven months.  Just after Easter I resumed teaching at the resurrection of Christ theological Academy.  It was a great joy to be back doing this work which I love but it was also the final thing which pushed me be on my capacity to fulfill all of my responsibilities well.  I have felt torn in too many directions to be completely effective in any one of them.  At times I have found myself completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tasks before me.  It has been humbling to realize again how weak I am and how completely dependent I must be upon Him.  It has been tempting many times in the past few years to feel like I had really come to understand the situations around me and that I had the answers for the problems which we face.  These last months have taught me again how little I know and how little I understand that.  His power is made perfect in weakness and I have felt truly weak and inadequate.  Please pray that I will find the wisdom and strength which I need in Him.

As I face the coming academic year I am wrestling with what things I must let go or restructure in order to be able to do the remainder well.  I am working on better planning and organization for my staff in order to facilitate their work.  I am trying to establish a management structure which will entrust ever more responsibility to those I work with.  This will make it possible for the ministry to grow without increasing the demands on my time and more importantly it will allow my coworkers to develop their gifts and talents to be used in the full potential of what God has intended for them.  Please pray that I will be able to inspire these young people to fall ever more deeply in love with Christ and to be diligent and faithful in his service.

Tristan and Katherine continue to be a great joy to me.  They are best friends and spend endless hours playing happily together.  They of course have the occasional siblings squabble but 99% of the time they're delighted with one another's company.  I am amazed at their creativity in finding ways to play together.  They see very few videos and no television at home and rarely even ask for them.  Instead they fill their hours in creative role playing, building with Legos, doing art projects and studying whatever creatures and plants they can find in the courtyard.  Tristan will spend hours watching the ants at work.  He takes birdseed and places it near their whole and then studies how they come and get it.  He is not very enthusiastic about school, when I ask him if he would not like to learn to read very well so that he can read about ants he told me that he does not need to read about them because he is studying them himself.  Why read about it when you can watch it live.  He loves all living things and is always trying to catch them, feed them and play with them. His keen observation and love for creatures has given him the ability to care for them and keep them alive.  This is a big change from several years ago when he had a tendency to love what ever he tried to keep literally to death.  In the spring we made a trip with my staff to some of the northern mountains of Albania.  Tristan and Katherine caught 22 Beatles which they kept alive for several months.  Tristan has a widespread reputation as a budding naturalist. 

He is also an engineer able to create incredible things from Legos and other building toys.  He always wants to know how things work. We have spent about half an hour after supper the last two nights discussing the structure and behavior of molecules.  To his great fascination and delight I have explained electron orbitals and the principles of molecular bonding to him.  These were things that I learned in college chemistry.

One of my great ongoing challenges is balancing my time between quality time with the children and all of the things that pull me in different directions.  One of the real concerns I had for this summer was how I would care properly for the children during the time I needed to be in Kosovo for the children's camps that I lead their each summer.  These are very stressful and demanding activities which my staff is very anxious for me to lead in person.  The living conditions are very difficult with 15 or more people sharing one bathroom and living in very close quarters.  Therefore it would not be easy either to take the children or to delegate the responsibility.  I used this necessary extended separation to provide the children with an opportunity to spend time with close friends and relatives in the United States.  My mom came to Albania and returned to the US with the children on June 17.  I completed the camps in Kosovo and met them in the US on July 15.  This was a wonderful time for the children of renewing friendships with their cousins and others that they had missed very much.  We missed one another but I was able to call them fairly often.  I am very grateful to all of you who assisted in making this time possible.  We spent a whirlwind two weeks in the US during which we visited with many friends, family members and supporters as well as speaking in three different churches.  Though tiring it was also a time of great blessing and encouragement.  We returned to Albania on August 1.

Tristan is very sensitive and compassionate.  He is often very enthusiastic but is also subject to many fears and occasional depression.  The last two months since our return from the US have been especially difficult for him.  He has been visibly grieving the loss of Lynette for the first time.  In these weeks he is often been sad but without knowing why.  He has cried often and we have sat together and grieved our loss.  I think it has been a very healthy process for him where he has been able to acknowledge his grief and let go of Lynette.  The season of grief seems to be passing though I am sure it will return at different times in different ways throughout his life.  His struggle with fear continues to be intense.  Because of his great sensitivity he is affected much more deeply than the average child by the many perverse and diabolical things which the entertainment media makes part of children's entertainment.  He is often haunted by things which he has seen months ago on visits to the homes of other children.  One of the beautiful things in this challenging time for him is the way in which he turns to Christ with his fear.  He asks often that I pray with him and he has said himself that the season of fear is good for him because it has made him really turned to God.  Please pray for him that he will find his security and joy in our Lord Jesus and that all fear will be cast out by the love of our Savior and the security that is found in him.

Katherine is much more even-tempered.  She approaches almost all of life with a bright smile and a laugh.  Her smile is a bit jagged these days because her dentistry is in a state of flux.  Many teeth have fallen out and some have been replaced.  She has not quite grown into some of the adult teeth yet, making them look oversized.  Nonetheless it is a winning smile that makes you smile when you see it.  Katherine enjoys school despite some of the negative propaganda which she hears from her brother.  She is a very good student progressing well in reading and other subjects.  She especially likes all sorts of arts and crafts.  I am constantly amazed by the things which she makes.  She has definitely inherited Lynette's artistic abilities.  She has not yet experienced the seasons of deep grieving for Lynette.  I am sure that they will come but thus far she has accepted everything with good grace and a big smile.

I am greatly blessed by both children they are very flexible and portable.  Whether it be transatlantic flights or a trip to Kosovo or simply walking across Tirana they travel very well with very little complaint.  They adapt to the ever-changing schedule and bless all that they are with.  They're great joy is playing with other children especially those of our fellow missionaries.  I have wonderful support in their care which allows me tremendous flexibility in my schedule.  I continue to struggle to be home with them when they arrive from school and to spend as much as possible of weekends together.  This is often difficult given my other responsibilities but the children are delighted when I can be with them are very understanding when I cannot.  One of the highlights of our week is going out for Saturday morning breakfast together.  The great bane of our life is homework.  We all hate it and I do my best to encourage them and help them with it but I have difficulty surrendering our precious times together to it.  Their teachers have been wonderfully understanding and helpful, their homework load this year has been much more manageable for which I am grateful.

As I have reflected throughout these months on our journey through Lynette's illness and shared it with many people I keep returning to several key lessons which I felt like I had learned but which I also have to continue to relearn.

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