Bonnette Acres

Well lets see in the last two months I have.... Left Albania and said goodbye to my adventurous year in a foreign land. Finally traveled back home to Nashville and could not believe how many Starbucks there are. When you spend all day in Germany trying to find the ONE Starbucks they have, it really makes you laugh when you see how many we have. Had two lovely weeks of re-entering back into the way Americans do things. Like remembering to buckle my seat belt and actually flushing down my toilet paper not throwing it away. Funny how I was so grossed out by that one at first but man it is now hard to stop. Then I spent two weeks with my very pregnant sister in law and brother in Texas. Flew back home....again. Got to see my other brother and his wife and there 15 kids. It was great to see the amazing ministry they are doing with the "Children of the world choir". If you are ever interested in World Help or wanting to help with clean water around the world, this is the organizat...

My last day in Lushnje is now halfway over. All my goodbyes seem to have gone so quickly, and now I am two coffee visits away from leaving Lushnje for good. Last night Jess and the OM team gave me a going away party that was so kind and re-announcing who my true family was in Albania. The leader of OM said that when they heard a Nazarene missionary was moving to Lushnje on her own, they were unsure what kind of girl would do that. Ha, but he went on to say that he was so glad that I became apart of the family and that OM would accept me anytime and would miss me greatly. This morning at church our small room where we meet was full of people, and I could not be more over joyed to see so many faces I had seen through out the year. At the end elke had me come up front and gave me a present. She gave me a coffee cup, and said to everyone "You have never seen someone like coffee as much as Emily!". They also gave me a beautiful book all about Albania with great pictures. Everyone ...

This week deep inside my head I have been in a constant battle of love and hate. I have been digesting my time here. Have I loved it fully or could I not get over the hard parts? All I can fathom to say is there was miraculous moments and horribly hard situations. So much of my heart will always stay with the kids at the kindergarten, and the teen girls who became my best friends. But is that enough for me to say I have a passion for this land? A passion for all the people? A passion to leave my lovely life again and live here longer? Right now I can not answer that question. Honestly if I have any inkling to the future I don't see that happening. But after talking to some amazing Nazarene missionaries my thoughts have been re- open. Not necessarily to coming back to Albania, but once again living in a foreign land. Pretty much all summer long I had decided that doing volunteer missions again all by myself was not a good idea. My head was filled with thousands of situations where I...

I have one more full day left in Lushnje before I head to Tirane for a week with all my things. I will be coming back for two days right before I leave for a nice goodbye to my year of interesting adventure in Albania. Right now I am thinking how fast just this past month has been and how this week has lasted a second. One by one I have been packing my things but I have been amazed of how hard it has been. Not necessarily like "O my goodness this is so tough getting all of this in these tiny bags". No it was more like I just didnt want to pack. Which is very strange for me. Usually I love packing, it means a new adventure is before me. But this one is different. I am full of such mixed emotions. This week I am doing a VBS at my church. The first two days were just the pastors kids, but today randomly we had 4 brand new kids. That might not seem a lot to all of the mega church's out there but here that is amazing! I was so excited. It was a huge MM (Miraculous Moment) for ...

The night before camp I found myself working like crazy to get all the things done. Yes I had the whole week before to slowly and nicely work on the lessons for camp, but SOMEHOW that just did not happen. So like always I did not find motivation until hours before. In these moments of my life is when I wonder why God would use me, the procrastinator. But amazingly and only in God's way it was all done AND I had time to clean my apartment. Yep, miracles do happen. To be honest I was not looking forward to camp. I had already missed out at not being at Texas kids camp, and I knew that another culture family camp would not be the same. I also was not up for talking in Albanian all the time, since after summer started my little Albanian that I knew amazingly disappeared. It is interesting how you can live in another country and still never have to speak the language. This is not so at camp. Ryan and Kaci gave me a ride in there nicely air conditioned car, and it was evening when we arr...

For a while now I have been searching for the perfect back drop for my blog. I have gone through hundreds of blog sites looking for the one. But what I kept running into was each one I liked only described half of me or a third of me. When I looked at it I didn't see myself. For some odd reason this has turned into a big deal for me. Like many things in my life I have made it out to be huge when in the grand scheme of things what I am looking for is only a odd code that computer geniuses understand. These thoughts have intertwined with others that I have been having a lot lately. Thoughts about the person I am today. Just typing that sentence makes me think of countless country songs and self help books that show you the "true you". I have taken personality quizzes real ones scientist use and fake ones bored people on facebook have made. All these things tell me "Who I am" or who I am suppose to be. They don't know me. There are so many different things goin...

It is interesting how some things it does not matter where you are, it just feels the same. Like a Sunday afternoon, ice blue raspberry kool aid (yes I had to say it's whole proper name), or slow relaxing summer days. At first the immediate change from having tons of stuff to do to nothing at all was a little hard. After one or two days of lounging I was going a little crazy. It just feels weird relaxing, when that's not what I am here for. But after letting a few people know of my availability, I was soon back to work. Just not as much, I still have time to lounge on the couch for an hour. I mean that's what summer is about right? ha ha. So I have been helping out with a few different teams that have come from other countries on short mission trips to Albania. Most of them have been from the states, but this last one was from Korea. I have really enjoyed seeing the country from there fresh eyes. Seeing how they cope with everything, and then see them go back home. Well tha...

So my last day of school was on friday. I worked hard all week for our big finale. The kids put on a big program for all the parents. It went really well, considering I was the sound and tech person. So many problems could have occurred, but thankfully my only problem was forgetting the Albanian word for stop. But the kids did great, and were absolutely adorable. When I pressed play for each groups theme song, I realized how much I love these kids. Its like it all just occurred to me in one moment. They came down the aisle of the church waving there small skinny arms and smiling from ear to ear. Memories of meeting each kid, and having special bonding moments with them over the past months flooded my mind. With the youngest group I use to sit in there room for about ten minutes everyday when there teacher would go buy the food for the day. At that time my Albanian was bare minimal, and my only option for entertainment was to make funny faces and noises. Thankfully for 3 and 4 year old...

So usually if I have a missed spelled word or something wrong in my post I let it slide, because I have the habit of misspelling things a lot. But I just realized that I have been spelling the word Furgone wrong. So if anyone was truly interested in making me a shirt (no hints there) there are no mispelled problems. Ha Ha! Furgone is spelled with a U not a E. I am so glad we got that one straightened out. well we are about to have a random summer rain storm so I am going to go enjoy it.

This morning as I was walking towards the high school to catch a fergone (A taxi van type thing), I realized something. It is summer. Life here is completely different, it almost seems like another country. The women all hold Chinese umbrellas, and when the guys get too hot they pull there shirts up halfway, just exposing there stomach. It makes me laugh every time. I also have realized that the summer heat here would not be half bad if we could just take away the hours from nine to five. The mornings here are nice and shaded and at night there is a lovely breeze. In the evenings the town fills up like it is new years. People come out of no where and settle into the towns park. kids play hide and go seek and old men play card games on the grass. It has a nice homey feeling and everyone seems happy and relaxed. Today I realized that it was June. It just hit me like a ton of bricks, then I remembered we are halfway through with june. Soon it will be july, that would mean I will only have...

... if I am not back again in 3 months, carry on carry on. So yes this classic queen song is stuck in my head. It has now been a week since mom went back home. I will be honest with you all that it has not been the easiest week. Let me say for the record I am so so so so so glad mom got to come, my only wish was that I was able to go home with her. But "Not yet, not yet" I have had a whole lot of time to think this last week. I have talked to others who have been in my shoes, and have felt my pain of being away from family. They and my own thoughts have all agreed that it stinks. But that is why they call it a sacrifice. Today I was writing a friend that I met while I have been here, and was telling her of my recent sad mood. I was explaining how even this week I have seen so many things that should ignite my passion, my want to be here but it still hasn't overcome. But then I went into detail about this one family that I met with last week: Saturday right after I came h...

So it has recently been brought to my attention that my last post was from palm Sunday. Wow I did not realize this. So to all my friends and fam back home I am so sorry that I have not updated in a really long time. If I remember right on my last post I said that I write more often. Well sorry about that. I have many excuses why, but I could have made time to update you all. Again I am sorry. Like the title says I have 4 months left here. That just seems crazy to me. I have been here for 6 and a half months. Wow. Some days it feels like I have not been here long at all and other days it feels like I have always been here. Like my previous post life has been just as busy. Non stop life here in Lushnje. A lot has happened since palm sunday and hopefully I will be able to feel you in more detail later. But I am doing well and have seen God do amazing things here. I am still working hard at the kindergarden, and I am very thankful that the last two times I have made rice I have not burned ...

Life right now is non - stop. I have a different group to attend or thing to work on every single day. Let me tell you I am so happy that I am fully involved here, but there are many moments where I would like to breathe. But I would now like to tell you of my new schedule: I still go to the kindergarten and cook every day. On mondays after I come back from Gorre I go over to elke's and we go through the next weeks activities and schedule what all we need to do. Tuesday afternoon's I go with elke and we do two bible studies with two different set of girls. Wednesday I stay later at the kindergarten and at 2 we have English bible study with teenage girls. Thursday is my day off (woo hoo!) but I do have an albanian lesson. Fridays I again stay later at the kindergarten and at 2 do a kids group which is like childrens church just on fridays. Saturdays we still go to barbulinja but now have started a kids group there too. Sunday I do sunday school for the kids while the adults hav...

Let me start you out with a few facts: * I finally called my parents on saturday. It had been 13 days since we last talked. * It has been 19 days since my last post. * 3 months since I moved into my new apartment . Today I have finally posted the pictures. Ok. Yeah so life has been jam packed as of late. I have many exscuses, but I am just going to say dont be sad that I havent been on the internet. Because friends it has been a good thing. I needed to just live HERE for a while. With no distractions of home or other thoughts in my mind. I needed time, to focus on life here. I had gotten back into a rut again. I for some reason forgot why I was here. I was unhappy for no reason. Thankfully I gave it to God, and he my friends yanked me out. He reminded me once again why I am here, and now has really given me the passion I have been looking for here. You do not know how different my days are when I get up in the morning now. I actually want to get up. I am so thankful, because for so lon...

Well Hello Friends! I know it has been forever, and I am sorry it has taken me so long to get back in touch with the living. There has been a work and witness team here from Pennsylvania and I did a lot with them these past two weeks. It was fun to have other Americans to talk to and just to get to know someone and make friendships like normal life back in the states. It just felt good you know. But I took them around lushnje and helped translate the best I could with different things. This team coming was actually a really good thing cause it forced me to use the little albanian I have learned. But if you know me, the only way I learn is to put me on the spot and I have to do it no matter what. Well I had a lot of those times, and because of it I really have seen a lot of improvment. Woo hoo, thank goodness. I mean I still cant communicate really, but a least I am getting a sort of gist of things. Thats good enough for me. Well this morning was probably the most relaxing saturday morn...

This past week has been going, going, gone. I jumped right back into my daily schedule: I wake up at 6, have devotions and a peaceful breakfast. Catch a fergone (van) at 8, and arrive at the kindergarten by 8:30. Then leave the kids around 12 and head back to lushnje around 12:30, and have lunch around 1. Then I have a hour and a half to two hours to rest. Then meet elke around 2:30 or 3. We walk, we pray, meet with people from the church, and just go over future plans for our ministry. I usally leave her house or coffee shop around 5 and begin my trek back home to my apartment. From 5:15- 6 I do little chores, TRY to clean my room, pick up whatever I might have left out from the rush in the morning or just do something productive. At 6 I eat dinner, then me and jess usually watch a movie and are done by 8. Then I am on the internet till 9, and read a book untill 10 (or untill I cant keep my eyes open any more, remember I got up at 6!) . I force myself to wash my face and brush my teet...

Yes the title is cheesy but it is what came out, and it made me laugh. So I have three different post from my travels so after you're done with this one, keep on goin '. Well we headed to Doress which is a town about 30 minutes from lushnje , and got on a ferry around 10 on thursday evening (that is 2 thursday's ago.) There were 3 ferries lined up in the dark night like the scene from "You've Got Mail". Where you see the grandpas huge boat, the fathers middle size, and then the son's tiny boat. Yeah, ours was the small one. We entered into the back of the boat and walked through the small, thin hallways. If we had payed the lovely price of 22 euros more we could have gotten a room for the evening. But that wasn't there style. So we headed to an open area with rows of comfy chairs. It sort of resembled the look of a movie theater without a screen. On both sides of the room were rooms set up with booth type tables. The family decided to set up camp i...

So I did not get to take really any good pictures of EuNC. Sorry it was cold and I was pretty busy. I already told you quite a bit about my time there in the blog I wrote last week. So if you really want to know what I learned scroll down a bit. You shall eventually find it. But I fell in love with the school. It is small but just quaint and nice. I loved all the people, and met amazing young people who are such on fire for God. Way cool place, can not wait to back there. So all the Treveccan's got together and took a pic for the Treveccan. We took tons of pictures but tom only put this one up - the one where I look like I have a stink eye. But for now this is the best I got friends. We had a goodtimes showing our pride. ha ha. I highly suggest taking a trip to EuNC sometime. Totally worth it.

Once we headed back to Heiden Heim we head a couple days to relax before we came back home to Lushnje. The family was busy doing different things but only one thing stood out in my mind that I knew I had to do before I left. FIND STARBUCKS! I had been told that there was one in Stuttgart which was about an hour and a half from Heiden Heim. I got the address (sort of) off the Internet, and I headed towards the train station. By myself. I had gotten a feel of the trains from riding them with Elke throughout the past week. But of coarse she bought the tickets and told me where to go and where to get off at. But I knew I wanted to conquer it on my own, so I went. I was expecting the little automatic thing where you buy the tickets to have a button where you could read it in English. Samantha brown said most European train ticket things have a English button. This one didn't. Elke had written down the name of the ticket for me, so I found that name and struggled through the very little ...

Well We are back in Heiden Heim, we left the school yesterday at 1 and got bach here at 5. I was deffinitly sad to leave the place. I enjoyed my time there so much, and made really good friends from the school. I learned a lot this past week, mostly things not from the sessions , but I did learn one thing. For years I have joked and laughed about my inability to finish things. I take it so light and never look back. Well during this one sassion things finally caught up with me. The session speaker talked about ´Finishing & Finishing Well´, these words hit me straight in the face. Suddenly hundreds of scenes in my life began to reinact and I saw the hundreds of things that I just gave up on because I was tired or boerd. I realized right then, it really was not that funny. Just hours before these words echoed in my ears. I was talking with some girls from the college and almost convinced myself that I needed to stop my work in Albania and move to EuNC right now. Yeah, this is a probl...

So Im in Deutschland!!!! For those outside of here that is Germany. I have been here since friday evening and I have been loving it lots and lots. I cant even begin to explain to you how much I love this freezing cold, but yet warm in my heart place. It is everything I ever imagined and more. I am not going to go into great detail of all the amazing and way cool mm´s (Miraculous Moments) we have had here so far. Yet. I promise to give a detailed acoount with pics to follow once im back home. But I decided to give you a list of just random things that have happened so far. Here you go. Enjoy: * When we were travelling by train to Elke´s home in Heidenheim, im pretty convinced I saw David Cook (this past years american idol winner) hangining out alone waiting for the train. Maybe not, but it sure looked like him to me. * At the beginning of the methodist church service we attended yesterday morning, the pinao player played a classy version of the score from pirates of the carribean. I w...

So for the past month I have not been getting any translation during church services. This was my decision, there are so few people that meet at the church on Sunday mornings. So I felt the translation was just so distracting to everyone else. So I told them I could deal without it. Well of coarse I still have no idea what is being said. I mean I catch a couple of words here and there, but when the service is over I am definitely not recharged and ready to serve. I am still a blank slate, ready to be written on. (Yeah that phrase might not work right, sorry) Well my dear friends Kaci and Ryan told me how they get there church services from back home sent to them and they listen to them before they go to church. When I heard them say this it was a light bulb moment (Ah ha). Well since my home church in Nashville is only recorded with a really old tape recorder, that which I hear gets knocked off half way through I decided to go for another plan. On iTunes they have a thing called Podca...

This small phrase has echoed in my ears all afternoon. I have been working at the kindergarten in Gorre for a month, the lady who is my boss is a very nice lady but she is also a very controlling lady. No matter what I do, she can do it better. Yes I am singing that old song in my head. Me and her also have a communication problem. She knows english pretty well but not enough to go with the little albanian I know. Needless to say, we both get confused easily. Because of these different things going to work has been a little bit of challenge. I love being able to serve, and no matter what I do the rest of the day I know I have done at least that. And I love being surrounded by all the adorable kids. But when you have to get up early in the cold and willingly face dissaproval, it's hard. Today as soon as I walked in the front doors, Julie (my boss) welcomed me in with open arms. She right away told me how thankful she was that I was helping them, and told me that I was a very special...

Christmas was interesting and was a time I will never forget but... I was in a desperate need to get away and have a True Holiday Vacation. Let me just give a pre - story to this story: I have hit the two month time here in Albania. I dont know how I can explain what I am going through to people who havent been in my situation but I shall try. When I was told that I would be living here for a year, it did not fase me a bit. I thought of myself as wonder woman and I could handle anything. Well all my amazing strength disappeared the second I moved to Lushnje. Thankfully God was right there holding me up, but without him I would probably be back at home in Nashville right now. I would have ran from this situation like a scarred little chicken. God has kept me strong, and shown me amazing things. For the first month after I got use to my surroundings, I really became intrigued with this country and was ready to serve. Then the holidays came. I began to miss my family like never before. It...