The Garber Dinning Room Tour 2013

For Alisha's first birthday outside the United States, we went with a Muppet/puppet theme, including a trip to the local puppet theatre with friends! A local friend, Ilona, hooked us up with a behind-the-scenes look at the puppets and chance to meet the puppeteers. As you can see, Alisha was only slightly happy.

We made our own puppets later so we could act out stories from Alisha's life. Josh poses with a "tree" and "Alisha."

In our last blog post, we mentioned ways we were going to stir things up here at LCC International University. Specifically, we mentioned Alisha's Art Club, Josh taking a bigger role in Roots of Justice, LCC's anti-human trafficking group, and what we are now calling the Mustard Seed project, a church alternative for people who like Jesus but don't like religion.

One thing we're still working on is budgeting out time because, while these things have all been incredibly life giving, they're also quite time consuming. As such, we've not been able to blog our adventures in as timely a fashion as we'd like. However, with a trip back to the United States in the horizon, we have a solution to help get you up to speed: The Garber Dinning Room Tour 2013!

More than anything we want to spend this time reconnecting with family and friends -- what better way to do that than over a meal? The idea is that you invite us over for lunch or dinner and, in exchange, we can share our experience of serving in Eastern Europe.

Here's our current travel plans:
May 9-11................Northern Indiana/Michigan
May 12...................Jordan S. Garber graduates!
May 13-17..............Central Indiana
May 18...................Travel Day
May 19-June 15.....Arizona (June 3-6 Idaho Conference)
June 16...................Travel Day
June 17-19..............Central Indiana
June 20-24..............Northern Indiana/Michigan
June 25...................Return to Lithuania

We made a calendar below so you can see which days are available and which are already occupied.

Contact us via the comments or e-mail (fishwithdrums@gmail.com, alishagarber@gmail.com) and let us know when you are free to kick it. We'll put it on our calendar and make sure we're there!

It would be fair to say we are also viewing this as an opportunity to raise funds, but please do not feel like that is a requirement. For planning reasons, please give us a few dates that would work for you and be aware that family will take priority.

Resurfacing for a moment

Sorry we've been bad bloggers lately with such a huge gap in updates. Life has, interestingly, become rather busy again these past several weeks. Here's an attempt to show you why we've had difficulty finding time to update the blog:

Toms checks on the heaping piles of pancakes made the week of midterms for the students. Free pancakes are like catnip for students at LCC International University.

Events such as the pancake party are all part of a plan to foster closer community in the resident halls and demonstrate servant leadership to the students.

A view of a small portion of Klaipėda from Josh's office.

The motto of the LCC "Moose" basketball team for fans is if it makes noise, bring it to the game.

Alisha plays with some donated sparklers and Josh plays with the shutter speed during Halloween evening.

For Halloween, we brought some American-style festivities to the resident halls. Alisha's panda pajamas were loved by all and we took several students trick-or-treating for their very first time.

Josh turned the big 3-0 in early November. Alisha threw a big birthday party and invited many of the people who have made us feel at home during our time so far at LCC.

Josh's RAs surprised him with a festive pineapple and a heart-felt card for his birthday.

Alisha was one of the featured speakers at a special event called Mug and Muffin. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of her speaking because...

...Josh took a group of students to perform at a Lithuanian music festival in the small town of Biržai, which is right next to the Latvian boarder. Despite hanging with a flock of girls, Josh survived the weekend.

Josh playing at the SIELOS Festival.

The festival team enjoys breakfast in a Soviet-style high school gymnasium, where they slept for the night. The group is a true representation of LCC's intercultural nature, with members from Russia, Ukraine, Albania, the United States, and Andorra (small country between Spain and France).

The group was asked to sing at the town's Reformed Church. Interesting note, the Reformed Church was the group largely responsible for the persecution of the Mennonites in the 1600s. Life takes you to some strange places sometimes.

Pray for Alisha's sanity.

Upcoming events are just as numerous. However, we're vowing to do a better job keeping this blog updated.

Please, send us questions and requests on what you'd like to see, know, and learn about our adventures here in Lithuania.