Just a quick one...

...it's Hannah's birthday today, and we're having a Charlie & Lola party (of sorts) tomorrow. Just wanted to show you the cards we created for her... AND, there will be some video stuff on the privatised youtube thing by the end of the weekend, promise!

The children are nearly off to bed and the day has been full. They went to school (last day of term) as usual this morning, we had card and present opening over a snacky lunch, quiet time (which concluded with the traditional birthday meltdown from Hannah!) and then an early dinner. Presents were dominated by 3 themes:

• Charlie and Lola (surprise, surprise)
• Crafty stuff - they're both really getting into it (as are we!)
• Bags (she IS her mother's daughter and already has more bags then there are days in the week...)

THANKS to all who have sent stuff... We are looking forward to playing with, making stuff with and reading the gifts!

We completely extremely love Charlie and Lola...

We love "Charlie and Lola" in our house - the books and the programme. The combination of retro-styling and well-pitched entertainment makes it an attractive viewing option for all five of us. One of the real bonuses for us is that the characters all talk in English accents. So much of what the children watch contains mostly American accents that to have good English/British entertainment is a luxury. Thanks to Uncle Jez for our Charlie and Lola DVD collection!

Probably like many parents of an older boy and a younger girl, we can see some similarities between Charlie and Lola and our two (we know we have three but, sadly, in this instance Esther doesn’t count…), and it is now one of their favourite things to play, not just watch (especially as they are both able to recite whole chunks of an episode!). There is a particular episode that highlights these similarities and it has an impact on our continuing acclimatisation to life here in Athens:

But I Am An Alligator sees Lola dressed up as an alligator. She goes EVERYWHERE in the alligator costume: the supermarket; the park; the school, even when her outfit produces problems for her. Charlie is completely embarrassed about the whole business. He is nervous on her behalf about what others might think and is sensitive to feelings that she doesn’t actually have. Although Hannah isn’t that keen on dressing up, she is mostly completely herself in any situation (this includes singing on the bus; throwing a mini-tantrum anywhere; asking random people what their names are) and continues to role-play long after everyone else is done (she can be a doggy for AGES). Joel is like Charlie: he’s very straight; he’s self-conscious; he REALLY doesn’t like dressing up; he feels uncomfortable for Hannah in unnecessarily sensitive ways.

For us, the real rub of this particular Charlie and Lola-esque behaviour (not influenced BY the programme – it was all already there) is that the Greek culture is much more showy and demonstrative than British. Today is a national holiday: Καθαρή Δευτέρα (Katharee Deftera) which means Clean Monday. It’s the last full day before LENT and, for the past three weeks, it’s been CARNIVAL time here. This culminated in both kids’ schools having parties on Friday where they were encouraged to dress up. We weren’t completely clear what the form would be at Joel’s school – whether or not the kids were expected to be dressed up (we might have missed a notice!), so he was dressed in a striped top and normal trousers and we took some pirate accessories (eye-patch, dagger, hook) to add if necessary. Jonathan took him. When they got to school Joel happily took his bag and jumper to his pegs but as he passed the doorway to his classroom he saw that EVERYONE was dressed up in FULL fancy dress regalia. He was slightly freaked by the costumes, the general unfamiliarity of everyone being so excited and looking so strange and worried about the Greek dancing that might happen next and decided that he didn’t want to stay (he claims he would have joined in if there had been British dancing!). He came back exhausted and went to bed for a bit. Hannah, unaware of Joel’s plight, went on to school (again with the pirate accessories). Although happy enough to stay (succumbing to the encouragement of her classmates and teacher), she did NOT want to dress up either. Her teacher had explained that there would be spare costumes at school if she decided that she wanted to join in, so we left her knowing that she would at least enjoy the Clown’s Show later. She had a very nice time but didn’t dress up.

Even if you’ve never seen the programme, you can tell by the titles that many strike a chord with us: I Am Not Sleepy And I Will Not Go To Bed, I Like My Hair Completely The Way It Is, I Can Do Anything That’s Everything All On My Own, I Must Take Completely Everything, etc.

We appreciate that our children have individual personalities and that they might not always be able to conform to expectations, BUT if anyone does have any tips on how we might be able to encourage Joel to not be so stressed and bothered in these situations we’d love your input! He’s not shy in a ‘normal’ context at all (in fact, he’s quite bold) – as you may have seen from previous blog entries, he just can’t cope with ‘performance’, whether that is standing before a group of people or dressing up as something other than himself. He prefers to be, as he says, “Just Joel”. We’re thinking of instituting some whole Clark family dressing up silliness (photos to follow!), so if anyone has any costumes they no longer need…

PS honestly, our blogs are like the proverbial London Buses: wait AGES for one…

PPS if you want more info on Charlie and Lola, here are a few links:
http://www.charlieandlola.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/charlieandlola/

More White Stuff

Last month, whilst our friend Susannah was visiting (she who took the new ‘profile’ pic and all but the above photo in this post), we had a lot of snow. Since the snow (for the last three weeks) it has been nothing but blue skies and brilliant sunshine all the way. So, we enjoyed the snow whilst it lasted (two days of snowfall and about three of melting – the snow out of the sun took a surprisingly long time to melt)!

Joel and Jonathan built Micah on our downstairs balcony. Hannah named him. Her ‘namings’ are limited to a handful of significant influences (apologies if you’re not one of them): most of her dolls and toys are called Lucie (only female cousin), Elena (biggest female friend at church), Zoë, Micah (Pratt kids – they live in ‘our house’ in Beeston) or Chloë (friends’ baby who we spent time with over the summer) or after some film character. The dogs are mostly called Monty (Chloë’s family’s dog) or Molly (after the Barlows from Beeston’s lovely dog…). ANYWAY, Hannah has ‘immortalised’ these significant influences in her ‘namings’. This is an indication both of her desire to remember friends in the UK but also her lack of real attachment to many friends here in Athens, yet. So, please pray with us that our kids will feel more and more settled and attached to friendships here. Obviously, we want them to feel MOST attached to heavenly things so we pray that their ‘alien-ness’ will remain in the right way.

Joel and Jonathan with Micah the Snowman

Micah the Snowman the morning after

Micah the Snowman two days later still

Hannah and I built Stevo (named after the real-life Micah’s Dad) in the Plateia (square) up the hill from our house (opposite our local Starbucks, if you’ve been here). There were a lot of people out and about enjoying the snow, especially as most had nowhere to go – all schools and universities and many businesses were closed.

Hannah and I with Stevo the Snowdaddy

Here are some other photos of us in the snow...

Since we've no place to go ... let it snow ...

Outside of the gates of Hannah's School.
Not sure Hannah was prepared for that particular snowfall!

Esther and I, NOT at a Ski Resort - honestly!

STOP PRESS! I've just worked out how to get our youtube videos onto the sidebar. So, click away on the snowman to see more snow footage. You could also go to the youtube site: http://www.youtube.com/clarkenfeld
and see the videos played BIGGER!

You’ll be pleased to know that we’re now back to eating outside in Plateias and enjoying the sunshine!

Balkans Staff Consultation

I went to Belgrade in mid-Feb for the Balkans Staff Consultation. Jonathan had been to the Consultation the previous two years, so it was good for me to go and meet folk. The conference was at a Bible School on the outskirts of Belgrade for the third time in a row.

There were General Secretaries, Staff and Volunteers representing almost every movement in South-East Europe (we missed Albania and Cyprus). It was great to meet people with the same vision even if their backgrounds and situations are quite different. Historically the Balkans region was united under the rule of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th Century until the 1830s. All but Greece, Cyprus and Turkey were behind the Iron Curtain until about 20 years ago and many of the national movements were part of Yugoslavia back in the day. Almost all of the countries are dominated by Orthodoxy (excepting Croatia – Catholic and Bosnia, Turkey, and to a greater extent Albania – Muslim). I was struck by the resulting similarities and differences. Some of these were really obvious: the former Yugoslavian states (along with Bulgaria) have sufficient common language to be able to communicate with each other (to the exclusion – not intentional – of Romania, Turkey and Greece). The legacy of communism and the impact of the wars of the last 20 years in many of these states has put these countries in such sharp contrast to places like the UK, and even Greece, where democracy was restored more than 30 years ago.

Ministry in these nations is tough-going and the lovely people I met have been through a lot personally and in their nations. This made me realise that I’m not only a Southern Softie (I'm from the South of England) but also a Western one (a Western Weakling?!)… As I said in the prayer letter, many of these nations are keen to find both foreign and national staff. There are pioneering opportunities as well as established situations. Please pray with us. And, if you’re interested in a post or know someone who is/should be interested, just let me know!

A bit of white stuff

Well, we're still not really getting into regular updates but we have a few things to write about and here's something for starters.

Between Christmas and New year we spent a few days in the mountains of the Peloponnesos in a lovely apartment complex. Turned out that it was owned by a good friend of some of our friends from church in Athens, so it was good to make some links there. We liked the apartment and the location so much that we'll be back.

It was in a lovely gorge, not far from the main ski resort in southern Greece and part of the plan was to see some snow, which we did by driving quite high up to the ski slopes. For much of the winter the snow hangs around much lower down but there'd been a few warm days so it was really only the ski runs themselves which had snow.

Anyway, we got a toboggan for a few euros for one of the days. Joel and I headed into the mist for a bit of zooming down the hill (Hannah lasted a few minutes before getting too cold) while Dawn had to stay in the (hired) car with a sleeping Esther. We hadn't agreed where to meet up when our fun was over so Dawn texted me let me know the girls were awake and ready to head back to Kalavrita town for lunch. The only problem was I'd left my specs in the car, not wanted to crush them in any toboggan/cliff disasters that Joel and I might have had. You may know that I really need them for reading, being longsighted, and I couldn't make a single thing out on the text.

I've never been particularly bothered about the ageing process but this tickled me. My wee five year old had to read the text aloud to me. A healthy reminder of mortality.



As Joel and I were alone on the slope it was a bit tricky to get decent footage of his intrepid sledding. I considered just letting him go and filming 'til he disappeared from sight, but opted instead to get him to hold the brake until I was a bit downslope then hope he could steer straight into me. Have a look at the short clip. For a few seconds just before this was taken the fog vanished, revealed a stunning, sparkling mountainside. We'll be back, making sure we get some clear days. (The photo on our last prayer letter was of this mountain from afar).

There's other stuff to blog about that short trip which hopefully we'll get round to in the next couple of days, including a little-known but moving WW2 episode from the town of Kalabrita itself.

Christmas Celebrations Part 2

So, below is the Sunday School Christmas Celebration. We'd had real trouble trying to get there (We'd decided to hail a taxi rather than get the bus/metro because it would be 'easier' but then found that there were no taxis free. We caught a bus and tried to get a taxi from the centre, which also took AGES!) and arrived 10 minutes before the start, and therefore 20 minutes late! As a result we bustled the kids into the back room where the others were and they were not interested in putting on angel robes and performing. They'd been quite reluctant in rehearsal, so we probably should have anticipated the outcome. It was a bit frustrating though. We decided to stay and watch proceedings. So, here are a few clips edited together to give you a flavour of the Sunday School production and Joel and Hannah's contemporaries' role in it.

Christmas Celebrations Part 1

Kαλή Χρονιά! Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s been nearly two months since we last blogged – so much to say, so little time…
So, first of all, an update of Christmas. Term finished for all of us on 21 December and we had a few Christmas celebrations to attend around that time. Hannah’s school had a little Christmas party just for the kids, whilst Joel’s school had a presentation. He had been given a poem to recite and was to play a baker in the little Christmas skit (no lines, just a bit of movement to music with all the other kids), I say ‘was’. He wasn’t up for doing any of it, as it turned out. He had learnt the poem and we were all looking forward to the little performance, but as we entered the school he didn’t want to go in, didn’t want to get into his ‘costume’, didn’t want to take part at all. He’s quite a literalist, our Joel: he won’t ‘role-play’ for long and generally insists on being ‘just Joel’ (not a dog, or a lion, or a shopkeeper, or Super-Joel!). I’ve edited together some of the high- and low- lights of the afternoon… I think it speaks for itself.







I’m also putting together a similar video of the Sunday School Christmas celebration at church (which saw both Hannah and Joel opt out of being angels on the night of the performance!), so that will be on soon too, with a bit of background writing by me! Jonathan is going to put something on here about our Christmas Day celebrations (all good) and our time away in Καλάβριτα (Kalavrita) (which was also good!)… Needless to say there are issues with Joel in terms of his confidence at school (and also his behaviour – more about that another time), and we’d value your prayers for us, for wisdom and love in knowing how to help him, and especially for him, thanks.