One thing I love about Lithuania...

There are a lot of things I really enjoy about life in Klaipeda (and quite a few more now that I'm no longer wearing my wool coat 24/7!). But one thing special thing I noticed this weekend is:

I love sitting on people's kitchen floors, having conversations, really late at night.

That's a pretty simple thing, yes, but it was a common theme of the weekend, during which there were group gatherings Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday lunch and a birthday celebration over Sunday dinner. All this means that I basically ate, and shopped, and cooked, and cleaned, and worshiped, and took walks, and sat around sending emails, all in the presence of other people. The way things often play out is, someone sends out a text message or an email, inviting everyone to bring a snack or something to drink to someone's house. Then we eat and talk and play cards until it's way past our bedtimes, at which point we walk each other home.

There is rarely much of an agenda. Sometimes we watch movies or play cards, but most of the time we just end up talking. There are never enough chairs in any one person's apartment to seat everyone, so inevitably a group of us will end up huddled on the kitchen floor space nearest the coffee pot or kettle, waiting for water to boil and talking about indefinite vs. definite articles; what is the real nature of gender relationships in the Baltic States?; where are people traveling next and what are the best, most out-of-the-way places to visit there?; who did we catch plagiarizing this week?; what are the tallest mountains we've climbed?; and so on, and so on...

What I love about this is that we're just talking. Life here is stressful, but rarely so much so that we don't have time to slow down and be together. I don't often experience this in the States - at least not to the level that I do here. I wish I could live more like this wherever I am.

There is definitely a palpable sense that here, in Lithuania, we need each other. We know that we must be community for each other because we aren't around families that might normally support us. You may remember a few blogs earlier I was whining about being lonely? I'm such a dork. Just when I think I'm forgotten, God reels me back in, opens my eyes and points out the blessings I've forgotten I have.