Servant Leadership Camps, July 2010

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Servant Leadership Camp If you've been reading our blog long enough, this entry will look familiar: we have completed another pair of leadership camps. Although the format and location were the same as past years', the combination of staff and students makes each camp unique and dynamic. These camps were our last projects before returning to the US for a wedding and some R&R. Landon's Dad, Mom and youngest brother came to visit and to staff the second camp. All three of them contributed majorly to that camp's success, and hit it off great with the students.
A bonus sessions with Darko, HS camp speaker. The students were hungry to learn and attended 4 bonus lectures in their free time.	Darko fields a question. It's a good sign when teenagers are awake - not to mention asking questions - at the end of a lecture!	We use lots of games (some physical!) to make the leadership and life lessons experiential and memorable!
Landon's dad, Tom, was speaker at the second camp, which was for for University students.	In both camps, students belonged to "teams" to discuss lecture themes, applying them personally.	University students are in red and camp staff are in blue, including 4 student-translators.
The Qiriazi Center has held camps at the same mountain-lodge for over 5 years in a row, and their staff really enjoy serving us.	This game of rugby/football on the mountaintop was short but fun because nobody knew the rules.	Tom takes in the view up high, while teams meet below.

Photo Diary - Spring 2010

Please scroll down to view photos. For some reason, Blogger is putting a large space in the intro.

We hope you enjoy this selection pictures from March-May! Lacey's folks came and visited us in early April. They listened to us a lot, worked a lot, and brought a lot of encouragement. SweetBean is stabilizing and maturing in many small ways as a business. Friendships on the team are also deepening. High School students remain actively involved in the Qiriazi Center for servant leadership development. The pictures below give a glimpse into these three main areas of our life.
Touring the Serbian Orthodox monastery in Peja for the first time, obligatory NATO security pass in-hand	Reviewing a new cake order form during the weekly staff meeting.	Sweet Bean staff picture: employees pose as servers, cooks, and accountants, some of the duties they all perform.
Homemade Strawberry Lemonade	Saturday morning Cinnamon Rolls	Banana Chocolate-Chunk Muffin
Wall around the Serbian Orthodox Monastery: ethnic Albanians on the outside, Serbian nuns on the inside, and Italian troops (notice watch tower) to keep them apart.	Strolling into the famous Rugova Gorge, discussing life.	John and Cee Jaye during a power outage. They got to see a lot of them in one week, and almost stopped noticing them.
Below: This spring the Qiriazi Center servant leadership club organized a basketball tournament as a service project.
Students and a ref prepare the court one morning before game time.	Full of students, especially for the final. Sports are played a lot here, but not formally, so this was a shot at big-time bragging rights.	Qiriazi Center students registered teams, arranged logistics, recruited sponsors, and kept score.

March Update

Hi again, we're back! Several incredible months have passed since our last entry! You probably know bits about what has been happening (Facebook, Skype, emails, etc.) so this will be a general update.

Sweet Bean | American Coffeehouse is bringing elegance, education and inspiration to Peja


Since Day 2 of business (Jan 5), SB has been financially profitable. Sometime later this year it will probably make-up the start-up investment and be able to expand or fund other projects. Its impact on people has also been great. Employees have opportunities and responsibilities that none of their peers have; members of the community are delighted with the smoke-free alternative to the regular Peja coffee shops! (It's the only one in Kosovo to our knowledge.) People (us too!) are challenged every day to rethink matters of business, integrity, faith, and conformity to society.

Business burst to a start, so we have grown the staff from 6 to 8 half-time workers (with one resignation and one firing in the meantime). In Jan-Mar, we been working 75 hours a week (Mon-Sat) to stay on top of the wave. (We did take one extended weekend in February to relax and get supplies in Thessaloniki, Greece.)

We look forward to closely managing the business for several more months. Once it is stable, we may open the position of "store manager" to someone here who would be ready for it.

We're embedded deeper here than most people expect foreigners to be. Customers, suppliers, the landlord, municipal officials - perhaps most of all, employees and their families - are surprised and curious at the way we've taken a stake in their community. (They reckon Peja is pretty enough to eventually be a tourist destination, it doesn't make sense that we've live here now.) Selling school kids hot chocolate to-go is quite a spectacle, but people like it. And we've made a lot of friends and customers who want something outside the distinct Peja "box".

Meeting practical needs and sharing the work week with locals is an approach we're really enjoying. They've been alongside us during good and bad surprises with the business. They've shared the triumphs of creating something that the market loves. They've seen us discipline and discharge staff members. And they've seen us at the end of our rope when we're off-script and on the verge of tears. In all of this they can no doubt see evidence of a loving God in our lives, and we haven't hesitated introduce them to Him.

In January a local cable TV crew broadcast a 20 min. show about Sweet Bean. Half of the show was an interview with Landon, which allowed us to explain the business/training combination and clarify that the Yoders are not profiting from the business.

Lacey has invented and/or borrowed recipes to make everything from scratch from locally available ingredients. On average per week SB sells about: 180 muffins, 170 cookies, 260 peanut butter fingers (in-house creation), 120 hot chocolates, 80 espresso/macchiatos/cappuccino drinks, among other products.


1. A (foreign) customer enjoys WiFi and apple pie


2-3. The TeleNet crew getting footage for the SweetBean promotional broadcast.





(Thanks Emily Harrison for the last three pictures!)
4-9. Assorted scenes from the cafe. It's less awkward to photograph the kids than adult customers!

Qendra Qiriazi

We have continued to serve with the Qiriazi Center, mostly in the evenings and on two Saturdays a month. Lacey and an American colleague teach a small English class on Tuesdays and they host a girls' night on Wednesdays. Landon and the American colleagues are leading a spring run of the "Leadership Club" which is about helping the students plan and stage a community service project. (They did an anti-smoking campaign for their high school last fall, and this spring This spring they're planning community basketball tournament.)

We are beginning to arrange for the two summer camps (high school and university) that are the high point of the Qiriazi calendar. The location and most of the format will be the same as last year. However, we are inviting new speakers and plan to accept a number of first-time applicants.

Would you be interested in visiting us in June or July to help serve these students? We are looking for several more camp trainers who would befriend and help train the participants. Please let us know if you are interested in this opportunity. We would love to share more detail with you.

Everyday Life

We finally took down our Christmas tree and decorations last week. Somehow we went blind to them until mid-February, and then continued tolerating them for another month. Work has certainly made the time fly.

Electricity was great most of the winter but took a downturn in the last month. Most recently it's been off twice a day for 2 hours. The hard part both for business and personal is the suspense of now knowing when those two two-hour blocks will come. Our emotional state can definitely rise and fall with the light! It does make us better at problem-solving though, because we always need a back-up plan.

Lacey has been mostly able to maintain her jogging throughout the winter, some indoors and some outdoors. Lately, the girls who work at Sweet Bean have met her early on Sunday morning for jog into the mountain pass. They have good heart-to-heart conversations (sometimes in Albanian!), and then talk about their sore muscles the next couple of days at work.

Thank you to all of you who are giving and praying in support of our work here! We miss our friends and family! We do enjoy staying touch with you through some form of social media or another no matter how short the messages may be!

Life just doesn’t hold still!

So much seems to have happened in the last several weeks! In slow moments we pinch ourselves and wonder how we got to be so involved in a country worlds away from home. Yes, the anticipated 6-month period of culture stress arrived, but we have always remained grateful to be here! (Photo: overnight snowfall)

Our Thanksgiving was great, complete with two turkey feasts and American friends! E. Coli apparently hit us for the next week, though. The long hours in bed put us behind on several plans but also gave us a needed reminder that we are finite and depend on an infinite God.

Landon’s Grandpa Hochstetler passed away on Dec 4. His health was in decline and he was due to start dialysis soon. Thankfully we spent some quality time together this spring before we moved. His passing brought a mix of peace, pride and nostalgia. We're so grateful for Skype!

Kokërr e Ëmbël (Sweet Bean), our bakery, is progressing toward the target opening date of January 4. We have hired 6 students from 25 applicants. A visit to IKEA in Greece earlier this month gave us a huge boost in equipment/supplies/furnishings. Please remember our staff training next week in prayer. Challenging and enabling the employees is the whole point of this shop. We’ve already met disappointments preparing for that, but it’s one “hill” we’re willing to “die on”.


Amidst all the above, our Leadership Club conducted an anti-smoking campaign at the high school this week. This project was selected, planned and executed by club members (with coaching from us). The centerpiece of their effort is a 9-minute documentary that we showed several times every day. A little over 600 students have viewed it so far.

Considering the kind of shortages/challenges in their lives, we're all proud as our students look with satisfaction on project that they ran from conception to execution. The process has brought us lots of “teachable moments” about leadership, character and faith. And non-smoking is a great cause in a country where one in three smoke!

Highlight: after one showing in the high school, the first guy to stand up during Q&A muttered an expletive and lit his pack of Marlboro's on fire so everyone could see he was serious about quitting! Afterward he stayed behind to tell us he appreciated the help meant what he said.
A. B. C.
D. E.
A. Introducing a showing at the Qiriazi Center to students off the street. B. Inviting passers-by to come in to the Qiriazi Center and watch the show. C. Club members on duty between showings at high school. D. The documentary projected on the wall of a classroom. E.The guy who was so persuaded he spontaneously burned his pack of cigarettes.

Landon spends time almost every evening practicing his hobby of fire-tending. The wood stove may be dirty, but it’s sure warm and a great way to unwind me after a long day!

An American Coffeehouse for Entrepreneurship Training

An American Coffeehouse and Business Training Lab for Peja!

Next month we are launching an American coffeehouse with a built-in leadership training program for youth. Name: "Kokërr e Ëmbël," or "Sweet Bean." While it will be registered and run as a for-profit, it will give employees/trainees a practical understanding of how businesses are started and operated, specifically in Kosovo. The Kokërr e Ëmbël program is intended to demystify the business-creation process for young Kosovars, empowering them to launch (preferably value-creating) ventures of their own.

Banner translation: Coming in January 2010. Sweet Bean: American Coffeehouse for entrepreneurship training

The Specifics
Each semester we will hire new students to staff the coffeehouse part-time. As employees they will have significant responsibility for management, accounting, marketing, and daily operations in the café; as trainees they will also receive about 20 hours of explanation and training in business from the Yoders and others. As each semester ends we’ll hire new staff and start over!

The Strategy
Like Qendra Qiriazi (where we also work), the mission of the coffeehouse is to enable local young people to tackle challenges in their society. Qiriazi has the capacity to train large numbers of students but the coffeehouse aims to deeply influence 5-8 students per semester. The coffeehouse's goal of empowerment focuses narrowly on honest entrepreneurship skills. We are facing near-50% unemployment and corrupt hiring and admissions practices. (College graduates spend an average of 10 years between school and full-time employment.)

If successful, the bakery will grow in the next year into an “entrepreneurship laboratory” that funds itself and possibly even other organizations. Some call this double-bottom-line business or social entrepreneurship. We call it a wild ride!

The planning stage truly ended, and the start-up was born in early October. Since then we have:

• Contracted to rent the property (pictured below)
  
• Obtained the services of a lawyer, secured a business license and tax ID number
  
• Coordinated with friends who can contribute a lot with design and product development
• Distributed 30 of 60 applications with schools and individuals
  
• Researched and started to formulate a "training-through-work" curriculum for employees
  
• Recruited people from the community to teach some employee training sessions
• Shopped (many hours!) for all kinds of supplies; made a host of contacts
  

Storefront with banners.

We hope to serve you here at Kokërr e Ëmbël in the not-so-distant future.

Home From a Break, Qiriazi in Full Swing

Back Home from Greece
In the last week of September and early October we took a wonderful getaway to Greece to meet Lacey’s folks. Getting there involved several modes of transportation and travel through countries that are unfriendly with each other. But the company and weather in Greece were more than worth the effort! We made fantastic memories, but were still glad to get home to the people and work in Peja.

Winter rolled into town on Wednesday, sort of rushing fall a bit. There’s snow on the mountains and elsewhere in Kosovo. So far, however, Peja has only had heavy drizzling for a few days straight.

Qiriazi Update: Leadership Club, English, Ladies Night, & Social Events All Ongoing

Students have been attending the Leadership Club consistently and seriously! This past week they choose as their semester project an activity proposal that some students drafted at summer camp: an anti-smoking campaign targeting the Peja general high school. (There are separate high schools here for different career tracks. Qiriazi has and continues to work most with the “general” school that is viewed as the more competitive one.)

We’ve also found a rhythm for English classes. Between 5-10 students come, and we usually teach a stand-alone lesson that doesn’t build on the previous weeks.

These regular activities (plus coffee appointments) bring us together with several specific students multiple times each week. In small ways, they often demonstrate that they’re learning and growing through our activities. That's inspiring! Last weekend we held a Scottish dance evening with help from a Scottish friend here. It was our friend's first exposure to our students (at least in a while) and it was our students' first exposure to Scottish dancing. He took care to teach not only the steps but also the ways of "chivalry." Since then he's been singing the students' praises for their teachability and overall maturity - much different than many of their peers'. Encouragement like that helps us remember what we're working toward.

1 2 3

1. Leadership Club students explore principles of time management by "making it all fit" into a glass jar. 2. Snow over the mountains. 3. Strong attendance even though it gets dark during Club meetings (notice how coats are even worn inside during winter!).

Leadership Club, Prishtaina, & Treasure Hunt

Leadership Club Kicks Off

At the Qiriazi Center we try to mimic a good science class: plenty of conceptual instruction as well as safe laboratory practice. The Leadership Club is the single biggest "lab" activity on our calendar, and it started last Thursday evening.

Fifteen students (a good crowd) came, and we pitched the club to them as a great opportunity for anyone who is willing to seriously commit for the 12 weeks. Throughout the course we'll have a combination of hands-on lessons (like simulations and games) and sessions for them to lead their own service project. The Qiriazi Center will provide €200 toward the project, but it's up to them to agree upon, plan, research, organize troubleshoot, and seek outside support if it is needed. Last year the Leadership Club organized a soccer tournament for high school students.

Opportunities like this are surprisingly rare for students here. Schools offer no extracurricular activities. There are very few club sports, and nothing like the boy scouts, summer camp, shop class or cooking class. Just this afternoon we explained the vision to a student's dad, and he liked the idea so much that he offered to pitch in €50 to the project budget. We're excited by the possibilities for solid outcomes and growth in the students.

Business Trip to Prishtina

Before dawn on Friday morning, we boarded the train to Prishtina. We hoped and intended to pick up Qiriazi's certificate of registration that our colleagues applied for in May. Unfortunately the individual we dealt with was unwilling to grant it even though we had a very deserving application. Imagine trying to get work done at a DMV where the documentation requirements are not in writing and there is no guarantee that the staff even want you to succeed. Hopefully the end to that process is not far away.

We still had a good productive with an American colleague as well as several Kosovar university students who participated in the summer programs. In recent weeks, Prishtina has seen street protests against the foreign government and military missions that still chaperon Kosovo's government. Those who feel strongly about self determination feel that specific actions by the EU mission have violated Kosovo's sovereignty. This hasn't affected us in the least, but it's another aspect of the country we make a point of watching and understanding.

Train: Kosovo Railways is a much better alternative to the bus!

National Library: walking with a student through the (unmaintained) "park," which is also the the campus of Prishtina University.

Demonstration: a traditional (rural?) man demonstrating for Kosovo's sovereignty. Note how the library's domes were made to resemble the man's traditional wool hat. Photo by: Labinot Ibërdemaj, http://www.flickr.com/photos/labinotiberdemaj/1395038688/

Treasure Hunt for Students

Lastly, here are some pictures of the Saturday Treasure Hunt that was postponed two weeks ago. It was the first one most of them had ever done, and they enjoyed it a lot! It even gave an opportunity for the facilitators (us) to ask the students how tactics and choices they made might translate into leadership practices in "real life."