Coming Home

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Time has absolutely flown by these last few days.

We've done a lot with our Serbian Christian friend who plays amazing music. His voice is like liquid gold. One of his videos on YouTube has over 3 million views and yeah, he's our best friend. We took him to dinner for his birthday last night and had a fantastic time. He told us that this was really special because the Serbian custom is that the birthday boy or girl buys their friends dinner on their birthdays so to have someone treat him was the best kind of different. "Just another reason why America is awesome," he told us last night.

We followed it up with a movie night and then said goodnight. The day before that (sorry for working backwards, that's how my mind is working right now) we took a trip with Jovica, his daughters, and our musical friend to a place called Maglic (Mag-litch), an an old fort from the 14th century I believe. The place was incredible. We hiked up a mountain basically to get there but the view from the top was more than worth it. We took pictures, looked around, and after a few hours of admiring the thing we went back home. It was definitely one of the highlights for me on this trip.

The day before THAT we went with Jovica back into Gypsy town and constructed a water slide for the kids to play on and cut up some watermelons for everyone to snack on. The kids were shy at first and didn't want to try the slide out but after a few brave souls gave it a go the rest were quick to follow. Kids were running and diving and sliding all over the place. We also brought a few frisbees which the kids liked a lot too. We tossed a few around while others flopped around on our beautifully improvised wonder of a slip-n-slide. Jovica thought it would be a good idea to hand out the gospel bead bracelets to the kids while doing the watermelon cutting. He gave his full presentation and then started choppin' away. Before each kid could get a piece of the water melon they had to tell him what a particular bead symbolized. It took a few kids some time to remember but eventually everyone got some and the juices flowed. I saw one kid with literally 6 distinct streams of watermelon juice running from his mouth down to the bottom of his feet.

We also had the opportunity to go with our old friend Choso who took us to the monastery the week before camp to volunteer at a nearby school.  The United States National Guard was there working with the Serbian military to help do some clean up and rebuild work on the school. We talked to a few of the American soldiers and the head guy asked us if we wouldn't mind picking up some trash around the outside of the building. We agreed and had a pretty fun time doing that. We got a picture with some of the guys before we left and even had a little bit of an interview with their photojournalist guy about our trip. We got to talk to him a little bit too about his personal faith and what he and we have noticed about the difference in church between home and here. It was a really neat opportunity but we later found out we technically weren't allowed to be there and that it was supposed to be exclusively a military operation. Oops...

This morning we went to church with our new friend who came to our English class and who went with us to the market. We met him at 9 or so and walked with him to his family's church down the road from where we first stayed. The place was a work in progress but it was really neat to see the building unfinished. The walls were still concrete but all the nice fancy stuff had been put up on the walls and around the main part of the church. In the back room the painting had started but hadn't yet been completed. One of the priests there spoke incredible English and told us all about the church and answered all of the questions we had about his job, the church as a whole, the history of the church, the significance of certain paintings we saw, and even asked us a few questions of his own. As we were walking around we also got to witness him blessing someone's bread in the name of their family "slava" or family saint who protects and blesses their family. Every family in Serbia has one and it's been passed down hundreds of years as one of the Serbian Orthodox's primary traditions.

We took some pictures, asked our questions, looked around, and then went to a bakery across the street. We said our final goodbye to our new friend and it was weird. Not in an awkward way (maybe a little bit) but in more of a, "is this really happening?" sort of way. It's weird to think about leaving tomorrow for Belgrade.

Speaking of Belgrade, here's the plan for the rest of our trip:
* We will be doing something with Jovica and his family tonight for the last time. It'll be pretty sad saying goodbye to them because they have been a huge help to us this trip and have quickly become our closest friends here. I'm honestly tearing up a little bit now thinking about the possibility of never them again, and I'm sure I'll do the same thing again tonight at some point. We're also going to do something to celebrate their anniversary - which is a little different than how we do it in America. They celebrate the day they started dating, not the day they got married, and apparently it's a social event. Kinda neat. Not sure what we'll do or when but it should be a great time, if even a very emotional one as well.

* We will leave tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. to drive to Belgrade and meet the missionary family. We will be in a hostile tomorrow night and then with the family the second night before our early flight Sunday.

* Saturday will be our day to explore Belgrade with the missionary. We will look around the city a little bit, maybe go to the theater, play games with the MKs, who knows... We will soak in our last little bit of Serbia before the 6 a.m. flight to Frankfurt.


Passports are packed, luggage is ready to go. All that's left are goodbyes. This trip has been an unforgettable journey filled with amazing amounts of friends, laughter, culture shock, and valuable lessons that God has poured all over this group and the people we've met here. I have zero doubt that we will come to see amazing things happen in time from what has happened on this trip and I expect full heartedly for the friendships we made here to continue for years, if not our lifetimes. We have been so blessed to have had this opportunity and can't wait to come home and share it with you all who prayed for us the entire time. We love you all :)

See you in a few days! I may or may not blog again before we get home so if not, then - CIAO!

Drawing Near the End

It's weird to think that we're so close to coming home. We're not within' one week of flying home. Mixed emotions are definitely being felt.

The music session with our new friend was fantastic. He brought over some of his favorite traditional Serbian classic albums and they're beautiful. I've made a Serbian playlist on my iTunes already and plan on having it on repeat as soon as I get home. We also shared some American music with him and he knew a few of the more recent popular songs so we sang those together and had a lot of fun laughing about that.

Later that night we met back up for laser club, round 2 with party girl. It was the same as before but a little better because we had rested up well before and knew what we were getting ourselves into. The music wasn't as loud and we were able to dance a little more freely having felt out the place the first time around. By "dance a little more freely" I mean that we bobbed our heads more noticeably and would sometimes venture into actually moving from side to side. It was super hot but we made it til' 2 in the morning before heading back.

The sports fest that we were going to begin this week has been completely cancelled. There just wasn't enough happening to actually do it and the volunteers decided that it wasn't worth the trip if only a few teams had signed up instead of the expected 50 something. It's ok though because we know that God has something planned in place of that time. We definitely are in full swing with meeting friends we've made over the last month and want to give them as much time as we can before we leave. Now we are able to do that with more freedom. Still, the sports fest would have been great.

Please continue to pray for the missionary family in Belgrade. It could be any day now and it would be so exciting to be able to see the newest member before we fly home. We will be going to Belgrade to meet them sometime Friday, spend Saturday with them doing a quick tour of Belgrade, and then flying home early in the morning of the 12th, Sunday.

We have a few more things we'd like to do here in Kraljevo though and will do our best to knock them off our Kraljevo bucket list before Friday. We still haven't eaten a meal on the roof of the Tourist hotel (the tall building in the center of town), we need to try out the city pool, and we want to check out the movie theater in town as well. If we leave without those things it's not a big deal but if we can do all three in addition to the meetings and things we've already planned we will have gotten the absolute most complete Kraljevo experience.

We can't wait to be home, but please pray that we can make the most out of our last week here :)

The Market

Blogging late at night but at least I'll get to finally refer to what we did "today" instead of the day before.


This morning we got up a little earlier than usual and met our new friend from our third class at a nearby bakery. We got some Serbian apple pies and a couple Serbian donuts and we were on our way. Where, you ask? To the most magical place in all of Kraljevo. The market.

People had set up tarp covered booths as far as the eye could see in any direction on the far side of town. There were fruit stands, clothing stands, pottery stands, and even a stand that just sold slightly used oil kept in different cola containers. We found some festive things and our friend helped translate the prices and mediated between us and the vendors which was extremely helpful.

We all left with at least one bag in our hand - I won't give away what we bought in case any of the purchases were intended to be surprise gifts. After that we dropped off our stuff, said goodbye to our friend and prepared to meet our popcorn vendor friend, Paul in town for coffee.

We drank with him, chatted and watched some Olympics on a nearby TV. We came to find out that he is pretty good friends with All-Star Center Vlade Divac. My jaw dropped. They grew up together and weren't best friends but definitely hung out from time to time. They played on the same club team when they were younger and Mrs. Divac, who Paul referred to by her first name, frequents his shop every time they're back home in Kraljevo. He said the same for Nenad Kristic (another NBA star). He could call either of them up at any moment and chat with them. I asked if they always get together when Divac is in town and he gave me a very quick, "Oh yes." as if he were almost offended that I had to ask.

He talked about everything. Where he'd lived, who he knows, about his family. It was a really nice conversation. The only foul came just before he arrived. Our group was sitting down and I got "Shelby'd" by a pigeon flying overhead. The demon got me right on my shorts and it was a mess; a warm gooey white mess. Without getting too graphic, let's just say I finally got what was coming for me after laughing and taking pictures of Shelby during her surprise in Frankfurt.

We talked with Paul for a couple hours and then met up with the party girl for lunch. We had pizza, and found out that pizza comes standard with mushrooms because the last three times we've had pizza ordered for us, no matter how specific we've been, it's been layered with mushrooms. I tried to be discreet in pulling most of them off but I got caught. We had a long discussion about what mushrooms really were and how uncommon they are in the states vs. here and how it wasn't a big deal, yadda ya. Long story short, I've looked up the word for mushrooms to avoid any future encounters.

Everyone had a plan for tonight but one girl didn't call and my guy didn't feel up for it and moved our time to tomorrow at noon so we ended up eating together as a group and then going home fairly early.

Tomorrow we're having devo, and then I'm meeting new friend who went to the market with us to compare music and maybe get some help in downloading some classic Serbian jams :) he said he loves music so I'm confident in his choices being exactly what I'm looking for. We also have another clubbing date with party girl friend. Probably the same place and the same experience but it'll be fun. Now we know what to expect and can feel safe about what we're getting ourselves into. Naps will definitely be on the agenda tomorrow afternoon to prepare for a long night.

Continue to pray for this city, our friends, and us as we deal with those things and each other. Pray that we will constantly be reminded that this trip is about Christ and not ourselves or our experiences and that things we may deem important may not actually be if it's distracting us from making a conscious impact during our brief time here. We love you guys and are doing everything we can to not be homesick. We love you all.

Ciao.

Final English Class: Not What We Expected

Our last day of English class we had 4 guys drop out and only one new friend came. We met him on the basketball courts the night before and he was really really nice. We talked with him for a while and then said we would love to get dinner with him tonight so we are. We're meeting him at 6 and going to one of his favorite restaurants he was talking to us about yesterday. Should be fun :) and a good opportunity to know him better.

We're about to leave to meet our friend Paul in town for coffee. We met him our first day here at his popcorn stand and we've visited him off and on when we go into town. We love him and he's been really kind to us. He's given me free popcorn three times now and so I promised him that I would at least cover his coffee if we ever got some and today's the day.

Tonight the girls are meeting another friend in town for coffee and Josh and I will most likely go back out to hit the basketball courts since that's recently been our most successful spot to meet people and it always feels good getting to run around some and sweat a bit.

Some extra news. We've discovered that Sarah has a problem ordering water. We all say the word, "voda" but when she says it the waiters have been bringing her coke instead. It's fascinating, and sad, but always hilarious. We'll continue to experiment during the last week and a half of our time here.

Last night we ate at one of the best places in town according to most of the people we've met here, Lapi Boro. They had really good gulash but the best part of our experience was watching the way they cleared the table. Most people clean the table when you leave. It's ok to take a plate or two before you leave but not clean the actual table cloth... not lepi boro. The guy came by in the middle of our meal and started hand vacuuming our table cloth. We moved our plates and glasses so that he could get suck up every inch. It was certainly a different experience and we tried not to laugh from disbelief while he was doing it.

The girls found a dog they love. It lives a street over and her name tag says Dandy. It's a golden retriever and never fails to make Shelby do her cute animal squeak. Every time we're going that direction we'll rearrange our route to pass Dandy... you know, for the girls.

The missionaries are now in Belgrade. Please continue to pray for them and their whole family. It would be hard being overseas as a family member and not being able to get to the hospital for this. Thanks for your continued prayers and support. More updates to come :) Ciao.

Engligh Class: Day 2

SUCCESS! We had three guys show up for our "class" and we got to talk with them for an hour and a half or so. They were our age and their English was very good for not being English majors in college.

Jovica came again with his daughters and we talked about everything from how old we were to our favorite vacations to dreams and we even had a short conversation about karate (because one of the guys was champion of Yugoslavia). Only one of them had Facebook but we "friended". Pretty special. They'll hopefully be back again today for the last day of it.

We are also expecting a few others to come including a guy we met the first week of being here at the basketball courts. We played with him again last night and invited him to come and he said that he would like to. We exchanged Facebook information last night and I expect to talk with him at some point this morning.

Today's group forecast promises to be the largest group we've had. I'm working on the plans for the group while the girls get some shopping done before they have women's group with Jovica's wife at their house at 2. Tonight we may head back out to the basketball courts and test our mettle against the Serbian street ballers. I won both of my games last night and have developed, in my head at least, the start of a pretty startling reputation among the streets of Kraljevo. Hopefully I can use this new found imaginary fame to meet more people.

Please pray for our group as we prepare for another day of English class and that the people we meet there wouldn't just come away with English knowledge but American friends as well. Also pray for strength. Everyone has been feeling really tired lately and it's a little strange since we've been getting more sleep than at the start of the trip and even at camp.

Devotionals are going well, quiet times are solid, chemistry is clicking and our mission is clear. Pray for our obedience and our love for this city, it's residents and each other.

Ciao :)

English Class: Day 1

So despite all of our fliers being up and several of the tags being ripped off we only had two sisters show up to our English class yesterday and that was only because they saw our sign in front of our place saying the English class was inside. They weren't college age like we advertised, in fact they were several years younger so our preparations were trashed and we went with some simpler plans. We talked with them as much as we could for a little bit, went around in a circle and told each other about our favorite this and that but in the end it turned into more of a Serbian lesson for us.

We were sad a lot of people didn't come (or even one college aged student after a few had said they'd show) but maybe more will come today and if other older people had shown up then we wouldn't have been able to give any attention to those two little girls. Pray for a good showing today please :) we would love to meet people like we planned but if God has other plans he has other plans. Also pray that we're flexible with whatever happens again today and tomorrow.

Other than that it's been pretty quiet here. We passed out fliers for the class and for the sports fest, talked to a couple people but other than that not a whole lot has happened. We've been having quiet times and devotionals in the mornings, eating lunch, heading into town, talking with people here and there and then preparing for our afternoon/night event which could be anything from meeting an old friend from week one or prayer walking or whatever we decide really.

The missionary family is preparing to leave for Belgrade. They could leave today or tomorrow but the time is drawing very close for their 5th little one to be born. They're excited and ready and we've been praying for them during this exciting time in their lives. They've been such a wonderful blessing for us this trip and to be able to be here while this is happening is really exciting for us :)

Though it will be weird not having them in town we'll definitely be ok here without them. We have developed a great friendship with Jovica and his family and love them to death. They've taken exceptionally good care of us and I know they will continue to do so for the duration of our trip. We see them almost every day. We also have a few other contacts in town that would gladly help us if we asked anything from them. We're surrounded by so many amazing people and could not have it any better here in that regard. Money is taken care of, our residences are paid for, and everything is under control in preparations for the Belgrade baby.

Please pray for the missionary family, the mom's health and the baby's. Pray for their family in celebrating the life of number five, and pray that everything here in Kraljevo would flow smoothly in their absence.

Missing you all as always. Ciao.

The River, Pt. 2

Not a whole lot to report since yesterday.

We went to the river with Jovica's family and the missionary's. It was different than the last river we went to. We swam, jumped off a bridge, and enjoyed our time together. After the river we all headed back to Jovica's house where he had prepared a Serbian dish I had to ask how to pronounce more than a few times. It was delicious and as Josh made clear, was his favorite meal of the trip so far. It was certainly scrumptious.

After eating a couple other people came and we had house group bible study. Jovica spoke out of Romans 5 and it went really well. We talked about the difference between knowing God and believing that Christ lived and was resurrected and putting your faith and hope in that fact. The missionary even asked one of the Serbian guys straight up if he had accepted the gift or just knew about it to which he responded that he had accepted it.

After talking and praying for a little bit we headed into town to put up some more sports fest posters as well as put up the rest of our English class fliers.

Today is the first day of that English class. It starts at 5 p.m. and we're still working on exactly what we should talk about. It'll be mainly discussion with whoever shows up but we're going to hopefully plan some games and activities for them to do too. Pray that the class goes well and that the people who come will be good contacts and friends for us here.

Everyone is feeling 100% now which is a relief. Pray that health continues. Also, please pray for focus. When checking Facebook accounts and other things it's easy for our minds to slip off of our purpose here and we don't want to waste the time we've been given. Team unity is still great, pray please that that continues as well.

Ciao!

The Club

First things first. Beverly is alive and well again! She even came out with us last night to meet the girl from the China shop.

We met her at a cafe by the river and the music was calm and relaxing. The mood was great and we were speaking back and forth pretty well with her. Enter sister. She was a fireball of energy, much unlike shop girl. She comes in and immediately lets us know how cool she is. We're asking questions and finding out about her and she's all over the answers. Her English is a little bit better than her sisters so she translates some for her and then tells us she would like to take us to her favorite club.

Now, "club" up to this point has been nothing more than a cafe with slightly louder music than one you might find in town. When we went with our friend and her boyfriend the night before we went to an American rock and roll club. Not tonight. We went straight up techno.

But first they wanted to show us around town so we walked with shop girl, her sister and her sister's friend we found in the center, up and down the main walking area of the center of town. Then our friend had to leave because she had to work in the morning but her sister was going to take over from there. She led us straight to the pool where a tent had been set up with lights and speakers and standing room tables. We paid 150 dinari each to get in, got stamped, and followed her into the light show and heavy bass.

We all held our breath and gave each other looks of reassurance. We could do it. We had to.

The music was loud but we had gotten there early enough to find a table. We all stood around it looking at each other and giving nervous looks and laughing nervous laughs. The sister was instantly into it, bobbing and head nodding, so we started to bob our heads too. We took pictures, we danced a little bit (bounced up and down enough to be considered technically dancing), and we smiled, a lot.

The first hour was fun and awkward but mostly fun. It wasn't a scary place, there weren't too many people and the people that were there were pretty still. Everyone just kinda found a place and head bobbed while trying to talk to their friends, which was a total waste of time because the music was way too loud to be understood even at close range.

Two and a half hours later we decided it was time for us to go home. The sister and her friend had been going steady the entire time but we were a bit exhausted so we told them we were going to head home for the night. We exchanged contact information and walked half-deaf back to the girls hotel. I've never slept as soundly as I did last night.

Sarah led our devotional time this morning. Today we will be working on putting up fliers advertising our English conversation class we're running Monday through Wednesday. The sheets have tear off contact information with my number on it as well as the address of the place we're having the practice sessions. The thing is tomorrow but even if just a few show up, it's a success for us and they can tell other people and grow the group over the course of the following days.

Tonight we should be heading back into town to prayer walk and maybe find someone else to meet. The city is kind of dead on Sundays because most of the shops are closed. This will give us plenty of time to put up fliers and hand out cards with the same information in the center of town.

Please pray for Beverly, that she is completely well and that she continues to be healthy, as well as for our efforts with the English class, that people would come and that some good contacts will come from it. Who knows, maybe we'll meet someone while we are handing out cards and putting up posters? We'll be ready for anything.

Thanks! :) Ciao!

Prayer for Recovery

Beverly is sick. She was feeling a little weird yesterday morning but decided she was ok to go out with us into town. We played some tennis at 5 and after our match she sat down and held her head in her hands. Thinking it was just dehydration Sarah and Jovica's daughter went to get some water. Before they came back though Beverly decided she couldn't sit there anymore and needed to go to the hotel to lay down. She didn't go back out with us last night and is still feeling bad this morning so please pray for her, not just that she gets better, but that she wouldn't feel bad about not being with us and staying at the hotel while we're out and about.

Last night went well though. We met up with our friend from the first week and her boyfriend who also spoke English well. We talked with them for a good two hours and then they left us to meet some other friends of his but we were able to exchange names for Facebook and adder her this morning. She said they would love to meet us again at least once if we could before we left and we promised her that we would try. The boyfriend picked up our tab despite our insisting that we could cover them. Very nice. We finished the night by getting drinks at a cafe nearby and watching the opening ceremonies on a big screen. Pretty neat.

During the afternoon yesterday Jovica took us to the gypsy town to meet with some friends there but also just to make conversation with families and see if the kids wanted to play some marbles. He also brought a few boxes filled with toys and cooking salt to pass out to the families nearby. One family as we were walking invited us to come have drinks with them on their porch. They showed us pictures of their family, the kids showed us their puppies and they were super nice. We asked Jovica about them and he said he had never met them before. He asked them, "why are you being so hospitable to us? You don't know who we are." And the dad replied, "Why not? We could see that you were a good man and anyone who comes to us with a smile on their face is welcome here." (I'm paraphrasing Jovica's translation but that seemed to be the gist).

Several kids wanted to play marbles but none of them wanted to obey the rules so marbles turned into tree climbing while the girls showed Shelby, Sarah and Beverly the hill nearby. They ran up the hill, around the hill and down the hill cheering every time they reached a checkpoint. It was pretty hilarious. Jovica shared a bible story with all of the kids before we left. They gathered around him and listened as he talked about Jesus. It was really cool to see that.

Josh and I got a chance to climb the tree too. The kids loved that.

When we tried to leave, the kids swarmed the car. It was actually pretty terrifying. It reminded me of a zombie movie the way they jumped on top of the car, arms outstretched, yelling for us to get back out and play or for me to take their picture. Jovica kept yelling at them to get out of the way but they weren't moving and were on every side of his car. Finally Jovica started slowly moving the car forward to scare them into moving and after several horrifying fake attempts they made enough space for him to drive off. We are really looking forward to going back before the trip is over.

Today we're going to head into town for lunch, shop a little bit, try to touch base with the contacts we've made in some of the stores and then hit the tennis courts again before getting ready to meet one of the shop contacts and her sister for coffee. This is the girl that was following Shelby around in the China shop excitedly. Her sister supposedly speaks very good English and will be mostly likely doing all of the translating tonight. Should be a fun time. That's at 8:30 but it will most likely go for most of the night which is good because we really like this girl and she seems to really really like us too. Pray that we can connect with her and befriend her despite the slight language barrier.

Thank you for your prayers. They're always needed and always effective. We love you all and can't wait to see you :)

Ciao!

Reunited

Yesterday was different in a lot of ways.

For one, it rained, and hard. We were at Jovica's house for lunch when it started and it continued for a few hours. We were planning on going to the courts to play some ball but that plan was foiled. Instead we decided to hit the china shop to get some umbrellas, the same shop where we met one of the girls who worked there a day or two ago. She was there and recognized us immediately and excitedly slapped Shelby on the back to get her attention and talked with us for little bit. We're meeting with her this weekend and she's going to bring her sister who she says speaks much better English than she does. It was good reconnecting with her and to see how excited she was to see us, especially Shelby.

As we were leaving the shop it was still drizzling a little bit and we all got our umbrellas out of the plastic shopping bag. As we start to open them up some random guy comes running up to us and points to the bag speaking in Serbian. When he realizes we're not understanding him he points from the bag to his head and it finally hits us. Sarah and Beverly hand him the bag and he quickly straps it over his head like a helmet and runs off away from town. We couldn't believe what had just happened. We needed a good laugh and that was more than enough to satisfy. 

After that we decided to split up. We told Jovica that we would check the courts to make sure they were still wet because he wanted to come play with us so Shelby and I investigated while the rest of the group went to the hotel. The courts were wet but I then talked with Shelby about her thoughts on how the group is doing and what we could be doing better. After a short conversation I felt like I really needed to address the group one on one and then together as a whole to get everyone on the same page and to calm some tensions that may have been springing up amongst ourselves.

We went back to the hotel and I told everyone what was on my mind. After dinner we would simply prayer walk the center of town. Three people would walk together up and down the middle while I took turns talking to everyone in the center by the statue. There my hope was to understand where everyone was at in thinking about strategies for witnessing, things that have been hard for them, irritations with others but most importantly their ideas on how to make the most of our time here most effective.

It worked.

Everyone was able to share with me something that had been on their minds and I was able to take what they said and express it to the group after we were finished. The prayer walking teams enjoyed prayer walking too and even met another girl who spoke really good English at another shop in town. They are going to go back there sometime today and talk with her a bit more.

At the hotel I expressed what I had learned and opened the floor for more ideas and everyone agreed that the new changes would be helpful. The team unity has already seemed to improve, at least as far as I can see. That should prove really important going forward.

Tonight we're going to meet up with one of our friends from our time before camp and her boyfriend who is now back in town after having worked in Western Europe for the last month or so. We're excited to see her again and to meet her boyfriend. She's been a good friend to us and every conversation has been really good. Definitely pray for our relationship with her and for a good night tonight.

In an hour or so we'll be heading to meet Jovica to go to the gypsy village just outside of town. He's going to play marbles with the kids there and introduce us to a couple of his gypsy friends. We've already met one family who came to the bible study our first Sunday in Kraljevo. We're looking forward to going out there but don't know what to expect. Pray that we will be prayerful and ready for whoever we meet or get to talk to, and that we can be a blessing to those people.

Today marks the half-way point of our trip. It's a little exhausting thinking that this is halfway but it's also exciting to think that we still have time to make friends, expand on relationships and work the sports fest. There's enough time for us to minister here still :)

Please pray for strength, patience, courage, discernment, trust, for the English class we're trying to organize (I've started working on the posters) and for our missionary and his wife who is due within the week :) they're packed and ready to get to Belgrade to deliver their 5th!

Ciao!

Back in the City

So it's been more than a full day since we've left the camp and despite our plans of resting and doing nothing a lot has happened. For starters, the girls had a spider in their room...

The day we got back we went straight to our rooms and napped. While Josh and I were walking back to meet the girls at their hotel I get a phone call. It's Shelby, hysterical because "there's a HUGE spider" in their room. "Really, Dylan, it's massive! Get here ASAP, you have to kill it! We have it trapped..."

Visions of tarantulas flood my mind and I rush with Josh to their door. I knock on the door and you would have thought 100 girls were screaming. After a few seconds I hear the keys rattling against the door. When the door finally opens I look into to see a line of chairs running from their beds to the front door. Beverly is perched on the nearest one to us, arms outstretched to let us in without letting her foot touch the floor.

I ask where it is and they tell me they've lost it but that it's a monster of a spider. We look in the bathroom, in the closet, under beds... this thing is nowhere to be found. After a couple hours of searching we decide to leave and get something to eat. Flash forward to yesterday - Shelby was getting something out of her backpack by her bed and saw it in the corner, screams, and Josh smacks it with a sandal. Hero status. The thing was bigger than your normal house spider you might find in the corner of your living room but it was certainly not the monstrosity the  girls made it out to be. They even said, "I don't think that's it. I remember it being bigger than that." Nu-uh. Spider problem neutralized.

We went shopping at this Chinese shop in town to get some simple things like deodorants and other cheap goodies and happened upon another contact for us. She was following Shelby around the store and at first Shelby thought she was being stalked because the girl thought that she might be wanting to steal something. The girl eventually spoke up and asked if Shelby spoke English. The conversation led to us all meeting her and getting her number. She wants to get coffee with us sometime soon. It was really encouraging seeing that God doesn't just work in the time's that we give him to work, but that even in our break time, God is actively leading people to us.

We also had a short conversation with our popcorn guy, Paul while we were out looking for a place to eat last night. He asked us why we were in Serbia which kind of caught me by surprise. Surely we had told him why we were here but he said he had been wondering that since he last talked to us a week ago. I talked to him about Josh and wanting to talk to people and make friends and then shared about the Christian camp we were just at teaching the kids about the bible and Jesus and how important he is to us, etc. It was definitely a good plug for our relationship with him. It'll be interesting to see what our next conversation goes like. --> Side note: Beverly tried some chili powder on the popcorn she bought at the end of the conversation and without realizing that it was chili powder, Sarah reaches in for a handful and takes a bite and coughs. She was ok but it took her by surprise. Pretty entertaining.

The girls attended the women's bible study at Jovica's house with his wife and the missionary's wife. While they were studying, Jovica, Josh and I walked around town putting up posters advertising the sports festival. After that was finished we all met at his house for coffee and to play with his little boy, Marko. We've really bonded with Jovica and his family and are even meeting them again today for lunch. They wanted to make us a Serbian specialty and we gratefully obliged. After that we may ask Jovica to go with us to the tennis courts to arrange a tennis reservation for sometime this week and to help us mail some post cards.

Tonight we'll most likely go back into town and call some of our contacts about meeting for coffee, or meet some new people.

We're also thinking about putting up some posters to advertise an English speaking club that we would host where Josh and I are sleeping. We would put up invitations around town with contact information and invite them over for an hour or two of conversational English practice with our group. That would be a great time to make some friends and also maybe share the gospel. We'll be working on getting those up over the next 4-5 days.

The sports festival starts August 5 so preparations for that will be getting serious in the coming week or so. Prayers for strength, patience and a heart for the Serbs here. Also pray for team chemistry as we've been together for a while now and it's easier to get chippy with one another (we've already had a fight over whether creamed corn counts as a vegetable). Our work will be a lot easier if we can cooperate and encourage one another.

Thank you for your constant support. We're still enjoying our time here and are excited to see what God has planned over the coming weeks. I put up a heap of pictures today - sorry there are so many. I should have gone through and erased some before I mass uploaded but hopefully it wasn't too painful to sift through them all.

Love you all :)

Leaving Camp :(

The last night of camp was great!

I got to share my testimony and it went really well. We also worshipped, and even had a little birthday party at the campfire for one of the campers.

One of the highlights of the night was when Danjel (“Daniel” - one of the Serb leaders) asked if anyone wanted to do some karaoke. Crickets didn’t even sing. Right before Danjel was about to move onto the next event, Jovica (Yo-veet-sah) volunteered himself, Josh and I to do some beat boxing. We had been joking about it earlier in the day and joked about doing it at the evening worship, but now it was for real.

We got up in front of the crowd under the tent and each grabbed a microphone. We chose a theme: A train departing from a train station. It went beautifully. I did the chugging of the wheels, Josh nailed the horn, and Jovica did a wonderful job on the clacking of the tracks and the background noise. We started the train, accelerated it and turned it into a decent beat box. The kids loved it. After a minute or so of the beat we wrecked it and the campers cheered.

That was all we had really “prepared” but the kids yelled for more so we asked them to give us a theme. The only person with an idea yelled out, “An airplane falling into water!” So we tried. I did the quiet ambient noise inside the cabin and Jovica was a lady flight attendant. The kids erupted when Jovica started talking in his lady voice, even I couldn’t hold back laughing. It was a lot of fun. Eventually we crashed the plane and I did some water droplet sounds for the plane submerging under water.

My testimony was different from the way I usually tell it. I told them that I found a lot of pride growing up being liked by everyone and I would constantly compare myself to others to feel good about being a better person than them, but that I wasn’t and was still a sinner deserving of hell. I think went into focusing on the difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone. From there I gave the example of the prodigal son, feeling ashamed of his life and not wanting to go to his father because he knew he had let him down. I talked about how the father surprised the son in his reaction. He didn’t scold him or ignore him or send him away; he ran to him and embraced him and had a celebration.

I hope it spoke to the kids there and because I really felt like God was putting it on my heart to share, I know some good will come from it. I may never see it, but I can be comforted in knowing that it wasn’t in vain.

One of the campers’ birthday was today so we brought her a cake last night while we were sitting around the campfire. She was surprised and everyone sang the Serbian birthday song, which easily trumps the English one in my opinion; very catchy. After everyone ate cake, we hung out around the fire and took pictures and talked. It was a lot of fun.

This morning we picked up where we left off around the fire. We took pictures and exchanged names for Facebook and email addresses. It was really hard for us saying goodbye, which is kind of amazing considering just a couple days ago we were all feeling super discouraged and didn’t have a lot of friendships with the kids. We wish we had another week with them.

We’re back in Kraljevo now. We packed ourselves like sardines into Jovica’s little car and took off right after breakfast. We’re at his house now having some iced coffee and then we’ll head to the hotel to get the girls set up and then to the locale to get Josh and I settled. It’s kind of nice to be back in the city. We have friends here we are looking forward to connecting with and there are new ones to be made.

Today and most of tomorrow will be a resting time for us. With the late nights in the city and going straight to and through a week of camp, we’re pretty exhausted. It’ll be good to reset and revive before we launch into the last couple of weeks.

Please pray for rest, and for the kids leaving the camp today that they would get home safely. Most of them take buses home and some of the trips are several hours. Also pray please for them to remember what they learned at the camp and that the contacts we made there would continue over the coming weeks, months and years.

I should have camp pictures up before the end of the day : )

Ciao!

Camp: Day 5

Breakfast this morning was slices of bread with a cream cheese/butter textured spread made completely out of hot dog ingredients... just another reminder that we're not in America. (For the record, it wasn't terrible.)

Anyway, let's get to the important things.

Today is the last full day of camp. Darko challenged all of the leaders this morning to go all out today to capitalize on built relationships and say everything you need to say and do everything you need to do with every student you feel led to do and say those things to and with (most confusing sentence ever?)

Also at the meeting, some of the leaders reported hearing kids talk on their own about some of the things talked about in the service and in the group quiet times. This was really encouraging for us. The teachers all talked about what they had learned so far at the camp. I shared about how God has shown me that I can do nothing without love and that my goal for this camp had changed from trying to have a gospel conversation with as many kids as possible to loving these kids as much as I can with God's help and allowing God to mold me into any role, even one that's not in the spiritual spotlight. A few others shared about love as well and a few on faith and the power of prayer during a camp like this. It was just a really good time for us to share with each other a little something personal and encouraging.

Tonight I will be giving my testimony with a few others. I feel like God has been working with me this week in changing the way I present my testimony. Instead of the usual chronology of my life and my spiritual walk, I feel like I finally understand how my testimony can help others and really relate to their lives. I'll be working on it this afternoon to prepare for tonight. Please pray that it will go well and that the testimony I have will positively affect the students who listen.

I added my first Serb friend on Facebook yesterday and tonight will be that times a million. Everyone will be exchanging information and preparing to leave each other. Some will come back for the winter camp in 6 months, but for some this is their last camp, and will most likely be the only time we attend so tonight is really important if we want to keep in contact with these campers. It's weird to think this week is almost over. The week started so slow and now we're wondering where time has gone.

James and Katy return sometime today and then will leave with Tyler for Belgrade to spend the night there tonight and wake up early for their 6 a.m. flight. Please pray for safe travels and a smooth transition back into Texas time.

This week has been great but draining, as all camps are. Please also pray for strength for today, especially since tonight is going to be long and late. Pray for good contacts, a strong end to camp, and rest when we return to Kraljevo to continue doing work there.

I'll try to update tonight or tomorrow morning to report on the final night of camp and wrap up the week. Pictures from camp will be up hopefully sometime tomorrow when we return to Kraljevo. I need to get the ones Darko took because I was usually participating in the events I wanted to take pictures of. Hopefully I can get those up soon too.

Thank you for continuing to pray for us here. Your prayers are not in vain :) 

Camp: Day 4

Yesterday was water day, and things got CRAZY.

We spent our morning filling up about 600 water balloons and it almost wasn't enough. We had water balloon volleyball, water balloon egg toss, and a water balloon "gauntlet" where one team would stand behind a line and the other teams joined together to form two lines with a lane between them. Everyone grabbed a water balloon and tried to peg someone on the running team as they tried to get through the lane safe and dry. The kids loved it.

The water balloon egg toss was fun too, but I felt bad when I tossed my balloon a bit prematurely and as my camper tried to catch it it exploded on impact with her face. Water went up her nose, in her eyes, and the shock of the whole ordeal was traumatizing I think. I apologized with several "Izvini"s  (sorry) and she said it was ok and smiled after she had collected herself. Pretty frightening.

We also played a game where two teams would each run with a bucket of water down to a place on the field and stand on a chair. Beside them a person would be kneeling down next to an empty bucket. The person with the water would pour some water into the knelt person's mouth and then they would spit as much of it as they could into the bucket. Then they would take the bucket full of water back to their line and pass it off to the next person who would do the same thing. As soon as they ran out of water we compared how full the spit buckets were and decided a winner. The kids were laughing the whole time.

I feel bad saying kids, they're not really that young. Most of them are in and around 18 years old.

Last night, Darko divided the camp into girls and guys and they had talks about relationships. The guys group was really hard for the campers from what I understood. The kids struggle a lot with sexual sin. Relationships here are really loose and sex is all too common. One of the leaders started chewing them out for living like children and challenged them to do something with their lives instead of wasting it away with drinking, sex, and destruction. There is a specific group that is causing trouble and they seemed to really take it personally. I'm interested to see more of the fallout from that conversation as the week continues.

The girls said that the girl conversation went pretty well too but not at all like they were expecting. Apparently the girls talked about what love really looks like and what kind of guys they should be looking for and which ones they shouldn't be looking for at all. It seemed cold and awkward but good messages were said. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out too.

Beverly didn't get to share her testimony last night because Darko didn't think they had enough time to fit in the couple they had planned. Hopefully she gets to tonight. Tyler was supposed to do his tonight too so we'll see what they want to do but I really hope they both get to share. So far, the testimonies have been some of the most obviously effective ways to reach and relate to the campers. I would really like to give mine tomorrow, the last day/night of camp but we'll see.

There has been significantly more conversation between leaders and campers since the start of camp. A lot of times we will come together and practice English and Serbian. These conversations have been good ways to get to spiritual conversations or at least strengthen friendships with the kids that could lead to a conversation like that. Already we've been getting requests to add people on Facebook. It's weird to think that we only have two days left.

It's also strange to think that Tyler is leaving on Tuesday for good. It'll be a different group and a different feeling with our smaller group when we go back to Kraljevo. Pray for him as he prepares for home and uses the rest of his time here effectively. It'll also be weird knowing that James and Katy are going home. We haven't seen them too much on this trip but it's comforting to know that they're close and that they've been able to see us a couple times. They have been a real encouragement to us every time we've seen them.

Please pray for a strong end to camp and for God to keep knocking on the doors of these kids hearts. Change is hard for most of these kids because faith in Christ is not a popular position in this country. A decision to follow Christ and be a "Protestant" is a big deal. Pray for strength of these campers and for confidence in the truth they're hearing to make the decision to follow Christ and submit their lives to him. They are filled with seeds and the seeds have been watered. It's only a matter of time before fruit is harvested. I can't help but feel that a lot of these kids are close, and that when the first decision is made a wave of others will follow closely behind.

Ciao :)

Camp: Day 3

Camp continues to go well!

Yesterday Josh and I were swimming with some campers and the swim turned into a slow motion fight scene. We would punch each other in slow motion and react as if we were acting it out in a movie. The guys were loving it and Josh and I had a blast. One of the guys is in my group so hopefully that opened the door to a conversation or two in the future to be able to share with him as a real friend.

God has already started tearing at the hearts of these kids. Darko, the camp leader, told the leaders this morning at our meeting a couple stories of conversations he's had with some of the kids and they were really inspiring. I won't share them here because they're very personal and I'd like to keep that here, but please continue to pray for the hearts of the kids here as God is doing major work on their minds and their hearts in accepting the truth that is being repeated to them here.

The Serbian leaders are going to be the people with the most opportunity to share the gospel and the Americans realize that. We are trying our best to have conversations but ultimately we have come to understand our purpose here is to love and support everything the Serbian leaders are saying by the way that we act.

Over the last couple of days I've stumbled across some passages in scripture that have been really helpful and I shared those with our small group this morning. They were out of the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 6, and 1 Corinthians chapter 13. They hit home to me because I have had a hard time not feeling frustrated here with the several boundaries here, when really I had a skewed understanding of what my job really is and what God wants me to do here, and that's to love them.

The 1 Corinthians passage really breaks down what love looks like. It was really interesting to me to read about Paul saying that even if he had the faith to move mountains and knew all the answers with every bit of biblical wisdom but didn't have love then his life would be worthless. Our job here isn't necessarily to speak with these kids, nor is it to share with them all of our biblical wisdom, though those are all good things. We have to start with loving them. If I can't love them then I don't love God and am not working through Him. Our prayer is to love these kids, then love them some more followed by a little bit of love covered in love sauce with love on top. That's our most effective way of reaching these kids. What comes out of that is for God to orchestrate and for us to follow.

The Matthew 6 passages talked about works that are done in secret. We shouldn't be worried about what we can tell people we've done or how many kids we've talked to or how many times we've shared the gospel or whatever, but rather work in secret and do things without expecting any credit from each other for it. Also, it talks about fasting and how to not sure discomfort when you fast so that other people don't even know that you're doing it. You're not doing it so that other people can see, you're doing it for God. The same thing has to be true for our work here at the camp. We shouldn't make our discomforts made known so that others know how much we're overcoming, but instead just do it because God knows what we're sacrificing and that's all that matters. We will be blessed in our secret suffering. We are working for God, not each other, and not the leaders. God knows our hearts and he sees all things. That's all we should be concerned with. I feel like this will help us with our natural sense of pride, and will encourage us to count our blessings qualitatively rather than quantitative.

Prayers are being answered and quickly. Beverly shared with us this morning a special part of her testimony and that she feels like God has really put on her heart to share it with the kids tonight at the big worship time. God has something special planned and we're dying to see what it is and who her message speaks to. Pray for her, her bravery in sharing, and that tonight would go how God has planned.

Today is water day; all the games will be water related. We have 1000 water balloons to fill before this afternoon so we've got to do that now. We love you all. Thank you for keeping up with this blog. Keep praying, we are seeing them answered every day.

Camp: Day 2

Zdravo! Today is our second full day with the campers. Last night was one of the best nights of the trip for sure.

During the day we played every game imaginable with the students but still weren't really connecting with most of them beyond being teammates and learning a couple Serbian words (which I'll get to in a few paragraphs). But then night worship happened and things got crazy.

After a few worship songs and the usual message, one of the Serb leaders came out with a game that he had organized pitting the Americans vs. the Serbs. First was a trivia. The Americans had to answer trivia questions about Serbia and the Serbs had to answer questions about America. Each team got every answer right. We the moved to tongue twisters. I was selected from the American group to attempt two Serbian tongue twisters and actually did pretty well! The students loved it and from the sound of James' applause I had done better than I thought. The Serbs selected a girl who spoke perfect English to do the English tongue twisters so she knocked those out with ease.

After those we had a "Name that Song" competition with American and Serbian songs. The Serbian kids were surprisingly good at the American songs and killed us on the Serbian songs because none of us had heard any of them. The biggest hit of the night though came right after the songs.

They asked for five Americans and 5 Serbians. I was selected on the American side and when all 10 of the students had come to the front they instructed us (Americans) to teach the Serbs the dance to whatever song they played. My heart stopped. It could have been anything. I started praying it wasn't something like the dougie or the stanky leg. It was neither, but what did come out was just as shocking. Cotton-Eyed-Joe.

Shelby actually knew the dance but the other four of us started grabbing our belt loops and kicking our legs out side to side like a bunch of hicks. After the Serbs started kicking we hooked our elbows with theirs and made some circles. Then switched arms. Then kicked some more. The kids were ROLLING. After a few minutes of that the music stopped and they did it again with five different volunteers from each camp and the SERBS had to teach the Americans a dance. They linked arms and danced side to side while the most hilarious Serbian music rang out under the cover of the tent.

It was in that moment when I feel like the Americans and Serbians became one big group. It was no longer us vs. them, but rather just "us." The leaders talked about it this morning at our meeting and we all agreed, that night changed everything. We've had breakfast and quiet times and will be playing around until lunch time and still we can tell a difference in the attitudes of the kids as compared to the first day and a half. I'm excited to see what happens now as we have seriously gone to knowing one or two kids well to having friend status with every single camper.

I see this as an answer to prayer. Our group admitted feeling discouraged by our lack of relationships with the Serbian campers. Despite our efforts there was still a disconnect and the language barrier has been a lot higher and thicker than we had originally expected. But it's like that barrier has been smashed to bits and kids are wanting to speak English and are good at it, and we are remembering our little bit of Serbian and everyone is well. Pray this continues and improves. This opportunity is critical to the lives of these kids.

Some fun news: Shelby and I were talking with one of the Serbian leaders and a couple campers and asked them which Serbian words were the most fun to say. They taught us two; Kikiriki, which means peanuts, and "sheeshmeesh" which means bat, the winged animal kind (or as our Serbian friend would say, "mouse with wings"). We've been practicing these almost nonstop since learning them and have integrated them with our regular speech. Shelby is now "moj sheeshmeesh" (my bat) and I am her kikiriki. The Serbs love it.

I've also been called Limp Bizkit by one of the Serbian boys because I apparently look like one of the musicians. Limp Bizkit has evolved into just 'Limp' as the camp has progressed. I really hope that nickname doesn't spread.

All is well here. James and Katy and their friends left this morning. We'll see them again on Tuesday when they come to take Tyler and go home. It was awesome getting to see them for a little bit and they were a huge encouragement to us while they were here.

Pictures should be posted by the end of today :)

Camp: Day 1

The camp has been amazing so far. Campers arrived on schedule and we immediately got them involved in some pick up games. Some played basketball, some soccer, others frisbee and even a couple wanted to trampoline. We spent the entire second half of the day meeting kids, trying to pronounce their names and make them feel at home here.

The entire camp was divided into 4 teams. I'm on team 4 with Beverly but I don't know where the other members ended up. The groups are small, each with about 5 campers, a study leader, a translator and one or two Americans.

Each day will be packed with events. Already we have had a leaders meeting at 7:30, bible study at 8:30 and breakfast is at 9:30 I believe (hope). After breakfast we will have a worship time where Darko (the leader of the camp) will give a short sermon after a couple songs from our worship leader. After that is lunch and rec, led by the Americans. After wreck is snack and after that is more games until supper at 7. After supper is another worship service with sermon and then a night game also organized by the Americans. Bedtime is midnight.

We were tired coming into the camp, but now we've got to be energized and ready every day. We need to be ready to capitalize on opportunities and share with everyone we can. Please pray for strength, positive attitudes, and spirits to serve in the midst of our constant aches.

James and Katy come today with a few more campers so we're excited to see them.

We just ate breakfast and are getting ready for worship within the hour. I'm doing my best to upload pictures but the internet is again moving pretty slowly. I've been uploading pictures for the last few days as I can so hopefully I can get them all up by the end of the week and then start working on uploading the pictures from the camp.

If you have questions, please comment on the posts. I'll do my best to answer them, and do it quickly. Otherwise I'll just be updating synopses of our days and then anything especially memorable from those times.

Ciao

Camp

Wow, a lot to cover... hang on.

The mountain was actually a trip to see one of Kraljevo's oldest and most historic monasteries. It was incredible though. Our guide told us everything you could possibly want or need to know about the place and it was super photogenic. It was weird for us to think that the monastery was built 400-500 years before America was even seen by Columbus.

Yesterday we had the privilege of volunteering at an orphanage of sorts. It's not technically an orphanage but more a place where kids who are in abusive homes or whose parents can't support themselves can come and have a healthy place to live. There are several large homes with house parents who adopt anywhere from 1-8 children and live there in the "children's village" until the kids are old enough to leave and live on their own. We painted the wood and rails of each house then ate with the people who owned the place who gave us t-shirts for our work.

After that we packed up for camp and got here around 7p.m. The night was full of meeting the people who work here and getting familiar with the camp as much as we good without daylight. There are several people working here, all believers. There's a couple from Texas who are both fluent in Serbian, a college student from Alabama, a married couple from Serbia but the wife is originally from Vermont, a few pure Serbians and our leader, Darko who is mostly fluent in English as well. This is a huge relief for us because we didn't know how many other adults would be here with us, especially ones who spoke English.

We are about to have a meeting to discuss the plan of the camp and then prepare for the kids to arrive around noon or a little after.

I apologize for not updating sooner but we've been very busy and the places I've been able to update the internet has been either too weak to use or I simply haven't had enough time to write anything. We're all doing very well and are excited to start camp :) We're in charge of Rec but will be attaching ourselves to a group of kids for the most part and following them around almost like camp counselors. We will eat with them, sleep in their bunk houses, worship, study and walk with them to the bathroom. We will be around these kids for the next week attached at the hips so good conversation is definitely a huge goal of ours.

This camp is FOR learning about Christ so fruitful gospel discussions should be easier to get to. Please pray for solid relationships, hearts to serve, and a go-for-it attitude for all of us. I'll try to fill in more specifics as the week progresses but I honestly don't know how much free time I will have to update. Thank you so much again for your support. Prayer is going to be essential this week if we want to see lives changed.

We miss you all very much and can't wait to tell you all about our trip when we get back. There's so much to talk about, God's been very active so far :) It's weird thinking that we've only been here for a week. It feels like three.

I'll update as soon as I'm able!

House Group

Yesterday we had the privilege of joining the Serbian believers for their house group at our friend Jovica's house. We sang some songs in English for them which they liked a lot and then we sang Amazing Grace each in our own languages at the same time and that was really neat too. Hearing Jovica pray in Serbian almost brought tears to my eyes. A few other Serbs came including a boy named Marko who is around our age. He speaks very good English and said he'll be happy to join us around town any day once he gets out of school in the morning so that will be great to have him around more after the camp.

Jovica (Yo-veet-sah) spoke from Luke 10 last night on the good Samaritan. He spoke entirely in Serbian to the Serbs visiting the group while the Americans huddled near the missionary's wife who translated in whispers so we could follow along. After the study and a few games of darts we left Jovica's house and ate at a nice restaurant on a boat by the river.

We learned that Jovica will be with us all week at the camp which is a huge relief since we didn't know if we would have anyone we knew there with us for the whole time and we've come to really love Jovica and his family.

Today we will be taking a day trip into the mountains to hike, sight see and take some pictures. We're going with our missionary's good friend "Chos-eh" (can't figure out how to type it with the special characters). He was with us at the river and made the soup that we loved so much. He's a big guy who doesn't really have anything to do during the day so the missionary asked him to take us up there and he jumped at the opportunity. He's hilarious, and his English is better than average so we should be good in communicating with him today. It should be a fun trip and a nice change of pace from what we have been doing the last few days.

I'll try to upload some pictures soon. I still don't have a lot from the city because I didn't want to mark myself as a tourist but I'll try to upload what I do have from some sports outings, the river, today's mountains and even some ones from our layover in Frankfurt that are pretty entertaining. Hopefully I can find time to do that tonight or tomorrow morning :)

Getting Better

The longer we stay, the more excited we get about our time here. Things have only gotten better as we've been here.

Last night was great. We played some basketball and met a few boys there who said they'd play ball with us every night around the same time if we want (and we will). They spoke fairly good English and were surprisingly good at basketball so hopefully that friendship leads to more conversation and beyond.

After we played sports we visited our friend, Mag, who works the Gyro shop by the field. We all got pork and french fry gyros. Mag's gyros are the best in town and one of our favorite places to eat so far. We will be frequenting her shop for sure.

Shelby, Josh and I met back up with our Serbian friends from the night before. They tried taking us to a "club" which was more like a café with live rock music. When we didn't see any seats available they decided to take us somewhere else. I wanted to stop them and propose that we wait but this culture is different in that if a table is taken, it'll be taken for hours so don't even trying to wait. We eventually ended up buying some waters and sitting around the circle in the middle of town.

We had another great conversation. We talked about difficulties with English, relationships, and even some about religion. They want to meet us again so we'll probably try to hook up with them tonight or tomorrow again before we go and then again when we get back from the camp. The girls have quickly become a great contact for us and fairly good friends. They've been very helpful and very kind and their English is second to none so far in the people we've come across.

The other group was able to talk to several other people. They met a couple of Serbian girls who after a while of talking wanted to take them to a "club" (clubs are basically sit down places where you can get drinks where they play music a little louder than a cafe or music that is more techno or rock and roll than the usual cafe, not at all like American clubs). At the club the girls kept seeing people they knew and our group eventually told them that it's ok, they can go enjoy their night and maybe see them some other time and left. They found another couple of girls who were very sweet and talkative but they were about to go home and had to leave after 30 minutes or so. The girls did say though that they would love to meet back up with them some other time so that's encouraging!

We're about to get some lunch and head to the fields to play some volleyball. We have a house group tonight with the missionary and the Serbian believers. We are expecting it to be like a bible study that we're used to but so far every expectation we've had has been pretty off. We're excited about it though. It'll be a good opportunity for us to meet some more believers.

The days are long and tiring, but we're making it. It's hard to have the most effective time to reach people between the hours of 10 pm and 2 am. We're going to need to figure out a way to keep from feeling like death every morning but we're loving it here so far. The more we learn and the more we explore the more excited we get about the next day and the next friend.

New Friends

Sorry this is coming so late. A lot has happened, and all of it good this time thank goodness.

Tyler is feeling much better. He has full range motion in his shoulder and the soreness has lessened. He's still not comfortable playing a lot of high pace, high action sports right now but we're pretty confident that he will be able to play some at the camp next week if he continues to improve the way he is. That's a blessing.

Unfortunately, the friend he was supposed to meet at the gym didn't show.

After spending some time in town yesterday we met our leader at the sports facilities and started a game of basketball followed by an hour or so of ultimate frisbee. We met a few kids who were friends of our leader's kids and they were super nice and spoke exceptionally good English.

After our sports time we ate and got ready for a night on the town. During the evenings starting around 7:30 til sometimes 2 or 3 in the morning, people will gather downtown and meet in coffee shops and places to talk and drink. Serbia is a great example of what true community looks like. Everyone seems to know everyone to some extent, and their way of having fun on a Friday night is to meet friends and talk around a table outside for a few hours. I love it.

Our team split up into two groups of three and started wandering the streets looking for people who might talk to us. First my group (Shelby, Josh and I) tried sitting at one of the coffee places and figuring out from there what to do but we quickly found out that was not going to be a good place to meet anyone. We then decided to try to find someone around "the circle" which is the area around the statue in the middle of town. There are benches that border the statue area and a lot of small groups had made that their place to chat.

With a short walk and a quick prayer we decided to approach these two girls sitting together on one of the benches. Shelby went up to them and said plainly, "Hey, do you guys speak English?" I couldn't help but laugh at the simplicity in her approach but it worked. The two girls were English majors at the University and their English was flawless. We had a great conversation with them. We talked about everything from what classes they were taking to stereotypes about America, and even a quick conversation about dog attacks.

About 15 minutes into our 3 hours conversation, they asked us if we wanted to move to a cafe and get some drinks so we joined them. We sat at the cafe talking for what seemed like days. They were very talkative and seemed to like us. We asked them if they were doing anything tomorrow (today) and they said they could do something Sunday and would call us.

I got a text from them today though and they want to meet up tonight for a walk by the river and then some coffee afterward around 10. We finally made some friends :) Hopefully we can see them a few more times before we leave for the camp (which I found out is Tuesday instead of Thursday). After the camp we'll be sure to contact them again and hopefully continue wherever we leave off at the end of our first week here.

Today we took a trip with our leader's family to the river. We met some more of their Serbian friends, swam downstream a few times, Josh jumped off a nearby tree, we played volleyball and for lunch we had this amazing home cooked meal that some of the Serbian men made using a fire they built themselves by the side of the river. It was similar to what we would call Chili. It had spicy sausage, beans, and a little bit of onion mixed with a special seasoning. We put that on some bread and bon apetite! SO GOOD.

Since the lake we had our devotional time and talked about any problems or worries or things that have kept us from staying focused or keeping positive on our time here. We decided we need to pray more often, discussed how to meet more people effectively, and shared some struggles we've faced just in being in a different culture and doing things on our own. We're all good though but please continue to pray for team unity, peace, and that we will constantly keep our priorities in check. We need to always be able to remember why we're here.

We're about to head to the sports facilities to play and hopefully make some more friends, then we'll eat and head back into town to again, meet some people. Pray for confidence to approach strangers, and that we would be led to find friends like we did last night. Lasting friendships will make a world of difference going forward on this trip.

Thanks for reading. I know this is a lot. Everyone is doing wonderfully. The food is great, the people are great, the language is fun, we're learning a lot and we're making progress :) thanks in large part to our support back home. Thank you all so much. We can't thank you all enough. I'll update again hopefully tomorrow morning with a shorter message.

Ciao!

Falling Into Total Dependence

Since yesterday our group has found ourselves in an incredible amount of dependence on Christ for a couple of reasons.

The first is that we are now pretty much on our own. James and Katy have left for the rest of the week to meet up with their friends traveling from Oklahoma to show them (the friends) where they will be serving when they are finally moved here full time. We will meet back up with James and Katy when we go to the camp next Thursday. For now, we have the missionary family in town to aid us from time to time but those times will be more like check-ups. Right now, for the most part, we will be doing this all alone.

Secondly, Tyler took a nasty spill down the stairs in our new place last night before bed. He slipped near the bottom of the wooden staircase and landed hard on the corner of one of the steps. The corner impaled his back, near the underside of his shoulder blade and it's bruised pretty bad. The underside of his arm is also pretty marked up and bruised all along his left tricep. We feel like he may have separated part of his shoulder. Thankfully, I happened to have a first aid kit in my bag so we were able to clean it up, put some ointments on it and bandage what needed covering. He's in pain this morning but he's doing alright. We'll talk with the missionary after we end our morning meeting.

Please pray for Tyler as he works toward recovery. He isn't able to move is arm hardly at all without feeling incredible pain. Also pray for witnessing opportunities this accident could introduce. We know God has a plan with this injury.

Yesterday went well. We met some people around town with James and Katy and got more familiar with the arrangement of the city. We now know where all of the important places are like our homes, food, sports facilities and the missionary's home.

We also met a few Serbian Christians when walking with the missionary who speak pretty good English and are willing to help us whenever we may need them.

Today we'll be on our own without James and Katy, trying our hands at speaking to people, maybe playing some pickup games with nationals at the park, and doing our best to order food, etc. We're pretty nervous about it but had a good devotional time this morning out of 2 Timothy 1:7-14 that I led. The passage talks about having a spirit of power and love and good judgement, something we'll need a lot of on this trip. It was a charge to not be afraid of looking stupid or saying the wrong things, but to do everything we can to reach these people regardless of how helpless or dumb we appear in the process. We have to do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Without relying on the holy spirit here, we will be entirely ineffective this week, or month for that matter. As Americans we carry a lot of pride. Pride will be a tool the enemy will use to keep us from being effective this trip, and we can't let him do that.

Please pray that we will find our courage to trust in Christ for the power to work through us and into this city. Amazing things will happen if we step out of our comfort zones and rely completely on Christ.

James was fluent in the language and ordered all of our food, made all of our contacts, and did everything for us travel wise and beyond. Without him and without the missionary holding our hand everywhere we go, it'll be much harder to operate. Pray for peace with that, and again for those spirits of power and not of timidity.

Tyler just left to meet a Serbian guy we were introduced to yesterday at the gym like they planned. Pray for that spirit of good judgement as he works out to keep that arm protected and to work through that relationship regardless of Tyler's injury. We're anxious to see how that arm will affect the rest of this trip. We're confident that God will use it and give Tyler an amazing testimony a month from now.

More to come!

Welcome to Kraljevo

We made it to Serbia late last night. We met our missionary leader who took us to a hotel where we'll be staying for the next 5 days. We got to sleep around 4-4:30 a.m. and got up for breakfast at 9:30 this morning.



The rooms were great. It was a small place and the lady who runs the place doesn't know a lick of English and we don't know a lick of Serbian so after James and our leader left it was pretty funny trying to talk about the air conditioning in the rooms with her but we were able to figure out the rooms just fine. The girls stayed together in a big room and the guys were divided into two rooms. Two of the rooms had air-conditioning. I was in a room with Josh and we didn't but we had a big window we opened and the air was cool enough to be comfortable.

The showers were an adventure; learning how to harness the power of the detachable spray head, and learning how to keep the motion sensing light on while doing your business was a fun lesson. A quick wave of the hand behind the curtain usually did the trick.



Breakfast was also exciting. The menu was in Serbian and English which was neat, we were able to learn how to pronounce some breakfast foods and order in Serbian. The milk is a little sour tasting compared to the United States' but the breakfast options were great. We got some omelets made with fried eggs and ham that were absolutely delicious.

Since breakfast we've had a tour of Kraljevo (Crawl-yay-voe), had a devotional at the missionary's home, and sang some worship songs with their family. The rest of the day will be a time for us to relax and get familiar with the area. We also went over our plans for the coming weeks. There will be a lot of friend-making hopefully. Everything we do will work out of the relationships we make with new friends here in the city. We'll be playing sports, going to coffee houses, etc. with who ever we can and do our best to communicate with the people here and just enjoy the culture as a whole.

We're super excited about what we're going to be doing. We'll be making it up as we go and relying completely on God to show us what we do and who we talk to every single day which is a little intimidating but is more exciting that anything. The group will meet up every day at least once. The morning we will meet as a whole to pray and have a devotional, maybe sing a song or two. During the day we'll break up into smaller groups of 2-3 probably and hit the hot spots around town. At night we'll try to meet back together and go over our days with one another.

We're tired but we're finding joy in our suffering - we talked about that in our group devotional this morning :)

Please pray for rest and a great first day with the missionaries and their 4 hilarious, adorable children.

Frankfurt

I'm updating from a Starbucks in the town square of Frankfurt. We've had a busy, exhausting, but absolutely incredible day here so far. The flight was long and what seemed like the screams of 400 babies took turns crying throughout the flight but we made it. We've spent our day touring most of Frankfurt. We took a little scenic cruise around the city, ate some authentic German Bratwurst, and took some pictures with a very talented and very creepy human statue. 

After spending our morning touring around it was apparent that we all needed a break so we took a short team power nap in some park nearby the square. We propped our heads on our backpacks and laid in a circle enjoying the cool weather Germany is enjoying, about (60 degrees this morning and nor much more than 70 I think this afternoon). The nap felt like days and probably could have lasted as long if we hadn't been rallied by James to keep moving.

One special highlight came on our cruise. We were waiting on the top level of our boat when a pigeon dropped a little present on the inside of Shelby's jacket. We were all stunned but quickly realized what had taken place. She grabbed some wet wipes and disappeared below deck to heal as much as the damage as she could. Shelby was a good sport about it and agreed it could have been much worse. 

Needless to say we've been pretty paranoid about additional air raids. Pigeons are everywhere here, and they're not shy either. We've seen them walk right into restaurants like they were regular paying customers. I even hissed at a pack of them standing near us and they didn't even flinch. It's pretty terrifying. 

The German people are fun to watch. Their clothing is unique, the German language is fun to listen to and we've had a fun time trying to pronounce some of the words we see on the street. We quickly found out that none of us really know how to pronounce German or really even how to mimic it, but that made it even more entertaining. For example, there are a lot of words that end in f-a-h-r-t, which we pronounce FART, and everyone struggles keeping back a chuckle or two when we read it. Super immature I know, and most of the laughing probably has to do with how little we've slept in the last day and a half, but the fahrt words have definitely upped morale. We promised ourselves we'd figure out what it means before we leave.

Right now we've set up camp at a Starbucks. A couple people are taking another power nap, a couple are reading, but we all look dead. We're all pretty beat but we're making it. We're not allowed to sleep until tonight to shock our bodies into submitting to the time difference. Our flight to Serbia is tonight at 9:30. This flight will be much shorter than the first leg, about an hour and a half, then we'll have another hour and a half drive to our final destination. Easy, right? We're excited and determined to make it there conscious and smiling.

Thank you for your continued prayers :) tomorrow is a rest day which we will have no trouble with.

More to come! My next post will be from Serbia!

Welcome to my Serbia page!

Here I will hopefully be able to post daily about the events from the trip. This will include where we're traveling, who we're meeting, and ultimately, what God's doing through our team there in Kraljevo.

Our flight is just around the corner! Our team will leave this upcoming Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. CST.

We're all super excited to get there and get started but we do have some things to take care of in Fort Worth first, primarily finishing summer school classes. My girlfriend, Shelby, and I are both in school right now trying to finish classes by this Monday. Both of my finals are Monday so I'll be focusing a lot on studying for those this weekend. Shelby is taking a chemistry course online that would end late July but because she's going to Serbia, she's doing all she can to finish the class early; she'll be taking her final on Monday as well.

This has left us a little anxious and we've done our best to stay calm and focus on one thing at a time, but we could definitely still use prayers to help us accomplish all we need to accomplish in the short amount of time before our trip. Please pray for peace, focus, and that we can give ourselves enough time to get everything ready to go for Serbia.

Also, please pray for the people in Serbia already, especially the locals we will be meeting over the course of our trip. We believe that God is intentional with who he sends and divinely brings people together to accomplish His plan. Pray that my team and I will be trusting in that plan, and willing to follow it, wherever that may lead. Pray that God will give is courage and a spirit like Paul explains to Timothy in 2 Tim. 1:7, "...for God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control."

Most of my entries will be written about my own experiences and the prayer requests will usually be ones for myself or the people I'm encountering personally. However, I will do my best to update for some of the other members in our group as well and will post stories and prayer requests from their experience as often as I can assuming I have time to do so.


Thank you for supporting this trip! Most of you reading have donated financially and I am so incredibly grateful for those gifts. Money gets us there, but prayer changes lives once we're there. Please join me over the next month in praying for me, my team, and the Serbs we'll meet, that their lives will be changed in an eternal way and that by our obedience to "Go and make disciples of all nations..." that those we meet will someday have disciples of their own.

More to come :) Thank you again for reading, and for your priceless support.