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 :)