First Days in Serbia

     Well my team and I left training on Wednesday to ride 17 hours down to Serbia. It is was much fun seeing public trains stations. It was almost like an airport but train style. I apparently slept most of the journey, but also has some great team bonding conversations too hearing each others' walks of life. Also, Bojan, our leader, told us more about camps and Serbian culture/religions. Orthrodox churches are common, every few blocks. After the train ride, we took a bus into S. Mitrovica, Serbia where we are staying. Steve, the missionary from JV who lives in Serbia picked us up and dropped us three interns off at the pastor of the local churches home as Steve and his wife are moving into a new home right now and can't house us for another week or so.  Chad, my teammate, is staying at a friend's next door.

     The Serbian family is absolutely incredible, such a God loving family. There is the pastor, his wife, and three kids. However, they have new guest in and out every single day! There was 14 of us sleeping here last night! Serbians are very big of family values. Great opportunity to be thrown into Serbian culture so quickly. The children of the family speak such great English. They have taught me several Serbians phrases, letters that we don't have in English and some culture about education. We have been given the opportunity to understand and begin to see what the culture is like. It is actually the perfect situation. At dinner, we sit around a table speaking Serbian!

     The first two days we helped Steve with his house. Chad and I sanded three small rooms. Also, I  painted trim around door frames, helped wash paint brushes, buckets, and also taped off stairs and portions of the house to paint. It was hard work yet so much fun. Steve, the pastor's brother, and the brother's son in law of doing most of the inside labor. Outside is contracted work for insulation. Serbians consider a house "unfinished if not insulated." The insulate the homes but places about one and a half feet of styrofoam around the brick house. Steve is the only one working who speaks English. Often he had to run into town, so we painted and sanded with Serbian speaking people. Communication was quite entertaining to say the lease. We actually taught each other some language in the process. The whole gang   had such positive attitudes that it was a blast. Steve said our labor two days spared them three extra days move in time and the cost of another camper coming to camps! Praise God!

     For the summer we have been given bikes as interns and phones so that we can go into town daily to invite youth to camps and start building relationships with the locals. Today, Chad and I along with a German friend of the family we are staying at rode into town, about a 15 minute ride, to scan our grounds.   Serbians are so welcoming. I think we will have great success in inviting students as soon as we get our flyers printed out to hand out. That should come in a day or two!