This year will be a year of firsts I am sure. Yesterday happened to be another in a growing list of things I had never done before. What earth-shattering thing did I do, absolutely nothing. But, I did get to go pick some raspberries. Evidently, Serbia is world-renowned for its raspberries and the village we went to yesterday is the heart of Serbia’s raspberry production.
Why exactly were we raspberry picking? This relates to Chris our YWAM contact and a relatively new believer named Ivice. Ivice is a typical Serbian in that his family is Orthodox. I am learning much about Orthodoxy in my time thus far in Romania. My team laughs as during our day out in Romania we walked into an Orthodox church. The tourist guy walked up and asked if I wanted to know any information about the church. I said sure. He said it would be easier if I asked specific questions. I asked when the church was built. This led to a literally 45 minute explanation by Romeo (yes I seem to have run into a lot of Romeo’s in Romania. I’d rather run into a figural Romeo in about 10 months, but I digress) about the history of orthodoxy, what it all means and the differences between Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. It was actually quite fascinating. I am sure there is an upcoming blog for those of you interested.
This relates to Ivice and his family as in Serbia, to be Serbian is to be Orthodox. It is much like my time in Czech where to be Czech was to be an atheist. It is part of the national identity. Most people in Serbia view Christianity as a cult or sect and therefore when someone becomes a believer it can often lead to them being cut off from their family.
Chris’s goal in taking teams out to serve the family by helping them harvest their raspberry crop is to show them that we are normal people. It is also to continue to develop the relationship with the family so that the family members will also have the opportunity to hear about Jesus and to consider having a personal relationship with him.
It was an awesome day as we started picking raspberries which are quite tasty just picked.
Our raspberry picking crew. Chris our ministry contact is the guy in the back with the red shirt. Ivice is the guy in the blue shirt squatting in the front right and Namana is in the back with the dark blue jacket.
We then were invited to the family house where the Ivice’s mother and grandmother made us a monstrous meal. We had several traditional Serbian foods including Sarma which is cabbage stuffed with meat and vegetables, spinach muffins, salads, dessert. I almost needed to roll away from the table.
Our Serbian feast.
We sat and chatted for several hours before touring the town and then heading to the river where we did a little bit of cliff jumping and hung out. Don’t worry, the cliff was not very high and I am perfectly healthy today.
It was a great day and a cool opportunity to bless a Serbian family while also encouraging Ivice. The fun part was watching the guys on our team connect with Ivice’s brother (Namana) and hear him talking about how he doesn’t need to go to the Orthodox Church anymore because he can have a personal relationship with God.
Please pray for more opportunities with Ivice and Namana and for that whole family to understand who Jesus is.
