Sometimes in ministry and in foreign travel, life is just a bust. Tuesday was one of those days for our team. We were up early heading into town to volunteer at the city library. They have a youth program and so we are scheduled to help out two mornings a week. Some of the students speak English and so we they practice English with us while creating crafts. It is an opportunity to build goodwill for Youth with a Mission while continuing relationships with the kids and workers started by previous teams.
We arrived at 10am and walked in to begin the time only to find out there wasn't a morning session. They were doing a special puppet show they had been preparing for and it wouldn't take place until noon and we were told we weren't really invited. Okay, we are now in town with nothing to do as we were then scheduled to play frisbee with friends in the park at 4pm. The bus back home is relatively expensive so we needed to find something to entertain ourselves until 4pm. So, we hung out and prayed for the city in the town square until deciding we would have a picnic in the square for lunch.
This is where life was a bit amusing. Here are 6 Americans in the middle of this giant concrete square having a picnic. People here are not shy about staring. We probably were stare worthy as part of our lunch was buying a an 18 pound watermellon. It only cost $1.75 so it fits in our food budget and the watermellon here is pretty amazing. So, we whipped out a big knife and the 6 of us proceeded to eat the whole thing. I felt very, very full and we laughed a lot. I guess eating a watermellon in the square was a bit unusual as we were definitely noticed.
We then hung out in town until heading off to meet up with our friends to play frisbee. We played in the park for a few hours and no one showed. I've decided that being stared at was part of my day as I eventually pulled out my computer and did Plyo-X in the park. I figured while we waited for people to show up I'd get my workout for the day completed. I finished my workout having been gawked at by about everyone and without anyone showing. Eventually, we gave up and headed home. Just another day of attempting to do ministry in Serbia.
