When I signed up to go on the World Race I had grand visions of these amazing things we would be doing. We would be working in orphanages and refugee camps. We would be doing these amazing things to change the world. I didn't necessarily envision picking up trash along the side of the road. But, that is what has become a normal part of my weeks here in Serbia.
We are actually living in a small village outside of the city of Uzice named Bella Zemlja. Our ministry host Christ asked us our first week to go pick up trash around the town and pray while we did it. We were amazed as we picked up huge amounts of trash at the amount of litter around the town. According to Chris, this is a byproduct of people feeling like if the trash isn't in your yard it isn't your problem.
So, we have gone out almost every morning for around an hour to pick up trash. With as small as the village is, you would think we would run out of trash to pick up. But, somehow the trash keeps reappearing.
It has led to some funny moments as the local people see us and are trying to figure out what we are doing. Questions we have been asked frequently:
Are you buying this land?
Are you selling this land?
Why are you doing this? Are you being paid?
Are you students who are doing this for a school project?
We had one older gentleman buy us all Coke's on a hot day when we were collecting trash.
We've had several people come up and have "conversations" with us. When I say conversations I mean they talk and we tell them that we don't understand so they keep talking to us. It is a bit comical. I am so thankful for my Czech language skills as Serbian and Czech are both Slavic languages so I have been able to understand enough to communicate we are just volunteering and where we live and answer the basic questions.
It definitely tweeks the people's minds as to why we as Americans on a "vacation" in Serbia would voluntarily pick up trash. It is creating opportunities for Chris to talk with his neighbors about his faith. We may never see the fruit of picking up 100's of bags of trash, but it is part of what we are called to for the month so I guess I can now add garbage collecter to the list of things I have done.
