To speak to the hearts of team Benkadi all you have to do is talk about food! We have a bit of a sweet tooth as a collective whole. So… when a welcoming Serbian family (of whom we really enjoyed getting to know) invited us, not only to their church but to have homemade cake afterwards, it was an offer we could not refuse.
As we walked up to the church we were greeted by this family and headed to our seats in the auditorium. Expecting a traditional Serbian message; Hollis, Leize, and I, were stopped by a man and asked if we needed someone to translate for us. Once we said “yes,” the man led us upstairs to the balcony and handed us each a pair of headsets. Every few minutes we would put them up to our ears and see if they were working. We could hear that the headsets were on but couldn’t quite figure out how this was going to work. “Did they have a computer program to translate the message? Or was a person going to do it? And what were the headsets for?
Just then a teenage girl about 15 feet away started to whisper the message in a microphone. It was a funny situation and we sure looked like foreigners with those headsets on our ears. Come to find out, her mom is usually the translator and she had never done it before. While she wasn’t sure of some of the words, she did a really good job and we were grateful to understand the message.. A line though, that we use a lot here when people apologize for their english is, “your English is better than my Serbian.” And that is the truth! Around 70 percent of people in Serbia at least speak some form of English…and well, we speak no serbian!
It has truly been a amazing to find people that speak our language wherever we go. This is so important this month because we came to Serbia not knowing anyone, understanding little about their history and culture. It was a leap of faith that I believe God blessed. Since arriving to Belgrade and now Nis we have made connections and built relationships with individuals, churches, and organizations. It has been encouraging to see God at work and know that there is a real possibility world racers could come to Serbia and have impact on the community here in the future.
