Dobar dan!
My team and I have finally made it to Mrcajevci, Serbia! These past few days have been very long and tiresome. I want to give you a little update of what life looks like here and some funny stories. Funny stories first, right? Here you go:
I don’t know how many of you know this but I love flying in airplanes so the flights from Atlanta > Chicago > Istanbul > Belgrade were quite enjoyable! I was lucky enough to get a window seat on every single flight!
To top that off, I ended up having the whole row to myself during the flight from Chicago > Istanbul. Can you say “favor?”
Midway through the flight a teenage Palestinian boy asked me if he could sit with me so he could stretch out – I obviously said yes. We were able to talk a little bit and I recommended one of my favorite movies – “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Sadly, he changed movies within 8 minutes of starting it… Oh well! I guess he isn’t a big fan of Wes Anderson films. He moved on to different movies so we didn’t speak much after that.
Our last interaction together was when our plane started descending – and boy is it a memorable one! My friend, Muhammad, started panicking and was fumbling around with the pocket in front of him. Curiously, I looked over and saw that he had grabbed the “vom bag.”
He yacked all in that bag… Over. And. Over. It was so loud that Haley (teammate) heard it 7 rows back! I quickly grabbed my “vom bag” and gave it to him just in case he had another vom episode. My friend proceeded to get up and (I guess) go sit with his family. That was my last interaction with Muhammad but it will always be a memorable one.
This experience with Muhammad made me think about the first time I ever flew in an airplane. My family and I were headed to South Carolina for vacation and I sat with my dad because I was nervous. I was doing fine the whole flight until he decided to yack all over the place as we started descending. Sorry for calling you out but since he was sitting next to me it made me think of you. Love you.
Now I’ll move on and tell you about the past few days at my new home!
Our team was lucky enough to have our ministry host pick us up at the airport in Belgrade Thursday night. This is a huge blessing due to the fact that some of my squad mates had to get on a 9 hour bus ride + another 4 hour bus ride. I found out that some of my other squad mates had to sleep at the bus station due to scheduling issues.
We didn’t end up arriving to Mrcajevci until 12:30 am Friday morning so we quickly fell asleep in our comfortable bunk beds! You heard me right, bunk BEDS! My team has been blessed to work with two wonderful missionaries who had a vision to start a kid’s camp in Mrcajevci. Sadly, summer has ended here and all of the kiddos have gone back to school but there are plans to do a lot of renovation here at the camp so I will update you all when we do that.
Our team arrived during the time that our ministry hosts were moving into a new apartment so we were tasked with moving a 5 bedroom apartment packed full of stuff into their new apartment about 5 minutes away. Now, I have moved many a people during my life and I know for a fact that this would have taken just the two of them at least a week to move everything. We did it in two days! I can’t tell you how many times they thanked us for helping them. It was awesome to see how we had blessed them by just helping them move.
I’m not exactly sure what our plans are for this week but I will update y’all when I get the chance.
Random stuffff
Mrcajecvi is pronounced “mer-chai-yev-see”
Dobar Dan – hello; good afternoon
“Ne govorim srpski” is essential when talking to older Serbs. It means, “I don’t speak Serbian”
Serbians build houses with bricks because they are “easier to rebuild after a rocket hits them”
There’s a hot tub at our camp…
People look at you weird if you wave at them
The word “safe” in Serbia does not mean the same thing as it does in America – in reference to amusement park rides (Sorry mom, I was reckless – video soon??)
