Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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    Our day of adventure began when all nine of us girls lept out of the house through a window!! The front door was locked and no one else was up yet. The window was about head high from the street below, it was a bit of a stretch, but we all made it out alive. It was about five in the morning at this point and we headed out into the darkness to embark on the unknown; SERBIA! We were told that we would be going with a group of women for fellowship at a church in Serbia. To all of us, this meant different things. I imagined somewhat of a tea party, where we all laughed and enjoyed each others company. The thought of nobody speaking English never entered my mind. Some of my team mates imagined a Bible study. Still others of my team imagined we would be teaching the Bible study! So. The three pieces of information we had at this point were:
1-Meet at A sports store for the bus (Notice we had no name for this sports store)
2- the word Serbia
3- Fellowship with other women
    For 30 minutes there were the nine of us wandering around in the middle of Croatian darkness looking for an un-named sports store. We would ask people randomly if they spoke english and then even more randomly if they knew were a big sports store was. Finally, by the grace of God, and with the help of two very generous croatian pedestrians we found the glowing sorts store in the middle of the darkness. Almost immediately after finding seats on the bus we all fell asleep. After an hour of rest about 50 Croatian women speaking very loud Croatian entered our world. We were thrown small packages just before crossing the Serbian border. Some of us were woken up by these packages hitting them in the head. These lovely ladies were clearly trying to explain themselves, but for all we knew we were helping them smuggle drugs across the border! In my sleepless state I just shoved them in my pack like everyone else was doing and fell back asleep. As alarm clocks, we were poked in the ribs and knocked on the head to inform us that we had finally arrived at the Serbian church!

   We were then gallantly marched into the church as if there was urgent business for us to take care of. We sat with anticipated of fellowship and leading Bible studies with these Croatian and Serbian women… and as we looked around… men too! After a few speakers took turns talking very quickly with applause here and there, us girls looked at each other wondering just what it was that we had truly gotten ourselves into. After finding out that it was an 8 hour Croatian/ Serbian seminar that we could be active seat sitters for; we went to get coffee and explore the city.

   So there we were walking down the street in the middle of Serbia in a city of over 2.5 million people and I hear a guy shouting from a bus “Hey Ladies!” I waved back and smiled and kept walking, thus bringing up a discussion about not waving to creepy guys in the middle of a foreign city. As we turned a corner the bus passed us and we realized it was two other members from a different team on our squad! We yelled at each other through the bus doors for as long as we could before the bus drove them away, and we thanked God for the “little coincidence” He had given us.

   We walked around and enjoyed the city, got lost a few more times, ate wonderful cheesecake and coffee, and ran into more world racers from our squad! You know, we just did the usual things that you would do when you go to Serbia for the day! We arrived back at the church just in time to hand out the small packages that had been gracefully thrown at us. They ended up being t-shirts! Who knew?!

   When we arrived back in Croatia that night there was a women in front of me getting off the bus. I complemented her on a very nice hand made shawl that she was carrying in her arms. She said thank you a stepped off. Once I was off the bus, she found me and told me that she wanted me to have the shawl. She gave me the biggest hug of my life and said that when I wore it I could remember to pray for her. I found out that she has breast cancer and is in her last phase of treatment. I had never even spoken to this women before in my life, yet she showed me such generosity.

So lessons learned from my day in Serbia:

  1. The window is always the best way of escape

  2. The game of charades is actually vital to survival when you are lost

  3. Croatian women are baseball pitchers best kept secret

  4. Serbian cheese cake and coffee are the answers to life

  5. Never forget to wave at the creepy strangers on the bus

  6. Be prepared for your heart to be broken when you complement something belonging to a Croatian woman