12 Things I have learned about Bitola, Macedonia
1) People are very friendly and hospitable.
2) People are very polite. If someone comes over to your house (usually unannounced), you offer them coffee, tea, or water and you entertain them until they decide to leave (even if you have other plans, you never ask someone to leave).
3) The “Macedonian Minute.” If someone says they will be there in a minute, it could be a minute or it could be 2 hours.
4) It is polite to be 15 minutes late. It is rude to show up early.
5) Their “big” meal is lunch. They cook a big spread for lunch. The other two meals of the day are small meals. Most people have a long lunch break so that they can go home for this big meal. Our ministry hosts invited us over for lunch one day. Bilijana made a huge pot of spaghetti, salad, and bread. Afterwards we had coffee and ice cream. It was delicious.
6) They REALLY like coffee. They drink coffee after every meal. They also hang out and drink coffee in between meals. I would say they drink a minimum of 5 cups a day.
7) A lot of people don’t own a car; they walk everywhere. We have walked at least 3 miles everyday since we have been here. They even walk to the grocery store/market and carry their groceries all the way home.
8) They eat big portions but they eat healthy. When Bilijana took us grocery shopping she kept saying how she makes more food than that at home and she usually cooks for less people. Most meals consist of meat, vegetables, cheese and bread.
9) You can feed 7 people for less than $5 USD.
10) They love floral patterns. We have seen so many people wearing floral in Europe so we decided to join them by creating “floral fridays.”
11) They LOVE ketchup. They put it on everything, even pizza.
12)They stay up late. The city comes alive at night. Most of our ministry has been at night time. You can hear people out in the streets until 3:00am.
We are really loving it here in Macedonia. We have made some great friends and it is really starting to feel like home.
Please pray for the English class that started yesterday. We will be teaching English for the next 2 weeks. We will also be handing out 3,000 bibles and church flyers over the next 2 weeks. Please pray that God will move here in Bitola and use us to spread his love and kingdom.
Our next financial deadline is $22,000 by 10/1/14. We are currently about $4,000 away from meeting this deadline. Please pray about supporting us. If you feel led to partner with us, you can donate by clicking the “support me” tab on our blog.
