We had our meeting with the pastor of the Evangelical Church in Osijek. We told them
about ourselves and what the mission of AIM is and a little bit about our mission for this month. We talked about what a world race team usually does in a country (nothing is usual), and what types of opportunities they may have for teams. They proposed to let one team of us stay in Osijek at the youth center and work with ministries there in the city and find contacts through that venue and to have one team of us head down to Pozega to work in a church that is part of their network and have us hopefully make contacts there.
So Tim and Tamica met with our squad leadership and decided that for one week we would split the teams in half and half of each would be in each city. This way we are getting to be in ministry with other people on the squad and getting to have different experiences to bring back to the team. So Tim and Tamica announced that Matt, Lauren, Lauren, Jennifer, Liz,Tim and I would be headed down to Pozega and Joel, Joe, Dez, Stacy, Danielle, Tamica, and Martha would stay there in Osijek. Tim then proceeded to tell us that the bus was leaving at 3:00 for Pozega and we needed to be on it and it was a 10 minute drive to the bus station. A quick glance at my watch revealed that it was already 2:37 leaving about 13 minutes for the 7 of us to get our stuff packed up, have lunch and be out the door (we made sure to snag some of that glorious chocolate milk on the way out).
We made it to the bus station just in time and got our bags loaded on the bus and got seats with no time to spare. As we were leaving our contact in Osijek, David, Tim turns and asks ‘will there be someone at the bus station there?’ ‘I hope so.’ is David’s response. This is my life! I am getting on a bus to go somewhere I have no idea where it is, only that it is 100 km away, and I have no idea what to expect when I get there.
I get a good nap in while on the bus. Got a little bit of reading done and that was good.
When I woke from my nap I noticed a sign that said Pozega 6 km. Oh man, I hope we have the spelling of the city right, what if we are mispronouncing it? That would be bad.
I look to Tim for confirmation and he nods that this will be our stop.
We all get off and start getting our bags unloaded. When two men come to meet us, one a native English speaker with rough Croatian and one a native Croatian speaker with very little English. We figure out where we are going and get into the red van. We are driven through town to a building that we soon find out is the church. We find out the native Croatian speaker is the pastor of this church. They usher the girls upstairs and show us a room with several mattresses in it and show us where the bathrooms are. We find the kitchen next, which at least for this week is, doubling as the boys room.
The pastor drives Liz, Lauren and Matt to the grocery store to stock up for the night and breakfast. When they got back from the store a woman who spoke both Croatian and English came with them. So now we had the opportunity to sit down and talk about our expectations and their expectations and who we are. That was good, since before we had very limited communication given the language barrier. Get excited about a great week!
