Every country I have been I would imagine what it would be like if I lived there. I imagined learning the language and picked out the different homes or buildings I would live in. I imagined walking to the grocery stores and sitting at the parks. I thought of what it would be like to walk along the streets and wave at all my neighbors as I strolled along to whatever job I would get. Maybe my own business or maybe teaching something. I tried to put myself into these places and realized that I could probably do it, but had God called me to any of these places? What I have seen of Europe has been lovely. Every place I have been has been surrounded by gorgeous mountains or big old beautiful buildings. We’ve lived in Albania, Romania, and Bulgaria. We have visited Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece. We’ve had heat worse than Texas summer, and cold worse than Texas winter. We have traveled by Plane, train, metro, bus, taxi, and private cars. I’ve spent time in both small and large cities. We’ve slept in an old kindergarden, a rooftop, 2 different hostels, a sleeper train, a missionary center, someones country house, and a church apartment. We’ve eaten some amazing eye rolling dishes as well as tasted some weird traditional things. We’ve seen God touch lives everywhere we went and fix so many situations. We’ve made new friends and even been part of other people’s families. There has been laughter as well as tears. We’ve spent our months painting, sanding, spackeling, cleaning, cooking, singing, praying, and teaching. This last 3 months have been amazing and something I would not trade for anything, but with that being said, I think I would like Europe be a tourist destination rather than my home.
And here is just a fun list of things that Europe made me thankful for in no particular order:
1. Being raised knowing about God and the importance of Church
2. Seedless grapes
3. Living in the states. The same amount of shocked I am that people haven’t seen their neighboring countries is how shocked people are that we haven’t seen more states
4. Being able to flush your toilet paper. (Yep. Not even Europe does that, but they do have colored and scented TP)
5. Humane Societies and Shelters. There are so many homeless animals everywhere and if I lived here I would have trouble choosing which to keep and would probably end up with dozens and dozens of dogs and cats. I’d need a farm or something.
6. Tap water. Whether the ability to drink it or shower for long periods of time.
8. Showers with the drain actually in the shower
9. Air conditioning and heaters
10. Dryers. Especially in the cold months where hanging your clothes takes 4 days to dry the only pair of jeans you have
11. Secure Wi-Fi. Even better if it is in your own home
12. My laptop that I left at home
13. A variety of clothes and shoes
14. Mirrors
15. Thrift stores. (They have them here, I just learned to appreciate them more.)
16. My seasonings cabinet. Cooking is so much easier when I have all the spices I need.
17. Tony’s. I almost brought some, but unpacked it last minute.
18. Living a maximum of 5 hours from my best friends
19. Having pets inside the home that I can cuddle with
20. Processed Bread. Weird I know, but it is so much softer and thinner than what we usually use here and I also miss the ease of biscuits you can just pop open and heat up.
21. American Cheese. Not just like kraft singles, but also our orange cheddar, pepper jack, colby jack, and monteray. And then theres all our different shredded cheeses. I’d love to just sit down and eat a bag of taco cheese. Man. I would really love some of that highly processed velveeta yellow rotel cheese dip that we call queso.
In other news:
We leave for Malaysia on Saturday! We are so excited for the warm weather and change in culture!
How you can pray:
-There is a little 2 year old girl in the Church who was born with a heart disease. She needs a second surgery but can’t get it until she gains more weight. So pray for God to be in control of all of that and to be the comforter for the mother and grandmother.
-There is a lot of work still to be done here, pray for more missionaries
-Pray for an increased amount of suppport as well as Church attendence here
-Me and my teammate Kristine are still fundraising to meet our final deadline in November
-The sudden change in temperature could make a lot of us get sick so pray against that.
