We made it – our final ministry destination…our 15th country we’ve visited this year! Croatia. We arrived in Split early in the morning on Thursday – without much fan fare actually. It went really smoothly. One train and one bus, and we were here. I will say that my first experience with Croatian transportation employees has not been the best. Perhaps I just caught a few on a bad day, but within a few hours of arriving, I had a ticket counter employee and a bus driver yelling at me. Hmph. But we got here, and the ministry is fantastic. We are working with a coffee house ministry in Split, and are being thoroughly blessed by the American missionary team here. Our team went through training on Friday, and I can officially make all kinds of coffee drinks now…cafe latte, cappuccino, caramel macchiato, etc. The crowds that come through are mostly high school students – and we have the opportunity to mingle and talk with them and serve them with Christ’s love. My team will continue working with this ministry until the 16th, when they will head to Vienna for our final debrief – but I will be leaving this Monday to Vienna to help prepare debrief with the other two squad leaders.
It’s kind of surreal that this journey is so close to being over. I have started trying to process the end that is coming so near. It’s hard to focus on that when there is still so much I have a responsibility to do as a squad leader before we board the plane to come home. God has graciously been placing us with ministries this last month that have been helping us process our year as a team. Both our Poland contacts and Croatia contacts have been asking us fantastic processing questions – specific questions about our experiences, the lessons we’ve learned, the ways we’ve grown, etc. It has made me realize something that I want to put out there as a request to those friends and family back home. Some of you will want to hear all about this 11 month journey – and something that will help me to share my year with you will be if you would ask me specific questions when I get home. So put your thinking caps on and have some good ones ready for me! “how was your trip” does not qualify 🙂
