Croatia Mission Trip
Trip Start
Aug 31, 2008
1
6
30
Trip End
Dec 08, 2008
Zagreb,
Croatia
Thursday, October 9, 2008
On Friday morning, we did some street evangelism by handing out "Good News" newspapers and booklets of the gospel of John to people around the city, mainly students. This was much more enjoyable then I expected it to be because people actually are interested in what we were handing out and are willing to take pamphlets. We got a chance to talk to some students; they get very excited to practice their English with Americans.
We took a tour around Zagreb on Friday afternoon. It's a neat city with many cobblestone streets filled with coffeeshops and cafes. We visited a Catholic Church that reminded me a lot of Vienna's Votivekirche.
Friday night, we went to the preacher's house for dinner. He was gone to Poland for the weekend, but his wife, Dragista, welcomed us with an amazing dinner. She was the sweetest woman and we had a great time eating, talking with her, and singing for her.
On Saturday morning, we spent two hours with five of the young kids from the church. Mislav's two children, David, and Lana were there. There were two girls who spoke English because they are from Wyoming. Their names are Kristina and Rebecca. It was nice to talk to their mom about the transition they made when her husband accepted the job to teach at the Bible institute here at the Kuslanova Church.
Then on Saturday night, we went to the other building that the church owns. It was their original building that they outgrew and now use for bible studies and to house some offices and their library. We spent time with five high school age girls who attend Kuslanova. We just talked to them about life in general and the differences between Croatia and the US. They all spoke excellent English because they take it in school starting in fifth grade and they watch American movies and listen to American music.
On Sunday morning, we went to the church service at Kuslanova. The service was just like one that we would have back home as the church was started by Church of Christ missionaries. It was a great service. We sang some songs in English and some in Croatian. The sermon was preached in English by a man from the US and then translated into Croatian. He preached about choosing the greater reality of God's peace and joy during times in life when things are tough. We got to see Dragitsa again and tell her goodbye before we went to catch our train. It was kind of sad to say goodbye to Mislav and his family and Dragista and the high school girls we met because they were so welcoming to us.
On the train on the way home, we brought Nutella and bread and some pretzal sticks with us to have for dinner. Mary, Liz, and I were in a compartment with a woman from Croatia who didn't speak any English. She saw us spreading our Nutella onto our bread with pretzal sticks. We must have looked pretty pitiful, because she pulled out a bag of homemade apple struedal and held it out to us. We couldn't communicate with her because of the language barrier, but she signaled for us to have it. It was delicious.
I'm glad that we did mission work here because I would not have chosen
Croatia as a place that I would make a priority to visit this semester. But, now that I've seen a small part of it, I would love to be
able to go back someday and visit the church again and then go to the
coast and see the waterfalls that we heard a lot about.
Funny story: We have travel belts that we wear underneath our jeans to keep our money and passports safe. Our group leader, Katy, was getting money out to pay for our lunch and Mislav walked in the room and just looked at Katy with a confused expression. Then he said, "You keep your money in your underwear?" And we were laughed and were like no, no..thats a wallet that you wear around your waist. He was like, "oh..."
