Today was a day filled with activity, meetings, and lots of laughter. We began with breakfast at Segafredo and then met with Caca to shop for hygiene supplies to take to the village later on. It was really great to be able to walk around the city and visit local shops.
Then we went to the church to prepare for our Sister Meeting and bag the supplies. It was a small meeting of the four of us, our translator, Slobodan, and five women. It may have been small, but the women seemed very appreciative of the things we shared. All of our talks blended seamlessly, and Slobodan did a great job translating for us. He also seemed to handle being the only male in the room. He was such a good sport!
After the meeting, Marijan picked us up and took us to a restaurant for Serbian barbeque — platters of meat, including a favorite — civapcici — and salads, too. It was very good, and we enjoyed fellowship together. We are all getting along so well, and find lots of reasons to laugh. We often have trouble stopping!
Once we finished eating and gathering all the supplies we needed, we headed out of town. We visited the village of Doljevac, which is a new area where the Roma villagers are especially poor. Marijan and Slavica have been praying for them. They recently made contact with an older man in the village who had gathered everyone together to meet us. There was a pretty good crowd waiting for us, despite the fact that we were a bit later than planned, and it had gotten dark and quite chilly.
Marijan and Caca began by teaching the children a Bible song. Hearing Marijan play the guitar, and hearing those children sing, “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” (and doing hand motions) was very touching, and they were so happy to pose for pictures.
After a short introduction, we were able to hand out hats, baby blankets, and bags of hygiene supplies (shower gel, two bars of soap, shampoo, toothpaste and a toothbrush). It was so awesome to see how happy the kids were to get the hats. I loved being able to put our knitted hats on those little heads. The kids were so adorable, and I so wanted to give them all hugs.
We returned to Prokuplje and learned we were invited to a movie premiere with the consulate official from Israel and several Serbian government officials. We walked into a room full of important-looking people in suits and dresses, with cameramen all snapping pictures. We had no idea what we were doing there, but happily smiled and shook hands, and silently prayed we weren’t the guests of honor! We didn’t end up staying too long, but did get to meet the governor of this region, Toplica, in Serbia. He invited us for coffee on Wednesday morning.
Marijan is especially excited about this because he is such an influential man in this region and this is such a wonderful opportunity.
We ended the evening at Marijan and Slavica’s house with a light supper and planning for tomorrow. (That’s if you don’t count the “up past midnight trying to get the blog written and posted with the computer dead and spotty internet” obstacles.)
Check out our Facebook pages to see pictures from today, as we were unable to get them posted on the blog. Just kidding. I may have tricked it into cooperating!
