On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning, the ladies organized a Vacation Bible School for the kids at the church. From 10-12, we had Bible stories, made a craft, sang songs, and played a game. We had around 25 kids show up on the first day, many of which come from the gypsy villages. The Roma people, or gypsies, are sort of a separate group from the Croatians, and many of them live together in villages, which are typically poverty-stricken, delapidated communities. I didn't get the chance to drive over to any of the villages, but the ones who did see them said that they were heartbreaking. Jared saw a young girl, probably around 3 years old, sitting outside naked. Her father sat at the door of their house, refusing to let her inside, but forced her to stay in the open in hopes of garnering sympathy and/or money. The missionaries told us it was not uncommon for the children to be outside with very little clothing during the winter months. It was eye opening to realize how bleak living conditions were for certain people. Yet, we were also surprised at how loving and open many of these children were.
Melissa practices her designs for the face painting. It was a huge hit, the kids loved having their faces painted.
While the girls did the Bible school, the guys hit the streets of Cakovec and did some witnessing. 
Pastor Rich interpreted for us that day. It took some getting used to, not being able to quickly communicate. For one activity, we split up into two groups and taught them Acts 16:31 in English. Afterwards, we had them teach it to us in Croatian. They had no reservations at all about laughing at our attempts to speak their language, especially the most difficult part, which was trying roll the "r"s. Some of the kids knew a little English, so they helped us talk to the other kids. We quickly got over being self-conscious and jumped right in, in attempts to reach out to another culture. It was good for us to get out of our comfort zone.
This was Viktorija, who had such a cute little face! One of the keys I learned to the language was that their j's sound like our y's. 
I forget this girl's name, but she was very kind and was there every morning. 
The first day of Vacation Bible School. 
The Croation language must have a sense of humor . . .the abbreviation for the United States of America is SAD. 
Of all the relationships I developed on the trip, this picture represents one of the most moving. Meet Elvira, the girl in the middle. Don't think of the Oak Ridge boys' pronounciation, but once you correctly roll the "r", it sounds more like Elvita. Brett just ended up affectionately calling her Velveeta all week, we had to explain to her that he was calling her a cheese. Anyway, when we broke up into two groups to teach each other the Bible verse in our respective languages, she was in my group. She probably spoke the most English out of the group, so I used her a lot to be my translator. Elvira was very patient with me as I attempted to speak my first Croatian phrase, Vjeruj u Gospodina Isus Krista ce biti spasen (or something like that . . . Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.) It was one of those times where you just instantly connect with someone and have a friendship. Of course, it helped when she looked at me and said, You . . are . . very . . pretty. Hhhm, crazy, but I really, really like this girl for some reason!! Besides that, though, she was very helpful as she helped both the Americans and the Croatian kids to communicate to each other during the week. 
The day was also Hannah's birthday. She is the daughter of the missionary family, the Leslies. Hannah was a super sweetheart, she jumped right in and started teaching us Croatian words, and filling us in on the culture. Her parents said there aren't many people she can speak English with, and that really made us think of how lonely and isolated missionaries and their children can get. Hannah is a very bright young lady, and she was so encouraging to us Americans as we were trying to adjust to a foreign culture. Her mother, Tori, baked her a cake and we sang happy birthday to her after the evening church service.
Afterwards, we went back to the Baptist Union and gave her some gifts. Our group stopped at a store on the way to find presents to give her, which gave us one of the trip's funny memories. About 7 of us barge into the store, and start scouring the shelves for possible gifts. We are all chatting back and forth across the aisles, trying to do the Kuna to Dollars currency exchange, loudly saying, Will this work? What about this? How much does this cost? Who cares? We felt like we definitely confirmed the Loud American stereotype. Oh well, we just wanted to do something nice for her and let Hannah know we appreciated her. 
No comments:
Post a Comment