Team Croatia Missions Trip -Days 1 & 2

From July 6-16th, a group from our church, Toledo Baptist Temple, embarked on a trip to Croatia to take part in fulfulling a commission given to us to "Go". It was such a rewarding time, and the sights and experiences were so monumental and breathtaking that it seems a little overwhelming to attempt to describe it in one entry. And, though I tend to be quiet in real life, I lean towards wordy once my fingers are on a keyboard . . .so there's your warning. My plan is to recap the trip day-by-day to give a glimpse to those that prayed for us and were involved with the team even as they remained stateside. I took nearly 400 pictures during the week, but will try to pick the highlights.

The first picture I took was at the airport in Amsterdam. Our team of 15 people had made the overnight flight from Detroit to Amsterdam without a hitch, and not until we were checking in for our flight from there to Croatia did we realize that there was a huge glitch. Except for one person, all of our tickets from Amsterdam to Zagreb, Croatia had been cancelled. A massive blame game ensued - KLM pinned it on our travel agent, who knew NWA was to blame, who thought Croatia Air was guilty . . .or something like that, I still don't understand it. It was a very confusing, high-pressure situation that ended up with customer service people vacating their desks, several phone calls to the States at 3 am their time, and about 5 people yelling at Brett and our group who insisted we cut in line when we were simply moving around to another counter like the customer service ladies asked us to do. It was actually getting sort of so hilariously serious that I had to snap a picture.

The part that didn't make sense about our tickets supposedly being cancelled in June, was that all our luggage was still tagged to arrive in Zagreb. Had our second flight been cancelled, wouldn't our luggage have been set to arrive in Amsterdam only? Anyway, it was a GREAT start to the trip, but with some quick thinking and flexibility, we were able to work out a solution. Half of the group were still able to get on the original flight, and we were assured that everyone's luggage would arrive with them. The other half got on a flight to Budapest, Hungary and Brett's brother, an international tour director, was able to help make arrangements for a driver to meet us at the airport and drive us 3.5 hours to Croatia.

Here we are in the van riding from Budapest to Croatia. We don't remember much about the ride, most of us slept the whole time.

Everyone was finally reunited at the Baptist Union, where we stayed for the duration of the trip. It was actually a great facility for missions groups to lodge at, with double-bed rooms and private bathrooms, a decent kitchen, and large meeting room. It was located in Poleve, which was only 10 minutes away from the church we were working with in Cakovec, pronounced "chock-o-vitz", or, for our group, "chexmix". Everyone arrived to the Union by Tuesday evening, July 7th. The missionaries, the Leslie family, met us there and a couple women in their church cooked us a traditional Croatian meal of stuffed green peppers, potatoes, and sweet cornbread. It was very delicious and we were finally able to relax after the stress of getting to our destination. In the area we were in, there were lots of cornfields, and it looked a lot like Ohio.

The sun setting on the corn fields was a beautiful sight. Also in the picture is the van we rented, which Jason said felt like driving a toaster. Look for an upcoming entry on Day 6 for drama surrounding the Toastermobile.

Here is the church in Cakovec, the Neovisna Baptisticka Crkva Stablo Zivota (Independent Baptist Church, Tree of Life). Johnny Leslie, the missionary, and a Croatian national, Pastor Rich, work together to pastor this church and also one in Verazdin, about 20 minutes away. Our group planned to split our time between the two works. Tomorrow begins the actual mission work . . .