One Month Anniversary

We are quickly approaching the one month mark since the five of us have arrived here in Croatia. So of course we have an anniversary party planned for Saturday, to celebrate our first month here in Croatia, complete with cake and dancing! It is hard to believe that we have already been here for a month. In just a few weeks we have met many people, been shown amazing hospitality, are finally beginning to feel settled in our new homes, gotten internet in both apartments (this is our most recent success), have learned how to depend on the people around us here, have somewhat figured out our way around the city and grown to love humorous moments that public transit provides us each day, started learning the language and about the culture here, and yet at the same time,have realized how much we have left to learn. There have been moments throughout the month where being here is so new, that it has been really difficult. And yet there have been many moments when one of us catches ourselves saying that we can't believe we get to be here and that we feel so blessed to get to be a part of what is happening here.

Over the past several weeks, we have started seeking out ways that we can begin to connect with people, the community, and to life here in Zagreb. We are taking time to meet and learn about what churches around the city are doing, how they do it, and why they do it, so that we can begin to learn what the faith community looks like here and how we can be apart of that. We have started looking for ways to connect with and serve with local organizations that already have a presence in the community here so that we can learn about the needs of the community here and how these needs are already being met through different organizations. Michael has joined a baseball team, Jerry an ultimate frisbee team, and Brittany has gotten to play soccer with a few friends we have made, which has been a really cool way for them to meet some people in our community.

Our prayer, question, and desire over the past few weeks, and as we continue on into our second month here, is that we would seek and begin to learn what God would have for us and for the people here, that we can begin to figure out what it means to be the church here and to be people of love and grace here. As we have been praying this we have been learning that this starts with us loving each other and the people around us, and that it means being patient learners, who are constantly seeking to understand the people and the culture around us. The other day, the five of us prayed the prayer of St. Francis together and the closing lines have stayed with me for several days:

"Awesome God, Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that we recieve, it is in pardoning we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen."

And may this be your prayer for and with us over the weeks ahead.

Thanks for reading.

Hope