Faithful slacker/procrastinator

So the only thing that I am faithful to do is not do anything. umm... maybe not so much of a strength. But I have some good ideas for posts and will hopefully share all my new adventures and amazingly awe inspiring thoughts shortly all about: lambs/goats/white things wandering in pastures and how the shepards/owners mark them with colored stuff so they know whos is whos (interesting, I'm sure you are intrigued), also about how french fries/belgium fries (a student here actually thought americans called them by the same name they do, pomme frites) are not truely scrumpious if not eaten with a toothpick and some varying white sauce (mayoniasey/tartery stuff), umm.. how we had some great sport events with students and some good eatin bbq afterwards and our bbq on the beach, which the rain held out for the entire day (praise Jesus for our two rain free days!) and I guess upcoming is our fabulously exciting student weekend to the island of Krk where we will be staying in Baska, prayin that many students will come and that they will hear more about what it looks like to practically follow Jesus, and connect with other students also, more elaborate posts must wait though as my computer has come to wage war against me and decided that it can't read the harddrive and therefore will not load, it wasn't enough that the cd/dvd drive had quite working, the battery had died a couple months ago, and the little line on my screen a few months before that, I guess it just struck a final blow and took it's own life, sad day. So I will hopefully share more soon. Till then Matt's blogg of showing that it had been two long months, maybe three now, since I had posted help inspire me. Thanks! Peace out.

New Year Serbianess

So we headed to Serbia for New Years. We hung out in Belgrade for a couple days then headed to Novi Sad to hang out with the STINT team there, where we had a blast and we were really encouraged.

***Check out my shutterfly page to see all the photo's and some from our team reatreat to Slovenia (link is on the right side and says my photos).*** I think we came back from Serbia with some great stories, far too many to tell. We took some time at a cafe to try and recall all of them and Allison took notes so hopefully she'll blog about some of them as well, but I just want to share one of my favorite.


The guys headed to Belgrade a day before we did, because they wanted to have some extra time to see the sights, so Allison and I headed to Serbia on a Friday night train that was supposed to get us there the next morning, I wasn't too excited about a 7 hour overnight train but it was gonna be okay since we could nap a little in our seats. We had a lay over in Zagreb and got to spend a couple hours at our favorite restaurant with Petra and then arrived to board our train about 15 minutes till it's departure. When we got there their were people all in the aisles of the train and we could hardly get past, as we did we were informed in many languages that there were no seats available and we should just hang with some people, have a couple drinks and smokes and enjoy the train. We decided to check another train car, but it was to no avail as it seemed all the cars were packed and the train was about 50 or more people overbooked. So hoping that after a couple stops we might get a seat we hung out at the end of the train, where we had about five feet of space. This however put us smack by the WC, or toilet. Basically as no one got off the train and over the next two hours as people continued to drink they continued to need to use the toilet. It was great fun as I ended up being the toilet attendant. People would see us standing there and ask "Kaldjkfaijifewja akldfjkla" or that's what it sounded like since it was maybe a couple different languages used to basically ask if the toilet was free. After using English a couple times and getting strange looks I asked Allison what to say, and I spent a couple hours getting to practice my use of the word "Slabadno" or "Free" in Croatian. At one point we almost started charging people to use the bathroom, we estimated we could have made around 20 or so USD. So the night continued with great stories but basically we moved to a packed hallway where it was a little warmer, two hours later, and chatted it up with some girls who progressively got drunk. We did get to sit for about an hour each for the 7 hour train ride. Oh and the last great thing is at about 4 am as we talked to these drunk girls one of them was introducing us to someone else and told this other person "this is Kali she's from Utah, and this is Allison, she's from Idaho" and we shake our heads, yep, good job. then she says "Yes, I rock!" my response "nope, I-raq is no where near Idaho". funny, funny. probably funnier if you were their but what was great is it took about 5 minutes for the blank looks to come off their faces. So besides that, we really did have a great time hanging out with the Novi Sad team and getting to see new places.

Christmas a lot of traveling and random thought

Though this year was an enitrely different experience for me in celebrating Christ's birth, I think I really enjoyed it and had an opportunity to really reflect on Jesus's birth. It seems like the bible and the stories I've known for a long time continue to come to life as I experience life in a culture that isn't my own and find God here, it seems so much closer to where the real "action" and events took place. Though I know it, I see that my "Christmas" isn't just something in the US but that it happened far from where I call home and is celebrated by people all over the world. We got to have a fun family celebration with the Kneeshaw's three kids on our team and we headed to a family's home who is american-croatian, and have three kids as well. So we got to enjoy an amazing christmas play, have some scrumptions turkey with all the fixins and play up some team scrabble.

The fun all probably started the day before as we had a good christmas eve dinner, watched Elf while the christmas presents were wrapped and then Jon and I headed with Zoran to Christmas Eve midnight mass. This was an interesting experience. The entire cathedral was packed with standing room only, and Zoran translated for us so we got to understand most of the message. It was neat, and then as we headed home around 2 in the morning, we asked Zoran for a history lesson. : )

And to just end this post, I'll do multiple so you can space out the events, I've found out that I have DD, or departure disorder. Probably not a debilitating disorder but it has caused some anxiety and an occasional bonked head. Basically anytime people say good bye to me, I'm unsure if they are leaning in for a hug, a side hug, a cheeck kiss on both cheeks or just one, or if they just want to shake hands. I tend to do that whole unsure movement thing, it's like ah hug, no, move a little, uh side, uh no, uh cheek kiss, move face, nope, I just don't know what's going on, and it's just a moving twisted mass of weirdness. I think it would all be a whole lot easier as I say goodbye if the other person would just shout out what they are gonna do. For example, I'm saying bye to Bob and he says "side hug" then we side hug, or Jenna shouts out "double cheek kiss" and then I know what to expect and can execute the departing protocol. I just hope there is help for me.

Fillin the time bucket

So the weeks have just flown by and the time has been filled with meaninful meetings, good coffee, and great conversations. Really it doesn't seem like we've been here a full two months and that we have met lots of students, made hundreds of phone calls and drank too many cups of coffee, I'll probably go home with kidney stones, brown teeth and a full heart, awesome. We've had little get togethers, simply with the intention of finding a tall person and getting our light bulbs changed. This night we were entertained by Davor who decided to stop by for ten minutes and give us a little magic show. Which was a good laugh. And now as Hrv describes it we hope that our ministry wheel has gained enough momentum for our big week of the semester, our English Workshop. Tomorrow is the first night of three where we will present our topics of Masks, Identity, and Trust and using multimedia tools have the students discuss these topics and practice their english. We are praying for around 60 students to come, this is the max amount that will fit in the cafe we are having it at. It will be a great event to generate conversations, meet new students and on the last evening have a gospel presentation. I'm a little nervous because I volunteered to do tomorrow night's "talk/presentation" and it is pretty much the first talk, of it's kind, that I will have given. I'm excited to be sharing some stories from my adolescence of the "masks" that I wore during this time and just be very honest and open about who I was with the students who will be there. We get to end the week with a little Thanksgiving social night, where we are going to have many different pies for the students to have and we'll give a little background on Thanksgiving. This week is also special as a team from University of Montana has come to visit and are giving some of their time to help us advertise and also help lead the tables discussion in the evenings. We also get the chance to duplicate our English Workshop because we get to help the team that is in Spit, Croatia with their English Workshop the following week. very exciting, we will be pro's at the end of this and can take our show on the road.

Did ya'll see my favorite friends. I just go around petting stray cats in my spare time. I'm hoping to bring home some kind of rare European cat disease and spread it. Can I say that?

The search for Cottage Cheese or Ricotta Cheese!

So I discovered all the different types of cheese and milk products that are available in the local market today. I promised the guys some yummy lasagne tonight and the only ingredient that evaded me was Cottage or Ricotta Cheese, hoping to find Cottage cheese since Ricotta cheese is the entire reason why I don't like lasagne in the first place. Yesterday I bought a tub with the word "Sir" on it, since this is cheese and Allison didn't know what it was so I thought it would be a good chance that it is some kind of cottage cheese? When I opened it to make the lasagne it tasted like some kind of sour cream, but not quite. We have bought sour cream before and that is under a different name. When I'm almost done making the lasagne and I am determined to find this stuff. The search was on. I set out to the local market to buy all the possible cheese/milk tubs, I had decided that I would find my missing ingredient by golly jee wiz!! I opened them at home and to my utter dissapointment I found, some kind of sweet cream, and two more variations of sour cream? I have no idea why they all taste like sour cream but the names are clearly different. So I have made my lasagne with the original sour cream purchase and we shall see if it is edible tonight.

Pictures and Book

Take notice that I added a link to my photos on the right side. Hopefully ya'll can navigate shutterfly and check em out.
Secondly with not time to think of "real" things to blog about I decided to start including excerpts from books I'm reading that really speak to me at the time. Here is one of the latest.

"True spirituality is kingdom living, which of necessity means that we can see
God in the whole of our lives, in private and in public, at work and in the home, in the church and in the street, and even at play -- whethere with children or in sports activities or in some form of healthy entertainment. The kingdom becomes the unifying or umbrella principle that brings together every dimension of our lives. Consiquently, we are freed from the oppressive burden that religious activities are somehow more important than domestic activities and work. If all that we are and do comes under the kingdom, then religious activities are surely important. But not all life is religion! We are members of families. We have occupations and responsibilities in our places of work. We have leisure time to enjoy friends, hobbies, and the arts. If we deny or undermine the other dimensions of our lives, we subtly ignore the centrality of the kingdom in God's redemptive plan. It means that my work at the office is just as important as my participation in worship; both are lived under the reighn of Christ Jesus." -On The Way by Gordon T. Smith

Smooth Move and other unsafe activities

So this evening we were enlightened as to ways that some guys, specifically Pete, think are a good way to let a girl know you like her. It’s pretty simple, which might be helpful for guys? Anyhow, a guy just kicks (gently? In a footsie rubbing slash brushing sort of way) the girl under the table, when they are out for coffee one evening. Then the guy can tell if she likes him back by her response. It’s a sure way to tell if she immediately comments on the fact that he kicked/brushed/footsied her or just looks under the table and questioningly at him that she doesn’t really have any interest in the guy, however, (according to Pete) if she doesn’t say anything then it is suggested that the guy does this kick/brush/footsieness again and if she says nothing it is most likely that she is “twiterpatted” and likes the guy. Pradags response: “Where did you learn this, kindergarten?”