Thanksgiving in Croatia

Happy Thanksgiving! We slept in on a school day in Croatia! The boys and Elise enjoyed it. I got up only 15 minutes after the alarm would have normally gone off. Ryan’s school, the American International School of Zagreb, has the next two days off, of course. Bret’s online school, Northstar, gives us the flexibility to take both days off; however, Bret told me this morning that he might work tomorrow so he can get his math finished for the week. We won’t hold him back.

How do we celebrate Thanksgiving other than a little extra sleep, a little less work and no school? Well, we have our quiet times and a leisurely early morning. I will go pay an enormous number of bills in about an hour and then we will leave for central Zagreb around 11 o’clock this morning. Once at the main train station, we will pick up our colleague, Nela Williams, and travel together to Karlovac, a city of 50,000 about 45 minutes away.

We will have two teams for Thanksgiving in the home of Tim and Danna Berry. Sixteen of us will pitch in to make it happen. NFL football, via our VCR and a video tape sent by Elise’s brother, will be in the background and we will have a great time together. I am thankful for our team and the one on the coast.  Part of our team celebration is also a going away for Gene and Lo Hodgkins.  They have served faithfully for three years in Agriculture development and head home in the middle of December.  We will miss them and are so thankful for all they have done.

We will travel back to Zagreb around 6 o’clock this evening. Bret has practice at 7:15 PM and Ryan is planning to meet a friend at a Cibona game. Cibona is our top professional basketball team and they are playing one of the best teams in Europe. Please don’t feel like the quality is a big step down from the NBA. Every player for the other team has beaten the American World Championship or Olympic team in the past four years. Our team has three top former NCAA players who were the last cuts from their NBA teams.  The world can play. Tickets are $5 for the cheap seats.

I am working on several entries that I think you will find worth your time. The next one will follow up on the thoughts a couple of days ago about language and culture. It should help you pray for your missionaries wherever they are in the world. Other topics I have begun include those evil bloggers, some thoughts about values, straw men in our life, the right DNA, emergent church discussion, and those regular updates about life here and how you can best support us.

Some links that might interest you on this fine Thanksgiving Day are:

“Ned Flanders and Me” is a great post on finding strength in diversity and can be found at http://theresurgence.com/mc_blog_2006-11-21_ned_flanders_and_me.

Jason’s blog is always a devotional challenge and encouragement. His November 21 article on the death of his grandfather made me remember the death of my own grandfather and to remind me of the joy and strength found in a godly heritage. You can read this post by clicking on http://jbacher.blogspot.com/.

Emergent Church links and discussion can be found at  http://kennicon.squarespace.com/.  This is a very balanced introduction to emergent church ideas.