"Znate li hrvatski?"  "Samo malo."  The translation for this is: “Do you speak Croatian?”  “Only a little.” 

Language learning is going slowly.  Our tongues are stumbling over unfamiliar sounds and words, while our brains are trying to adjust to different letters and grammar – declension, conjugation, gender, and all those cases!  Thankfully, we have a few people to help us including Mirna, our language helper, who meets with us a few times a week, and Danka, the teacher at a private language school, who is helping us with grammar.  We hope to be increasing our time with Mirna and decreasing our private lessons for awhile until we know more words and phrases.  While we are at the language school, Ellie Beth spends time with Kati and her son, Aron, who is six months old.  Ellie Beth has enjoyed taking walks with them to the market and playing games in Croatian.  Lydia will soon be joining them.  In July, I will be taking an intensive language class at the university while Dan is at camp.  Then in the fall, Dan and I will start language school at the university while all four of us continue with language helpers.

Please continue to pray for our language learning.  Although many people speak some English, especially the younger generation, we want to be able to communicate to the Croatian people in their heart language.  It has been frustrating to not be able to connect with people because we can’t speak their language.  

Aron, Kati, and Ellie Beth

Language Learning is Messy

We finally have internet access!  It came earlier this week and we are now able to update this site a little more frequently and also send out updates to our faithful prayer partners.  We are pretty excited about this.  Rather than try to recap the last several weeks, I think I'll just fill you in on our day today since it was a typical day for us.

Botanical Gardens on our Cell Phone camera

The service was all in Croatian.  We are getting better at Croatian, but it is still very difficult to follow anything other than greetings and simple phrases.  Praise songs are great though, because we can pick up lots of phrases that are repeated over and over until we learn them.  One I caught this morning was "Ti si moj kralj!" which means, "you are my king".  It is an exciting moment when you can lean over to your family and say, "Hey that means you are my king."  However, it is a little frustrating when they all say, "Yeah, we know".  I'm getting used to that as well.

When it came time to take communion, we encountered another of those extra decisions we have to make a lot.  One cup was passed around to everyone and it was wine.  Do we give it to the girls or not?  Bonnie and had a quick discussion and made a call (I'll leave the decision up to you if you ever have to make it) just as the cup came by.  Unexpected things keep popping up in places we don't expect them.

As the sermon started I was thinking that my time here so far feels like surfing.  I have never actually surfed, but I often feel like I am on a little board on top of a huge wave that is constantly moving forward.  There are times of beauty when you relax and look around, and times of intense activity as you struggle with your board, knowing that the wave won't stop to let you get back on.  Even the falling in is not bad, but riding the board is a heck of a lot more fun than struggling to get back on to the board.

After church we relaxed a bit, and then I drove Bonnie to an empty parking lot so she could practice driving the stick shift and then Bonnie drove home for the first time in Croatia.  This was her first time to drive in Croatia.  The traffic here is more intense than in the States so it took her a little while longer to choose to drive.

Thats the day and it was actually very typical for us.  I am looking forward to the time when things like going to church are more of a routine process for us.  However, I am also thankful that we are here and acclimating to this new culture so well.  It is truly a blessing in the way God has orchestrated so many events around us to make this a smooth transition.  He is good.

We are standing at the ticket counter at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport with 22 pieces of luggage on Thursday, April 26^th at 7:30 a.m. for our flight that leaves at 10:04 for Chicago.  Eleven family members are waiting to say goodbye before we leave, but according to the very nice woman behind the counter, we have a problem.  We purchased one way tickets and don’t have documentation that we have a job in Croatia.  They can’t check us in to Zagreb or they could get fined.  We start praying.

Earlier that week, Dan had called United and Luftansa about this very thing, and was told we wouldn’t need any paperwork.  However, that didn’t help the woman at the counter.  She left for 30 minutes to make phone calls to various people and embassies.  We continued praying.  When she came back she explained our options.  We could fly to Chicago and then hope Luftansa checked us in through their system all the way to Zagreb.  Or we could buy a one way refundable ticket from Zagreb to Munich.  Hmmmm… as Dan and I discussed our options, leaning toward the one way ticket, she looked at her computer and paused.  Thank you God!  It turns out we were already checked in to Zagreb.  When Dan had called to confirm our flight, Luftansa had checked us in – so were cleared to go.  She gave us better seats on the plane and wished us luck.

It took about 30-45 minutes to weigh and check all our bags.  By that time we were running late and had to say a quick goodbye to family as we entered the security gates and then raced for the gates.  Ten minutes later, they started boarding the plane.  Whew!  After sitting down in our new seats, we looked up and saw Eric and Kris, a couple from Lakeside Christian Church in Cambridge (where we had been living), walking down the aisle.  They proceeded to sit down next to Dan.  They were on their way to Ethiopia to bring home two boys they were adopting.  Isn’t that amazing?! We knew they were on the same plane to Chicago but it was fantastic that we were able to sit with them.  We prayed together in the Chicago airport before they left for Frankfurt and we left for Munich.

As we waited in Chicago, Lydia’s stomach was having problems.  She had finished her last oral typhoid that morning and had not been able to eat breakfast on our dash to our gate.  She made it through the flight from Minneapolis to Chicago but by the time we arrived in Chicago she was pale and nauseous.  Thankfully, it was out of her system by the time we got on the plane for Munich.  Speaking of which, as we were standing in a long line to board the plane, one of the stewards came up and said, “Follow me.”  He whisked us to the front of the line and went back for other families with kids.  We were able to settle into our seats in the middle of the plane before it got crowded!  As we watched other families enter, we realized how blessed we were, as many had been given seats apart from one another.

The girls did great on the long flight and we eventually arrived in Munich early in the morning.  Our flight to Zagreb was delayed by an hour and when I saw the plane we would be taking I wondered how all our luggage was going to fit and if we were going to get off the ground if it did fit!  It was a small commuter plane but I guess it was bigger and stronger than it looked because one hour later we safely landed in Zagreb, officially entered the country, and collected all our luggage!  Steve, Jenny and Daniel Meeker met us on the other side with beautiful bouquets of flowers.  God is good!

Bonnie, Ellie Beth, Lydia, Dan and Jonathan Meeker at Bundek Park one day after we arrived.