still kinda can’t believe that this happened. I’m over here starting this blog post while eating the last tidbits of the delicious Eurocream that I bought while I was overseas and reminiscing on my recent travels to the beautiful country of Serbia (also stopped by Hungary while we were in the area hehe).
Wow, where do I start? I guess from how it even came about..
I sometimes visit a young adults group in my friend’s church and I’ve heard about these short-term missions trips that they do and I ended up getting invited to go on one – to Serbia (as I’ve already mentioned)! 🙂
This mission trip was hosted by an organization called Josiah Venture who did our training once we arrived there. Josiah Venture is an organization that reaches out to the younger people of Eastern Europe to spread the Gospel.
Serbia is a very Orthodox heavy country. In fact, basically 85% of the population are Orthodox. The rest are Catholic, Muslim, atheist, etc. Only 1% are Protestant. Most Serbs see evangelical denominations as “sects” which makes it very difficult to spread the news about Christ.
Trip Preparation
Before the trip, we had 13 weeks of training learning about the culture, how to tell our story in regards to becoming a Christian, how to work together as a group, and much more. We went on a retreat with the entire group and it was awesome getting to know the whole group. We also did random activities like the doing the human knot, trying to reorganize the group by ages while standing on a log on some beach in the Pacific Ocean, telling life stories in 15 minutes and playing random board games until midnight. I felt relatively prepared but completely uncertain how things will be going once we get there.
For me personally, one thing that was a bit hectic before my trip was that I had a passport stolen from a previous trip and I was rushing to get my new passport in time for the Serbia trip.
My appointment was THE DAY before my flight. I drove out Seattle at 4:30am to make it to my 8am appointment. I came an hour early, parked my car on a super slanted parking lot (oh the lovely hilly streets of Seattle – my new phobia, if I’m honest), bought a juice from some random coffeeshop just so I could use their restroom and got into line with the rest of the early birds. The process went super quick and I was out the door at around 8:35a. I walked around and found a coffee shop where I worked from my laptop until my passport pickup time and then drove back home.
Once I got home, I promptly went to bed and woke up at 2am to pack. We got to the airport at 8am and our flight left at 10am. It was quite the ride. 🙂
Training + before camp
I flew with two other members of the team. We flew in to Belgrade and were met by some of the church people there. The moment we stepped out of the airport doors, we were hit with the hot and humid air – it was comforting, in a very sticky sort of way hehe (understand that however you like). The Serbians drove us to Sremska Mitrovica, the town where we were staying and where we would be having training.
We spent the next few days recovering from the flight, eating yummy Serbian food, prepping English lessons for camp, doing trainings with the JV staff, going to church and just spending time together.
The day before camp, most of the group climbed into a van and departed to Bačka Topola where the camp will be. One of the team members and I stayed to drive with two of the Serbian missionaries in their car.
That’s when our Serbian adventures began :). The battery of their car ended up dying and nobody couldn’t get the car to jump start. I have loadsss of funny videos of people pushing the cars but to nooo avail. So we took the bus and train to the day camp which ended up three times longer than the actual road trip would’ve taken on a car. But it was just such a lovely, enjoyable and scenic bus/train ride.
The missionaries were so fun and we spent the bus and train rides talking about the Serbian culture, hisotry and just life stories.
They ended up showing us around another beautiful Serbian city called Novi Sad. Serbian architecture is incredible and I was a little awestruck and taking videos of every single building, per usual and talking nonstop…
Moi was so distracted that she ended up walking into a pole and completely gashing her shin open. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. oh well, I guess. Thankfully, the team member with us is a nurse who had a first-aid kit and she bandaged up my wound pretty quickly, although there was a shin sized bruise that was growing on my leg. I guess, thank goodness, I got my TDAP shot before the trip cause that pole was russstyyyy. After that, everyone felt sorry for me and we decided to just go get gelato which was fine by me and can I add, just absolutely divine tasting. Serbia has some dang good gelato. Actually, hot take: every country in the world has good gelato (not just Italiaaaa) – it just has to be gelato, not ice cream. Gelato just has a certain creaminess that makes it more superior than ice cream or custard or fro yo (which is a rip-off if I do say so myself).
We also went to a McDonalds – definitely way fancier than any McDs in the states, let me tell you. Finally, we took the train to Bačka Topola where the camp was.
Stay tuned for Part 2