Welcome to Croatia! We arrived on August 17, 2024. Jet lag was not too bad and we jumped in to our assignment. It didn’t take long for us to realize that many people were on holiday! The month of August is vacation time in Europe. We settled into our nice apartment and got to know our new friends, the fellow Senior couples here. We are surrounded with outstanding young missionaries as well. The language is a challenge but we try to say our few, simple phrases, and the Croatians seem to appreciate it.
We started knocking on doors of any NGO’s we could find. Cold calling was not something I’ve done much of and the first few were a bit scary. It’s one thing to do so when you speak the language and another when you aren’t sure if the person on the other side of the door will understand why you are even standing there. To our joy, we were warmly received at almost every place. Some have memories of working with LDS Charities in the past. They would always praise the church with gratitude for past projects. Now we have to add on to those good feelings they have!
We are having so much fun exploring, trying new foods, and falling in love with Croatia. I am very impressed with Reid's amazing driving skills! We have our desks next to each other in our office (the spare bedroom in our two bedroom apartment) and we love working side by side on the paperwork, emails, calls, research, and all that goes into our role. Reid and I have also been asked to help with the Central Europe Employment team and are doing that on Thursdays. We have started with our first two job seekers; one in Spain and the other in Italy and they are great candidates! We attend a small branch and we are in a District with 6 young sisters and elders. District Council is always a weekly highlight. They ask us to teach a "Life Tip" each week and it is just great to meet with them and feel their great spirit and enthusiasm!
So far, so good! We stay busy!
The Larson's are here working with Young Single Adults. They took us out and showed us around (because they got here 3 weeks earlier!), showed us how to use the tram system, and we had our first gelato. In fact, 3 of us enjoyed a second gelato that same night from a different place!
A beautiful church in Osijek. Even more beautiful inside. (See below) We saw a wedding party here. The bride and groom drove off in a Ford Mustang limo! It was very unique!
This is the famous water tower in Vukavar. The war in 1991-1995 just destroyed this city. We saw signs of the war all around. This water tower took over 600 hits but never crumbled. A boy climbed this tower and hung the Croatian flag as often as he could and the enemy would shoot it down, so up he'd go the next night with another flag. The flag gave hope to the soldiers defending their city. Today you can climb it or ride an elevator. They have an interactive museum near the top explaining what happened there. We left feeling very somber. The videos of civilians fleeing their homes, taking so little with them, was very emotional. Some came back but many went to other European countries and stayed there.
We took a drive on a Sunday afternoon. You don't have to drive far out of Zagreb before you are in the country and see beautiful sights like this one! Each little village has a beautiful Catholic church, and lots of red roofs. They are so quaint and lovely.
We took this picture to show a typical walking street ( no cars allowed) but we noticed after taking it, that McDonald's is in the background! Ha, ha, yes McD's is in Rijeka as well as Burger King and KFC.
Our Mission Leaders took us out for lunch. We ate a wonderful Croatian food called Cepati. It's different meats rolled into sort of a sausage then grilled and is very delicious! All the food we have had has been very good.
We have a cute bread shop near our apartment. The sweet ladies who work there have given us free pastries. We're not sure why; maybe it's the missionary tag; maybe because they feel sorry for us Americans who can't understand what we are ordering? Either way it's sure been fun!
We have been busy every day forging relationships with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) like the Croatia Red Cross, Jesuit Refugee Services, ADRA (the Seventh Day Adventists relief organization), and others. These organizations have some of the best people on the planet! The Church has funded a lot of worthwhile projects over many years and it has been fun to go evaluate them and discuss with the NGO's what more we can be doing together in 2024. We have some great new projects in the works!
On the left - After a hike with 4 of our 6 District members. Below - We climbed the watch tower of this castle. Below left - with our friends, the Stoker's in Rijeka. The Stoker's serve in Frankfurt, Germany, but came to train us for a few days. When we'd had enough training, we went sightseeing! Or as a person in Croatia said to us, "See-sighting!"
