Back to Blogging!

Wow, over a year has passed since we last posted an update on the blog. In all honesty I had decided to just let the blog die since we are active on Facebook, but in the last month I have realized it is impossible to capture the depth of our life in short Facebook posts and pictures. Therefore, I have resurrected the blog and plan to post a little more depth on our family life and ministry. Stay tuned for  a better view of our family's life here in Radovljica.

Learning to Communicate!

Remember the classic child game of telephone? The game where you whisper a sentence into the ear of one child and send it down the line of children in order to find out how bad the sentence has been butchered by the youthful relay system. Everyone looks forward to seeing the end product and how poorly it has been communicated. It is quite funny to see how skewed the sentence turns out compared to how it was first communicated.

I often think of this game as we attempt to communicate here in Slovenia, only it isn’t in a line of people. The words/sentences are often butchered directly after we are told, we don’t need a relay line! Although the language is difficult I think we are beginning to enjoy and embrace the opportunity to learn a new language, and we are excited for the ministry opportunities that will bring. 

On the subject of learning . . .  we are very proud of Tahlia and Mikaela as they are excelling in Slovene school! God has truly used them as lights for Him even in these first few months. They are learning quick, but even greater, they are filled with joy instead of discouragement and for this we praise God!

With all we are learning I cannot wait to play telephone again with American children, it will be great to hear how they relay this sentence: Moj učiteljica gre v nakupovalnem središču nakup nahrbtnik in sladkarije v slaščičarni.

IKEA Madness

The last few months have been a blur, but we are finally settling in a bit and for this we are thankful. God provided us with an amazing home here in Slovenia. We actually live in a village named Lancovo. From our home we have a gorgeous view of Radovljica and the surrounding hills. Often in the evening we can hear the river Sava which is a five minute walk away.

One unexpected task for us was setting up our home. I had been focused on details involved with our shipping container, but I never really considered the actual unpacking and setting up part of this move. It turned in to quite a project and involved multiple trips to IKEA. In Europe you do not find closets or storage areas which means wardrobes and cabinets are a necessary purchase. The cheapest place for this is the IKEA in Klagenfurt, Austria (an hour drive from here).

We have a van, but still it took multiple trips to IKEA to get all the furniture we needed. Now this may sound like a fun shopping spree for some, but I can assure you it was anything but. I have never really shopped around IKEA, not to mention one in Austria where all language posted is GERMAN. So here I am trying to figure out how the IKEA process works in German. Of course trying to find all the needed parts was near impossible. This literally took me all day on multiple trips. Seriously, I spent the whole day at IKEA. Now as if finding it wasn't hard enough I had to figure out how to load it in a van, by myself. It was like a puzzle, only the pieces were somewhere between 50 to 200 pounds.

As happy as I was to drive away from IKEA, it was only then I realized I had the joy of putting this all together and let me just say I am amazed at the crazy engineering it took to design IKEA furniture. So much is going on in just a little box.

The last part of the IKEA madness was the massive amount of cardboard and packing material I was left with. This was added to the already crazy amount we had from the move. It took me three weeks of driving around disposing in public dumpsters. I'm sure the workers were totally confused at how their bins were immediately filled to capacity after they dumped it all.

Thankful the experience is over, thankful we have a place to put clothes, and thankful for the apple strudel in the IKEA cafe (the one reason to return!).