I want a note.

Today imma tell you a married life story 🙂

 

But first, a question. Do you feel loved? What is it, exactly, that does or doesn’t make you feel that way? An unexpected gift? A kind word? A reminder that you’re doing something right? When someone remembers something about you? Maybe a good morning text, or a phone call from your mom.

 

What if you don’t feel loved? You’re going through the motions day after day just waiting, hoping that someone will reach out and love you……in the way you want to be loved. Lately I’ve caught myself moping when I don’t “feel loved”. I’m filtering what love I want to receive (think I deserve to receive if we’re being honest – ouch) instead of recognizing and accepting the myriad of ways that people are loving on me every day.

 

I came across an entry this morning that I wrote this past February, cautioning my future self against this very thing.

 

You notice that Joel is settling into loving you – not that he’s not pursuing your heart, but it’s become easier. The little things he says and does become normal. Instead of exciting your heart with the newness of it all, it’s a warm comforting feeling. Careful darling that it doesn’t turn into cold bitterness when he forgets, or his txts are shorter. Keep your heart soft towards him.

 

How quickly I forget my own words! How easy to decide how I should be loved, and hold Joel and others to that invisible standard – allowing myself to be wounded when they fall short. (Sounds childish when I put that on paper) Stupid, but so easy to do. Here’s my story:

 

I wanted a note. Words are important to me, and written words especially. When Joel and I were dating, we lived a solid hour apart and saw each other once a week. He often wrote notes and left them for me to find – sometimes long, sometimes just a sentence or two. I loved it. Fast forward to now: we’re married and loving it, get to see each other every day (which is awesome!), he’s working full time and in school part time…..and no notes. Now, an outside observer of this situation might see that perhaps he was telling me in person all those things he used to write down for me. That’s logical (I’m not). I wanted a note. So I dropped hints. Left him notes, thinking he’d reciprocate. Got increasingly upset, and decided I felt unloved when it didn’t happen.

 

Basically I was throwing a temper tantrum to myself. I finally had a meltdown about it, cried a lot, and told him how I was feeling (imagine, what a novel idea). Not the best way to go about it, but at least communication was happening. He promised to start writing notes again, and I promised to communicate instead of getting so upset, and to see things from his perspective too – starting with how insanely busy his mind is right now.

 

The next morning he woke me up with a cup of coffee and a handwritten letter that he’d gotten up early to write for me. I felt very unworthy of that act of love. That morning I read my letter snuggled up next to him, thanking God for all the things I’d been taking for granted.

 

Hugs…kisses… “I’m coming home” txts…dishes that he does…all the hankies he’s been ready with when I’m crying…the kind words he says…his encouragement to spend time doing things that I love, and the joy he shares with me when I’m telling him about it.

 

“I was drawing today”

 

“Great, babe! Can I see?”

 

I’m loved. Moral of today’s story – if you don’t feel loved, chances are you’re just not permitting your heart to receive love, because a particular act you’ve latched onto isn’t happening just the way you want it. Keep your heart soft towards people, and keep communicating. (trust me, it’s way better than freaking out.)

 

xo,

 

Rachael

Jungles

 

I met a friend for breakfast yesterday morning in our usual spot – we don’t even need a menu. We ordered our usual coffee & fruit parfaits and caught up about life before she told me that she had some big news to share.

Turns out, she’s leaving for a year on a mission trip to Papua New Guinea. She’s a nurse, and will be serving alongside missionaries at a primitive clinic in the bush – accessible only by plane – and it’s a five mile hike to the grass airstrip from the clinic. She showed me pictures of giant spiders (THAT THEY EAT) and we tried to guess how much toothpaste she would need for a years supply.

My first thought was not worrying about the cannibals, or disgust over the spiders, or even how much I’d miss her for a year. No, my first thought was She’ll be different when she comes back. I know that for sure. She’ll come back wiser, kinder, closer to Jesus. She’ll come back with all the already good things about her intensified. She’ll come back with an awareness for human hurt, and a compassion for those who have little to give and many needs. I felt a pang of memory, remembering my own short term mission trips and how I saw the world with different eyes after those experiences.

It sounds so exciting to talk about, but I know it won’t be easy for her. Change is never easy. It requires something from us. Pondering her trip caused me to stop and think.

How will this next year change me? I’m not in the jungle bush balancing across a swinging bridge or hiking through the jungle, but my circumstances are new & have just as much potential to change who I am and intensify the good – or bad – qualities in me. Will I look at myself this time next year and find myself more flexible, industrious, kind, and tender-hearted? Will I be wiser or apathetic? Will my words be more tactful, or will I be quicker to get upset?

I’ve been in my new ‘jungle’ for a month now – today is my one month anniversary. 🙂 There’s been so many lessons to learn so far, and I know there will be more in months 2, 3, 4, etc. Each month, each day, each minute represents an opportunity for me to learn, to grow, to stretch myself. Today I’m grateful for the reminder to take advantage of each of those opportunities, so that a year from now I’ll look back and see the changes – for the better – in my own life. How will your ‘jungle’ change you?

 

xo,

Rachael

Adulting – City Style

I consider myself a country girl, and until now I didn’t realize just how much that has altered the way I think about things.

You couldn’t see my house from the road. I’ve never had a garbage disposal. Trash was separated into “burnables” and “chicken slop” – with very little actually going into a black traditional bag. When I heard a shot and it wasn’t deer season, I assumed there was one less groundhog digging holes for me to trip in.  Alleys are hayfields. You watch for deer when you’re driving, not kids on bicycles or grandmas walking their dogs. You play your music and holler at your family as loudly as you want to ’cause nobody can hear you anyway. Locking your car door in your driveway isn’t even something that crosses your mind.

Now I’m married, living in a duplex, and struggling to find a balance between wanting to open all the curtains to let the sunshine in and realizing that people can SEE IN MY HOUSE. Needless to say, it’s been a learning curve. Here’s what I’ve learned in my first two weeks 🙂

I learned that a boil alert didn’t mean there was a chance that your water could get really hot in your pipes, only that you should sterilize your water before drinking it. Oh, and I’m told that somehow the water still magically comes if the power goes out – no more filling the bathtub when it storms.

I’m still skeptical about that one, it hasn’t happened yet.

 

Trash day was a whole new adventure. Not wanting to be the new kid on the block who doesn’t know where to put her trash cans, I peeped out my window at all my neighbors to see whose trash-can-placement I should copy. Only nobody had put their cans out yet, so I decided to risk it. In the street? That can’t be right. The yard is a slope, they’ll just roll in the street if I leave them, so that won’t work either. I settled for the sidewalk, before realizing that I didn’t even know which way to face them – lid opening in or out? Oh there’s instructions on the lid (yes, I read them) but it only says to “space the cans 3 inches apart”. Thanks, trash man.  About 3 hours later I peek back out the window to see everybody else’s trash can sitting primly *in the street*, so I had to nonchalantly sneak back out, move them and anybody watching didn’t think I was a total idiot.

Yesterday evening I was doing some baking. (No apron, so I tied a bath towel around my waist – necessity is the mother of invention). I realized halfway through that my flour container wasn’t blessed by Elijah and there was no way I was gonna stretch the 14 cups I needed from the 5 pound bag I had. See, in my mama’s kitchen we have a 5 *gallon* bucket in the basement, so instead of a trip to the store it’s a trip down the basement steps. No problem, I’ll just use my phone to route me to the save-a-lot (since I still don’t know where anything is in this town. -_- )

Washing up dishes after, and I pulled the plug to drain some water so I could rinse. (One hole-er sink) Replaced the plug, but my rag promptly disappeared. I felt around in the bubbles for a good 30 seconds before tentatively reaching down the garbage disposal. Stupid thing sucked it right in – no wonder my dad replaces so many of those. Thankfully I hadn’t turned it on – I swear one of these days I’m gonna shred a spoon by accident.

“He who learns to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

I’ve been laughing a lot 🙂

xo,

Rachael

Simple Things

Simple things are hard.

 

I trip over everything in my new house. Yesterday I dropped a wooden table leaf on my foot trying to carry it downstairs, then yowled and hopped around the kitchen like a one-footed rabbit. My new neighbor probably thinks I’m crazy. The knobs on the stove are in a different order than I’m used to, so I keep heating up the wrong burner by accident and high-fiving myself when I get it right by chance. Oh, and the new coffee mugs are too fat to fit right in my car consul, so I spill my coffee when bumping over the railroad tracks. Or when I’m turning around *again* on the new 1+ hour commute to work cause I swear I was sure it was a left hand turn….nope. GPS 1, Rachael 0. One of these days I’ll get it.

 

But simple things are easy too.

 

Waiting 30 seconds by the front door to wave goodbye and blow a kiss when Joel is getting in his truck for work in the morning, and knowing he’s smiling and blowing one back even though all I can see is his blurry hand through the windshield. Sneaking a note in his lunch box while he’s putting his boots on. Figuring out the coffee pot – (score!) Loving how green all my baby cactuses are cause they love the sunshine through all the windows in our new kitchen.

 

 

Learning to rejoice in the simple things. My coffee cup says “Mrs.” on it. Half the time I get my new last name right when I’m writing it down. Boxes are slowly disappearing as things get put away. I know for awhile I’ll still open all the cabinets to find one thing, and forget to turn the lights out, and struggle to remember that the trash can *is not* under the sink. But it’s becoming home, and I’m loving it.

 

Simple things.

 

xo

Rachael

 

 

My First Sweetheart

When I was about 5 years old, I handmade my first valentine for my daddy. The kitchen table was covered in pink construction paper, safety scissors, and an entire bottle of silver glitter glue. I’d just drawn my masterpiece of a Tweetie bird on the front, and proudly scrawled (with help from Mom) “Happy Valentine’s Day Daddy Love Your Sweet -“……when I ran out of room. Uh oh. See, I’d been my Daddy’s “Sweetheart” since I could remember…but dang it I had written my letters too big and had no room to put the ‘heart’. I was heart-broken, but unwilling to throw my masterpiece aside and start again. Then Mama suggested I take the red glitter glue, and substitute a drawn heart shape instead of the actual word. WHAH-LAH! All the world’s problems were solved – I drew my best heart, filled it in with extra glitter, and happily slapped that sucker shut.

(Mom didn’t have the heart to tell me I’d just glued it together permanently. )

I still think of that Valentine’s Day and laugh. The day itself has always been a bit of a wonky holiday in the Clan household; we traditionally have brown paper bags full of homemade construction paper valentines (dad’s are always green and mom’s are always purple for their favorite colors) and breakfast usually includes chocolate & off-brand little debbie swiss rolls. But the significance of the day always peaked at knowing we were all properly loved and important to each other.

My brothers first learned how a man ought to treat a woman from my daddy. He brings my mama coffee every morning in bed. We all joke about how he can’t carry a tune in a bucket – but he sings about how beautiful she is. He’s horrible about pre-planning dates, but he knows exactly what mama likes – the way to her heart isn’t ice cream (like me lol) it’s a bowl of fresh-popped popcorn, or pretzels with extra salt. (Guess what was sitting on her bed waiting for her for Valentine’s Day?) I’ve got three brothers, and all three of them know that flowers are always a good idea, adding chocolate is an even better one, and a sweet note goes a long way towards telling her how much you love her. (One of them added his own personal touch in my valentine today by signing it ‘love, Batman’.)

As a girl, I grew up knowing how important it was to find a man that would love me like my daddy did – not an easy order, cause I’m a daddy’s girl, and we go way back. He taught me how to give butterfly kisses – to this day I still give him one every night before bed. (If I’m gonna be gone overnight he swears he can’t do without and I have to give him an extra 😉 ) We decided a long time ago that we’d dance to Butterfly Kisses at my wedding someday.

Daddy pinned on my first corsage, and was my first dance partner – I hiked up a floor length silver ball gown, climbed in, and we drove to a ball in his pickup truck. Had a smashing time.

Daddy always told me I was beautiful. I remember the first time I really felt like a woman instead of a little girl – I was 15, and doing a 4-H project where I had to shop for an outfit on a budget and then wear the outfit to a style event. I’d chosen a long blue velvet dress, my first pair of heels & had curled my hair – setting it off with my mom’s wedding necklace. I came tripping down the hallway to show him and he took one look and told me to go back in my room and change cause I didn’t look like his little girl anymore. But I knew he was proud of me.

I’m ever grateful that I have a dad who’s present in my life and I’d like to encourage all the dad’s out there who are doing the same for their daughters. We notice. We care. We need you. It matters more than you know. To all the daddy’s who have sons, even if they’re little – thank you for taking them to pick out flowers for their mama, thank you for helping them write a card, pick out pretzels, and showing them over and over how to treat a woman with love and care and respect. Thank you for teaching them how to be tender, to listen, to pick up on the little things. Little boys grow up quick to be big men. His girlfriend – his wife – will thank you someday.

Daddy loves me. He taught me what it looked and felt like to be loved, treasured, valued. He was my first sweetheart, I wouldn’t be the same without him, and I’ll never ever forget it.

Thank you Daddy. Happy Valentine’s Day (Love, your Sweet ❤ )

Ahead of Time

I strummed my fiddle like a ukulele, ran through a couple options in my head, and txted my accompanist.

“I have no idea what I’m going to play.”

I’m sure he laughed when he read it.

“It’s a fiddle contest. You’re not supposed to know ahead of time.”

Spoken like a true musician. A year ago, I was throwing a song set together last minute for a fiddle contest, and considering whether or not I was even going to compete. I was fresh home from Europe, and tho I had taken my sweet fiddle with me, there hadn’t been much practice time, and I was definitely rusty. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to embarrass myself unnecessarily – especially since I know practically everyone else I’d be playing against. But, hey, you get ten bucks for playing. If you win you can afford a snowcone, if you lose you can still afford a snowcone. They’re $1. Play some music, turn your tongue blue, life is good.

So I went. It’s fresh in my mind, so let me paint you a picture.

I slung a case across my back and headed out early morning to meet downtown on the square and stake out a practicing spot. It was the same as always. Little knots of musicians scattered here and there all over downtown, making music and shredding bow hair as they fine-tune the last break on that hoedown or tune of choice and nod to their guitarist. “Again.” Gathered in alleyways, the bank parking lot, or behind a food trailer – heck, wherever you could find a free spot and drown out somebody else’s song so you could hear your own. I waved a bow at a friend in greeting, and joined a random jam that started, the songs old and familiar under my fingers. Looking back, I don’t remember everyone that was there, but I know it was like normal – a mix & match of people I knew well and those I’d never met – joined together by a common love for music. We played and sang and laughed together, and called out song after song. Stared at each other for a solid minute trying to remember the lyrics to the second verse of Grandfather’s Clock, or what key we usually play Whiskey Before Breakfast in.

If you’ve never been in a jam, you can’t understand. It’s a beautiful thing, to play music with other people. And it’s never ever the same. We can play Red Wing through a solid fifteen times and it’ll sound different every verse. It can’t really be captured. People gather round, and listen, some dance and tap their toes. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve gotten kicked off the square after the contest because we were drawing too much attention away from the band that had been paid to preform. But we really don’t care. We’re playing for us – for the sheer enjoyment of it. Leaning in closer and closer till you’d think somebody’s gonna get poked in the eye with a bow. We’ll go and go and go if you let us.

‘Cause we don’t know we’re making memories. We just know we’re having fun.

This year I’m looking at the window at the square. I can’t hear anything yet, but it’s still early. The musicians will come. They will play the same songs, and sing the same lyrics, and we will hear the same music.

We just won’t all be there to make it.

 

I look out the window, see the still-empty square, remember the music, and I wonder. Would I have enjoyed the music more? Would I have stayed for one more song? I don’t know. But I guess that’s life. It’s like a fiddle contest. You’re not supposed to know ahead of time.

 

Missing people today ❤

Rachael

Coming Home

Hello Everyone!

I touched down in Ohio yesterday about 4:30 p.m. and have slept the majority of the time since 🙂 My past three weeks have been full of crazy adventures, fun times, tears, and hard lessons. I know I didn’t write very much, and I’m sorry, but I’ll try and catch everyone up. Also, at some point soon I’m sure I’ll be giving a presentation at my church, Brandon Baptist.

My trip was split into two halves, and each was different than the other. I had two separate teams of people I was working with and two completely different groups of campers.

First half of the trip: I had six campers – Mila, Dejana, Lupjka, Marija, Dina & Elena. All sweet girls that taught me so much. We laughed so much together and made so many memories. My fellow tutors and I were a mismatched group from all over – Colorado, California, Ohio, and one American missionary (Brian Stout) who lives with his family in Macedonia. I spent the first half of the trip getting over jet lag, reuniting with all the staff and volunteers that I had met on my last trip, and going through all material and cultural training. I also added some words to my previous Macedonian vocabulary, which I still find myself using unintentionally haha!

Brian and his family were a huge blessing to me – I often joined him, his daughter Joy, and whatever other staff and volunteers were up in the mornings for a prayer walk – sometimes we walked down to the village of Peshtani, sometimes we walked up part the cliffs towards Gratista where you could look down on the lake. Beautiful times. Usually I was one of two or three that prayed in English, but it was a sweet time of fellowship and prayer. I spent a lot of time with Brian’s wife Debbie, and his little girls Grace & Hope the first half of the trip. Also got really close with Joy and her friend Katelyn during the entirety of the camp – we danced together and swam together and had a blast.
Baron, his wife Beth, and their family were such a blessing to me. Baron led the tutor meetings in the morning, where we all ordered coffee and had a time of sharing and prayer before studying the book of Jonah. By far my favorite part of SpeakOut – both weeks. Jonah is now fully marked up in my Bible with underlines and notes. Inbetween meetings, I loved on their kids, especially the girls, Nora & Mariah. The night of the second goodbye party there was a freak storm that came up over the lake and it started pouring rain, lightning and thundering. I was caught down by the shore in the storm with a handful of other people who were huddled under the shelter trying to stay dry, and ended up waiting the storm out inside the little tiki hut, perched on a bar stool with Nora singing to her to keep her calm. There was so much rain all the water came pouring in and floated my flip flops away haha. A beautiful rainbow afterwards too! I spent my last night in Macedonia at their house, and it was a wonderful way to wrap up the entire trip and unwind before heading home.

During the first half of the trip: I jumped off the bridge into the river at Struga, got in the freezing cold (like 40 degrees) water at St. Naum, took a little boat down the river to see the mineral springs, and spent most of my time with my campers, volunteers and staff. I went to bed at a fairly decent time for the first half of the trip, and got good sleep, though I was up early in the mornings for the prayer walks. I played my fiddle several times, and everyone loved it – I am so glad that I brought it along. The night of the first goodbye party I brought it out after most everyone had left and played for the Slovakian team, since they were leaving the next day. My time with them was short, but I enjoyed getting to know them, and had a lot of fun dancing and singing with them that night – they even showed me some new swing dancing 🙂 Now I have somewhere else I want to visit!

On the last day of the first half I climbed Galicica Mountain with several staff and volunteers, and my new team, who had just arrived the day before from Pantigo, Texas. It was a gorgeous day for a hike. We left at 7:15 in the morning, and didn’t arrive home until about 1:30 p.m. Everybody spread out, so I hiked different sections of the trail with different people, and got to hear so many testimonies and bits and pieces of people’s stories. It was a hard hike, but worth every bit of it for the gorgeous view from the top. I made two cairns while I was up there – one just for me, and a second with Michael’s help from 12 stones, just like Israel had done after crossing the Jordan. Michael joked that we should have carried the stones from the lake to really mimic that….lol he’s crazy.

The second half of the trip I spent with the Texas team (Brett, Michael, Sean, Morgan, Tessa, Alexis, Shelby & Rachel) and MacKenzie (from Arizona). We dug through Jonah together in the mornings, and stayed up way too late at night eating lasagna at Kosanostra (a favorite restaurant in Ohrid), playing Mao – a game with way too many rules, or getting ice cream in Peshtani….etc. etc. etc. They totally took me in and adopted me as an honorary Texan 🙂 Since they had a Rachel in their team, they called me Ray Ray the entire time, so we knew who was who. We had so much fun together, and it was a hard goodbye. Our last night together we all grabbed sweatshirts and blankets and laid out on the dock in a row to watch the stars and talk everything out together. The stars were so bright, and you could see so many. It was one of my favorites times. We were all so tired I think we all fell asleep at one point or another, but we wrapped it all up with a round of “I love you, Lord” and stumbled to bed 🙂

I co-tutored with MacKenzie the second half, and we shared six campers – Marija, Angela, Katerina, Bojana, Elena & Vanessa. Our group name was the Palichinki (pancake) Sisterhood – after the sweet Macedonian pancake dessert. Soooo good – it’s a thin crepe pancake filled with nutella and bananas and covered in whipped cream. Anyway, MacKenzie and had a great time tutoring together and developed a special bond working through things together.

I also had a great time getting to know Amanda, a girl from Colorado who serves at a pregnancy crisis center in Skopje. It was crazy how much we are alike! She was my roommate for the second half of the trip, and we shared so many laughing fits together 🙂

Second half of the trip: I jumped into the freezing cold current at St. Naum (the week before I only waded in it 😛 ) with Brett, Michael, Morgan, Tessa and Adam Burkey and let the currant carry me out to the warmer lake water – SO COLD! Visited the Bay of Bones – a little village replica off the lake where you can see how the original people lived (a prehistoric Jamestown of sorts). I also took the ski lift with Amy Burkey to the Vodno cross – overlooking Skopje – and had a wonderful time sharing my heart with her and looking at the mountains surrounding Skopje.

This is far from all my stories…but that’s enough for now. The whole trip was a huge lesson of trust for me. The Lord was so clear in asking gently over and over for me to surrender my trust to Him.
Trust with flights – from the moment I arrived in the first airport.
Trust with luggage – four days without my own clothes.
Trust with friendships – coming without a team and having to trust that He was going to provide one.
Trust with unseen results – when I was confused and caught up in details and couldn’t see if I was making a difference.

Each and every time He showed me just how much He cared. He even cares about peaches. The first day I was there we had peaches for breakfast at the hotel. Then for several days – no peaches. One night I had been having a really hard day and was praying out on my balcony right before I fell asleep. The last thing I prayed for was – “Lord, please let there be peaches for breakfast.”

The next morning, I was greeted at breakfast with peaches. God is so faithful, even in the little round fuzzy things.

This isn’t the end of all my stories – there are many more. But enough for now. I’ll be driving ya’ll nuts talking about everything for months to come 🙂 Just know that I’m home, covered in tan lines and a bit fuzzy brained, but in one piece.

Caio!
Rachael

Catching Up

Hi Everyone! Long time no write, I know. Sorry! It’s been a crazy week and I’m constantly running from one place or another – here and there and everywhere. Each day is full of plans, lessons, and adventures and I don’t have time to go into them now so I’ll just highlight a few to catch you up. (In no particular order)

A Team from Texas arrived last week and we went on a mountain hike the next morning – started about 7 in the morning and returned home about 1:30 p.m. It was gorgeous from the top – crystal clear day you could look down and see the lakes surrounding you and mountains everywhere. So beautiful. Reminded me of the song “Shoulders” from For King & Country. It was a hard climb – we took several breaks on the way up and took time to pray and sing songs – I think we sang most of the way down. So many beautiful little mountain flowers – reminded me of Heidi, or the Sound of Music. I wore KT tape on my knee before I went up so that I wouldn’t hurt anything and took it off the next day – now I have the funniest tanline on my knee from the tape. It looks hysterical haha

Yesterday was American Culture Night 2 and we taught them more dancing and then jumped in the lake at about 11:30 p.m. – it felt so good because we were so hot. It’s against Macedonian culture to do anything that would require extreme body temperature change, so they all thought we were gonna get sick, but it just felt amazing!

I had the opportunity to catch a bus and go to Ohrid to see one of my campers from two years ago – it was a neat experience to see her apartment, meet her family and eat a traditional Macedonian meal with them. I was so humbled by their hospitality and the joy they had to meet me. It was also a new adventure for me – because I had never been to the city or ridden the bus by myself before and my Macedonian is far from perfect yet haha but I made it where I was supposed to be and all was good!

Thank you all for your prayers – it’s been a bit of a hard time saying goodbye to everybody from last week and saying hello (and trying to remember) all the new faces. I miss you all and wish you could come join me here.

My fiddle has been a huge source of encouragement and comfort for me – and for others. I’ve brought it out and played down by the dock next to the lake a couple times and people just gather. Trying to give them a taste of good old fashioned fiddle music – Rachael style J

Oh that’s another thing. There’s another Rachel here from the Texas team, so everyone has taken to calling me “Ray Ray” so we don’t get mixed up…

I know it’s not a lot sorry but hopefully this gives you a glimpse of life here. Crazy busy and packed from one minute to the next. I’m holding up well though. I’ll be home and talking all of you guys’ ear off before you know it!

Caio!
Rachael

Bridges & New Friends

Dobra Utro! (Good morning)

Last week we spent lots of time preparing for the campers to come and now they have arrived! We welcomed them with lots of colorful balloons and #SpeakOutMK signs all over the main room. It was so festive! The day they arrived we spent the rest of our time waving at the campers arriving and introducing ourselves, and sometimes hiding from them because we weren’t supposed to be introduced until that night haha. Each of the tutors chose a song to enter to, and we dressed up a little to make it more fun. I came in to Taylor Swift’s 22, Olivia was sporting a camo jacket and bounced in to a Lecrae song, Gloria had a Spanish sombrero on her head, Vern had a circus theme, and Keith dressed like Superman – we even improvised a long red cape…so much fun!!! Everyone loved it. 😉

Last night was American night – we taught them American dances, tasted American food, (we even made smores over red white and blue candles haha!) and they even got the chance to play baseball – all in all a fun and exhausting night. I tried to teach them the Virginia Reel, which we BUTCHERED, but the ChaCha Slide, Cupid Shuffle & Cotton Eyed Joe went much better lol. Then they grabbed my hand and taught me a flurry of quick step Macedonian traditional dances – they are so graceful I am amazed at how quickly their feet move!!! 🙂

I have six campers – beautiful girls – we’re having so much fun getting to know each other and sharing our stories back and forth. A ballerina, one who wants to be a doctor for allergies (we’ve been talking about herbs and she’s going to point out some native plants for me), A future genetic physicist, a future lawyer, a girl with a flair for acting and theater, and a future economist….a wonderful group! We all got ice cream yesterday at Peshtani – the village nearby, and talked for several hours. I’m enjoying getting to know them better, and getting to talk about important life topics with them! Yesterday they had a talk on good life choices, and how our choices effect who we are today, and in the future. Today they were talking about relationships, the real meaning of love, if love derives from freedom or control. Deep stuff, I’m excited to dig into it.

We tutors are really enjoying a tutor devotional time in the mornings with Baron – we’re digging through the book of Jonah – it’s been very insightful and encouraging. One of my favorite times of the day.

Odds and Ends: Went to Struga – a town with a river running through it that leaves from Lake Ohrid….in the city center is a bridge over the river, and I totally went with a group and jumped off the bridge into the water. Not far when you’re on the ground looking up at it, but when you’re sitting on the edge of the bridge staring down you have a “what the heck am I doing with my life” moment right before you scream and jump in! haha SO MUCH FUN. I loved it. So now, if somebody says “If your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?”….I have the answer. Yep, totally would 😀

Having so much fun here in my Macedonian home – they’re all convinced I need to stay and are trying to find me a Macedonian boyfriend to solidify that idea haha 😉 Don’t worry mama, I’m still coming home!

Love to all! (P.S. Sorry no pictures, the wifi here is horrible lol – I’ll put some up when I can)

Caio!
Rachael

 

 

 

 

Trust & Clean Clothes

Zdravo (hello) from Macedonia!

Thank you all for all your prayers – it’s been a crazy several days for me. I’ll share the details, but first, thank you thank you thank you for all the prayers and notes on face book, etc. It’s meant so much to me and encouraged me so much.

This past week has been one giant lesson of trust for me. Everyone who knows me knows that I am a do-it-myself, take-charge kind of girl. I like to do things my way, and get them done right and quickly. A character trait that I need to modify, and believe me…my character has got a once over this week haha.

I left church Sunday morning, all excited and ready for my trip. Everybody had just prayed for me, and so many hugs and promises to pray….it was a perfect day for an adventure.

Enter, United Airlines.

To make a very long (and I mean 6 hours long) story short, I went through security twice, my family stood their ground at the service desk, threatening not to leave until I had a good ticket, and I ended up with a completely different flight plan. I took off about 6 o’clock that night, on a plane bound for Chicago – Frankfurt, Germany – Zagreb, Croatia – Skopje, Macedonia.

Flights were smooth once I was actually on my way, and I met some awesome travel buddies. Helped an elderly Iranian lady buy her lunch because her English was too broken to order it herself – she was so cute…she kept calling her daughter on her phone and giving it to me so that I could assure her and her daughter that she was indeed on the right flight and would be home soon. Fell asleep on the plane to Germany next to a new-found Moroccan friend – the two of us had an entire row in the back of the plane to ourselves so we were able to stretch out. 🙂 On the plane to Skopje I met a college student from Colorado on his way to visit his mom in Kosovo…and we lost our luggage together. 😛

I finally got my luggage today, and was thanking God for clean clothes at dinner tonight. Simple things, yes? But this morning I read that “He clothes the flowers in the field”. God knew all about me and my luggage and my lack of a swimsuit for four days when I’m surrounded by crystal clear beautiful water. I think everybody even remotely my size offered anything and everything they had brought to me. It became a camp wide game – whose clothes is Rachael wearing today??? 😉

It’s hard to trust. Hard to trust that your luggage is going to get there. Hard to trust other people for basic things like – let’s be blunt – clean underwear. Hard to trust that God has a plan for all of this. I know He does, and it was a much needed lesson for me to learn.

So here I am, on Macedonian time, kicking it on the front porch watching the sun set over Ohrid lake. It’s gorgeous here, and the mountains surrounding me are a constant reminder of God’s faithfulness, strength, power and creativity. I’m in the middle of orientation and preparation for the camp – campers arrive Saturday so we’re doing a lot of cultural study, etc. at the moment. Oh, and the worship is fantastic – I’ve had the chance to play with the staff and am loving it. The lack of a carryon to bring my fiddle was 110% totally worth it J

To end, here are some pictures from the trip so far! My fellow tutors are Gloria & Vern, Olivia (my room mate), Brian Stout (I’m holding his daughters in some of the pictures haha) and Keith. 😀

Love to all! Caio!
Rachael

^Hopeche “Little Hope” My buddy ❤ One of Brian’s sweet girls.

^Everyone wanted carried…Left, Keith has Benji & Nathan and I have Gracie 🙂

^ Adam & I – he’s the one who got me excited about coming the first time!

 

^ To give you an idea of how clear the water is. This is taken from the edge of the dock, which I don’t touch bottom even when diving off of. Yeah.

^ and finally, a Shopska salad – I’ve been craving this since I left last time – it’s just cucumbers and tomatoes smothered in this awesome Macedonian cheese made out of who knows what but it’s awesome. 😀