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
Wide Awake 