First, our church. We have been attending an Anglican church called St. Mary's here in Belgrade. It is one of two English-speaking protestant services in the city. The "church" is located on the second floor of an old communist-era apartment block building. It consists of a small chapel, a bathroom and a meeting room used for fellowship after church. The attendance at St. Mary's is small (25-30 average weekly, I would guess), but powerful. The thing we like most about this church is the ethnic and racial diversity of the congregants, and the religious "enthusiasm" that many of them display during the services. More than half of the congregation is African, with most of those being young (twenty or thirty-something) males. These guys take their Christianity VERY seriously. It's so interesting to see how they bring their native culture to bear in a relatively stuffy Anglican setting. For example, with such a small group of people, and without a piano player most Sundays, one would think that the hymn-singing would be a little lackluster, but not so at St. Mary's -- these African dudes just sing their hearts out -- we sometimes feel as though we've been transported to a little church in Ghana or Zimbabwe. It's really cool. Such a great experience for our kids. It certainly goes to show that that one can worship in all sorts of settings, and that "church" doesn't always mean a big Nashville church where everyone is from Green Hills or Brentwood. We love this church, and I'm sure, will be sad to leave it when the time comes.
Second, border crossings. I learned something about border crossings on our most recent trip to Vienna. When crossing from a non-EU country into an EU country, or vice versa, you have to go through customs at both your country of departure and your country of arrival. So, for instance, when we travel from here to Hungary, we stop at a gate in Serbia and show passports, and do the same just a few hundred feet beyond that upon entering Hungary. When you pass from one EU country to the next, though, you don't have to stop at the border, which makes life much easier (so when we travelled into Austria from Hungary this past week, no stopping was required).
The problem with border crossings, at least in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, is that the borders frequently are incredibly backed up, and people often have to wait literally for hours to get through the border. The two times we've driven to Hungary, we've been really lucky -- our longest wait was just under an hour (and the wait the last trip was about 10 minutes). When we were returning from Vienna yesterday, though, the line to get out of Serbia and into Hungary stretched for miles, and the first 30 or so cars back (about 10 lanes -- so we're talking about 300 cars) on the Serbian side were honking their horns like crazy. I have no doubt that they had been sitting for hours waiting to get through the border, and that they were really hacked off. Unfortunately, though, for them, I'm thinking that the horn-blowing probably didn't speed things up. When things are backed up like this, the borders become literal parking lots, and people are forced to sit for hours, eating, drinking, etc. in their cars. The result, at least on the Serbian side of the Serbo-Hungarian border, is that people do a lot of littering in the process. While we were sitting waiting to cross from Serbia in to Hungary last Wednesday on our way to Vienna, I took the photo of the border -- you can see all of the trash. It's not pretty. We are lucky to live in a country where we can drive thousands of miles without having to produce our ID every few hundred miles in order to continue our trek.
Third, a young man and his father. After church last Sunday, we picked up lunch and took it to Kalamegdan Park in downtown Belgrade to eat and then to walk around the old fort that is located there. Just as we posted up under a tree, I noticed this father and his son strolling through the park. They ended up sitting down on a park bench close to us. As I've mentioned before on this blog, folks with disabilities are hidden here, either in institutions or in their homes. You really rarely see people with disabilites. The country has a lot of work to do in terms of reforming the system so that people with disabilities can have a better quality of life. Given that context, it was such a unique and amazing thing to see this father and son out in public, doing what so many other people were doing that day -- enjoying a beautiful day in Belgrade. The father was so kind to his son -- at one point he got up, left his son and walked over to an ice cream stand nearby to get ice cream for both of them. They didn't say much to each other during the time we were sitting near them, but just seeing them, and being reminded that there are at least some families in this country that have been able to keep their kids with disabilities at home, raise them, and enjoy life with them, was so reassuring. I told my kids that the father of that boy was a hero, because it's so hard to raise a child with a disability in this country, with no help, no services, no educational opportunities. They seemed to understand what I was saying, and also were happy to see another family with a family member with a disability. It was a heart-warming experience.
Hope each of you are well. Talk to you soon.
Erin
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