to kosovo and back.

Last Wednesday, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Kosovo with my school for a long weekend. Our teachers prepared us for the worst...Expect war torn towns, no toilet paper, no electricity, really cold weather, etc...So we prepared ourselves for battle! To our surprise, it was nothing like that. Kosovo was absolutely beautiful, it has become a really developed little country since the war, the electricity does shut off during the day but it's not that big of a deal, there is running water, the food was really good, and the weather was not that bad...Overall, I would totally go to Kosovo again. There were some funny things I learned about Kosovo though while I was there...
1. The country is technically called Kosova.
2. People that come from Kosova are called Kosovars.
3. They love love love Americans.
4. They love Americans so much that they have streets named after Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, etc.
5. The country is 97% Muslim and 3% Catholic.

We were there for really only one full day but that day was jam-packed with ministry. In the morning, I got to help out with a Christian daycare that takes in kids a couple days a week. The parents of these kids don't really care about their kids and considering the conditions that some of these kids are living in, if they were in any other country, they would probably be taken away from their parents. So we played with the kids and just loved on them. In the afternoon, we went to a poor village to work with the kids. I had the awesome opportunity to talk to them for a few minutes and share a bible story. Most of the kids from the village had never known their father because they had probably been killed by the Serbians when they were trying to take over the country. It was very sad. It will be a memory I have forever. I also got a few marriage proposals from the 12 year old boys...haha! After Kosovo, we went back down to Thessaloniki for a day and sang at some churches to raise money for our school. The weekend was awesome and such a blessing!


We found snow at one of our pit-stops and tried to make a mini snowman!


In Kosovo, there were horses just walking around right next to us!


The kids playing at the daycare.


Say Cheese!


One of the little girls from the village we went to.


Here I am teaching the story to the kids in the village.


Here is a picture I took while on the bus...It's rubble left over from a church that got bombed or burned down in the war.


We had to drive through Macedonia to get in and out of Kosovo...Funny story: We actually left one of the students accidentally while they were in the bathroom and they had to catch a ride with a truck driver and get to the border while we were waiting.


The whole gang that went on the trip!