Last time, I ended my blog with information that I was baking baklava with Mrs. Crouch, but I wrote that I still didn\u2019t know how it tasted, because it had to rest for a while until it “absorbed” the syrup. We were all excited for tomorrow\u2019s breakfast so we could finally taste it. It was great! The seminarians who were here before told me that the Americans put a lot of sugar when they make something sweet, so they prepared me to be ready, because it will be too sweet … well, I do not know what to say … They probably forget that I am from Serbia, from the Balkans, from the country where sugar is one of the main thing which we put everywhere (I will not even talk about the ointment), so this baklava was just fine, and all the Americans cakes and pies and other sweet delicious stuff. But remembering this \u201cwarning\u201d and other things forced me to think again about the question: “why I came here\u201d and \u201cwhat is my goal”. Indeed, I found myself coming here with unrealistic expectations. I’m probably going to mention this in my last blog, so stay with me until end. There might be some price for endurance, perhaps the crown of life – see Revelation 2:10.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s your day today,\u201d – they said, \u201cyou can do whatever you want\u201d. I had my birthday last Tuesday. Yay. Since I didn\u2019t want this day to be more special than any other, I spent the day in the church. We went to several home visits with the pastor. I am grateful that I can go to these visits with pastor Doug \u2013 it means a lot to me and I learn a lot from it \u2013 just practical things that I probably have no chance to learn at the Seminary. I spent my birthday with people who needed attention more than me. On Wednesday I made a record of the hours spent with the pastor \u2013 13 hours. OMG! Imagine that! In the morning, Mr. Crouch has took me to the pastor\u2019s house around 9am and at 10:30pm I came back home and locked the door. Last week, I was thinking about swimming in the pool that this family has. However, I don\u2019t know why I was thinking about it \u2026 the whole week was cold, it rained, we had lots of thunders and storms \u2013 they even needed to close the road which we take on our way to the church so we had to take another. It just reminded me of the elections for governor of Michigan and one slogan that I heard: fix the damn roads!<\/em> By the way, today I moved to the Nelson\u2019s and found out that the road was still closed (it\u2019s been 10 days already) – and then they say that Slovaks cannot fix roads \u2026 oh stop it!<\/p>\n Thursday was reserved for Grand Haven, MI. Court, Cheri and I went there late afternoon and met up with their daughter Mallory and her husband Keith \u2026 and of course there was also Tobias. Do you know who is Tobias? If not, go search \u2013 you will find him in two of my blogs. However, I forgot to write that Tuesday was a special day for me \u2013 it was the first time I held baby in my arms and it was this little kid, Tobias. It was unexpected. When pastor Doug and I came home from a premarital counseling, Mrs. Crouch put him in my hands as soon as we entered the house. I had no choice but to take him. And it was an extraordinary experience for me. Children are really something amazing. But, back to the Thursday story. We spent the afternoon in Grand Haven and in the evening we were at Grand Haven Musical Fountain.<\/p>\n Last week was more-less relaxing week \u2013 I think. We were relaxing during the visits. But this week has not begun with relax and it probably will not be about relaxing at all because I will preach again this Sunday so I need to work on my sermon. Today was the last day at the Crouch\u2019s house \u2013 imagine I just made a sad face. During my coffee time around 10:30-ish, Cheri told me that they are going to their daughters house because their basement just flooded up. No wonder. Since they were not sure if they needed my help, I stayed at home with Gandy as a security. But after one hour I realized that I also am one of the family members and I wondered why I didn\u2019t go with them. Luckily after some time, Mr. Crouch came up to take some things, so I went with him to Muskegon. Even though I didn\u2019t have the option to swim in the pool, I had a basement-pool here. No, I\u2019m kidding \u2013 there wasn\u2019t that much water. Yesterday afternoon we had a visit from Midland. It was the Rev. Megan (check-out my last blog and you will find out who is she). This day we changed our plans for afternoon because of this situation, so we were all at the Mellory and Keith\u2019s house.<\/p>\n After dinner, we returned to North Muskegon and put my suitcase in the truck and Gandy and I said our goodbyes for the last time. The next two weeks I will be with Kim and Don and their son Eric in Whitehall area. I look forward to this new family and the time we spend together.<\/p>\n Take care! Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last time, I ended my blog with information that I was baking baklava with Mrs. Crouch, but I wrote that I still didn\u2019t know how it tasted, because it had to rest for a while until it “absorbed” the syrup. We were all excited for tomorrow\u2019s breakfast so we could finally taste it. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americantime","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}