How not to do Serbia in a week...Part 1

Well, as some of you know Matt and I are back in the states. Serbia didn't quite work out. So to let everyone know how are week in Serbia went and the reason we are back so soon, we have decided to just put the whole story on the blog site. We didn't get a chance to write anything on the blog site while we were over there because we were busy trying to get everything figured out and our time spent on the internet was in internet cafes emailing people with legal issues. So get ready...cause it is quite a story. You might not believe some of it...but I promise everything from sleeping in airports to spending the night in Turkish mafia hotels, to being told that it was okay to bribe officials is completely true. So here we go....
THE FIRST FLIGHT:
We left KC on Thursday, August 27th on a flight to Chicago. While in the air, the pilot came on the intercom and told us that there were tornados in Chicago and that the air traffic controllers tower had been evacuated so we would be landing in Indianapolis for a while. He also added that we didn't have enough gas to keep circling around. So everyone on the plane was completely okay with landing :) We ended up sitting on the run way for about 3 hours. They let us off the plane for 30 min. to grab dinner and to stretch our legs. We got back on the plane and sat for 3 more hours. Finally, when we thought they were going to say we were staying in Indianapolis, they reported that we were going to Chicago. YEAH!!!
CHICAGO:
So we get to Chicago around 9:30 p.m. Our flight to Vienna Austria was suppose to leave at 4:45 p.m. We had figured that there was no way that it had left yet because of the tornados. However, we found out that there had been an hour window (between tornados) that flights had left and so our flight had left right on time. Lucky them :) We tried to call the international flight center but it was closed and didn't open until 9 the next day. So because of all of the cancelled flights and delays, the airport brought in 1000 cots and set them up in the baggage claim area. MAtt and I were lucky because we got an early lead on this so we were the first people to claim a cot. We ended up in a corner with only 7 or 8 other cots. To picture this...picture a refugee camp. Cots were set up every where and people that didn't get a cot had broken down the cardboard boxes and were sleeping on them. People were covering up with their clothes and using their clothes as pillows. The night sounds consisted of snoring, airline intercoms, and the creaking of cots. At 4:00 a.m. we got our wake up call because they were cleaning up the cots and the baggage claim area. We headed over to the international terminal to figure out our flight. Once we were over there we found out that the Austrian Airlines didn't open until 12:00 or 1:00. So we headed back to where we had come from. We waited in line for around 30 min. and finally got seats reserved for a 4:45 flight. We hung out in the international airport for the rest of the day and finally got on the plane. Lucky for us we were able to get onto all of our flights and finally arrive in Serbia. When flying on Austrian Airlines we were surprised by the airplane. The seats were bright green with bright red seatbelts. There were bright colored clothes laying over the head rests and the walls of the airplane were baby blue. The attendants were decked out in red suits, red panty hose, red shoes and baby blue scarves around their necks. It was quite a sight. So overall our trip to Serbia took from 1:27 p.m. on August 27th to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday , August 29th.

Okay...we are getting ready to go to dinner so I will continue our story afterwards.

A Tired Day

Hello everyone. Today is a tired day. I would much rather be doing something else besides packing and worry about the house...but I am just going to have to suck it up! First...I know that selling your own house saves you money...but wow it is a lot of work and we really don't know what we are doing. Kind of scary huh?
However...some good news is that we have packed for Serbia and we are looking good on space and hopefully weight. We even get to take our bathrobes!
We have started learning Serbian through a website that we were able to download. It is found at http://www.byki.com/ and it is awesome. If you are wanting to learn any type of language...this is the website for you. Teachers...it is a good website if you want to implement it into your classroom (especially if you have a smart board). Speaking of teachers...it is really weird to not be getting a classroom ready. I kind of miss it...(strange...I never thought I would say that).
It looks as if we are going to be moving stuff out of our house starting Monday night and hopefully finishing it on Tuesday.
One thing that is so amazing about this whole move is that we have got to see all of the helpful people in our lives. We have had so many people offer to do things for us. We have had people offer storage, help to clean the house, help to move things, help to pack, and most importantly we have had so many people say that they are praying for us. It is so cool and I hope that one day Matt and I can be as helpful as the people that are in our lives.

A prayer request from us:
There is not a lot of Protestant churches over in Belgrade, so please pray that we can find people that share the same faith as us. Pray that we can be a tool for God and that we can plant his seeds.
Today I am going to look for some cool websites to let you know more about Belgrade and Serbia. So make sure to check the website for more information. I have also added an awesome picture of an area in Belgrade. Beautiful huh?

We've Made a Friend!!!

Hello everyone...I don't have much time at this moment but i wanted to update eveyone really quickly on a few things. 1st...we have made a new friend. Her name is Andrea and she is also a teacher at the Berlitz school. She emailed us the other day and offered to let us stay at her apartment until we have found our own apartment. Isn't that awesome! We thought we were going to have to stay in a hotel until we found a place. So not only have we found a friend, who loves to cook :), but she is saving us money!! YEAH! We also made another friend, named Trevor, who just got back from teaching in Belgrade, and he gave us his number to ask questions. We talked with him this morning and he made us so excited to be going. He assured us that it was the hidden gem of Europe. He asked if we like coffee...well, of course we excitedly said YES, and he let us know that there is a cafe on every corner. He said that it is a past time of the Serbians to hang out at the cafes. Is that perfect or what!!

We also got our official international teacher card today along with our packet of information that let us know some more details. It is all coming together and I can't believe it. WE just hope that we can get everything done before we leave.

I am so behind!!

Okay everyone! I know that I have not updated this thing in forever and I am truly sorry. I promise that I am going to do better! Matt and I have been in China the last two weeks and it was amazing. We fell in love with the people in the village and loved seeing the scenery as we hiked through the mountains. God was with us the whole trip and kept us safe from any danger. Even though there was a language barrier, we were able to connect with people and show God's love to them. We played with the kiddos and danced with the adults! We have about 600 pictures plus video footage! Right now I am on my in-laws computer, so I don't have any pictures with me, but I promise to post them so that you can get a look at what we saw and did.
Our big new right now is that we got placed for our teaching job this upcoming year! We will be teaching English at the Berlitz language school in Belgrade, Serbia. Serbia is above Greece and across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. They speak Serbian. We found out while we were China and little did we know that our phone was ringing off the hook while we were away with interested renters for our house. God has been in total control, even when we didn't think he was. He has kept us on our toes and we have truly learned what living by faith means. We had been looking for the perfect laptop at a good price for months and couldn't quite find one. When we arrived back from China, we saw that it was tax free weekend and we saw an add in the paper for the laptop we had been wanting. They had two left in the store...so we got one and my parents got the other one. Crazy huh?? It is all working out. We are leaving on Wednesday, August 23rd and we will arrive in Belgrade on the 24th. We start training on the 27th as well as meeting with a real estate agent after our training on the 27th. Things are happening quite quickly, but everything is going quite smoothly so we are trucking along. I will later post some links to information about Belgrade and the school that we are teaching at. We are planning on keeping our blog updated weekly (or even more that) once we get over there. We are also using Skype as another way of communicating home. It is an internet phone. It is free to download and it cost nothing to talk on it through the computer. You can go to www.skype.com and get more information about it. Let us know if you get it so we know that we can talk to you while we are over there.

Okay...I have got to run, but I promise that I will update you more as we get more information.