The end of the story...the part you have been waiting for

Okay...so here I am sitting at the computer and it is almost midnight. Today has been a difficult day because I have been so mixed with different emotions. I finally came to realize that part of it was that I had the dreadful part of the story still to write on the blog. This is the hardest part to write because it is where the feelings of disappointment, hurting, and confusion take place. All of the other things that happened to us in the trip were a true part of traveling and culture shock. I thought that since we didn't write on our blog the whole time that I would fill you in on as many details as I could, however, I am tired of putting this specific posting off and I know many of you are ready to hear the true reason we came back. So here is goes...
All in all the whole reason we came back was because we were lied to by the administrator of Berlitz (the school we were suppose to teach). His name is Sasha and he is Austrian. He is very much a business man and a crook (in our opinion). Before going over to Belgrade, we were told that we would have a working visa and a contract for the school. The working visa would make us legal to work. To obtain this visa, we were told that we would need to leave the country every 90 days because we wouldn't be residents but by leaving and getting the visa renewed we would be legal to work and get paid. Sasha had also set us up with a real estate agent to help us find a flat to live in. Sasha also told us that we would be making more than double of what Serbians make and that we would be getting plenty of hours to work. When arriving in Belgrade, we starting hearing from other teachers a very different story. They were having a hard time paying their rent because they weren't getting enough hours. We then found out that Sasha had hired 14 new teachers for the year. How was this going to work?
We had met a girl name Adriana, who is a teacher at Berlitz. She was moving out of her flat and her landlord was looking for residents to live there. She showed us the flat and we liked it plus it was very low rent cost. The landlord met with us and asked us if we had a work visa and a contract with the school. We said that we would be getting a visa and that we did have a contract. We told the landlord we would talk with Sasha the next day at training about getting the documents to show her. The landlord said to call her the next day when we got everything straightened out.
Now I must interrupt the story to say that since we had gotten to Belgrade, Matt and I just hadn't felt quite right. We blamed it on homesickness but we had a sick feeling that we had been lied to and that things were not going to be as good as we thought they were going to be.
Back to the story...the next day we went to training. Before we had been told that there was 4 days of training and nothing was mentioned about paying for it. At training we learned that there were 4 days of training with the regional manager, demos on Friday, and then 3 more days of training the next week with the administrators of the school. You may be asking "What are demos?" Well this was when you were watched while teaching and then they decide if you are hired or not. WHAT!!!! This is what was running through our heads...so we aren't even hired yet? After this, we were asked to each pay 60 Euros for training and 30 Euros for the materials (which were photo copied books). When we told them we didn't have the money with us, they said they could just take it out of our first check. Our funny feeling was certianly not going away.
After training that day, we sat down with Sasha because we had some questions. We asked if we had a contract, he said yes. We asked about the demos on Friday and he said they would chose after the demos of who would keep teaching. Now...to be fair to the crook Sasha, he did make is sound like we would be hired and get hours because we had come so far. He never came out and said it but he did give the impression. That is all the credit I am going to give him. We asked how we needed to get a working visa (since we were under the impression that we would be getting one). He told us that we would be getting a tourist visa. We asked, "Does that make us legal to work?" He replied, "What is illegal? What is legal?" I cleared up the questions with "If the police stop us and ask us what we do in Belgrade, can we tell them we teach?" He said, "No, you tell them you are a tourist." We then went on to tell him that we had found a flat for 250 Euros and that the landlord had asked us for a working visa and a contract. We told him we didn't want ot go through the real estate agent because he couldn't find us anything cheap and that we would have to pay him money for finding us a place. Sasha said that it was crazy for the landlords to be asking us for those things. He told us that all the landlords needed to do was to take us down to the police station every 3 months (after we had left the country and came back) to register us. Then he told usto get the landlords number and he would call them. He said, "If you get into any trouble with teh police or landlords, we can talk you out of little things or bribe if needed." He made us a reservation at the Hotel Royal so that we could register to be a tourist. To clear this up...you can either go down to the police station and get your name in the computer or you can stay at a hotel and they will put you in the computer themselves.
Both of us sat in that room with our eyes open widely and our mouths hanging wide open. Since when did it become okay to bribe and lie?? This was not what we had been expecting at all.
After the meeting with Sasha, we were meeting with the landlords. They had brought a friend who worked for the police so that she could help us answer some of the questions that we had the night before. After telling them what Sasha had said, the lady from the police called him. They put him on speaker phone so we could hear. They asked about a contract and he said, "Their contracts are worthless." They asked him about working visas and he said, "It is too much red tape. If you take them I will send you money and more people." I was sick and Matt was furious. After getting off the phone, the lady from the police called the police station to talk to someone with legal questions. During this phone conversation we found out that if we were caught we could get fined anywhere from $500 to $30,000 US dollars. Not only this but we could easily be deported or arrested. If an inspector came to the school and found out we were working, we could also be fined. Not only would we would be fined, but the landlords could as well because they were registering us as their guests. Sasha would be paying us in cash, so he would never have us on the books and he wouldn't get in trouble at all. We also found out that all Sasha had to do was pay $1000 for each of us to be able to get us a working visa. Yet if he did that he would have to put us on the books and pay taxes on us. At the end of the conversation we learned that Sasha had gone bankrupt when we lived in Austria and that he can left the country to run a business in Serbia.
Needless to say, we were very hurt and angry. We called the agency that we had went through to find this job, thinking that they would take our side and help us out. Yet, to our surprise, they simply said that is just how it is in Serbia. They totally took Sasha's side and we are still fighting with them to try to get some of the money that we paid them back. We flew back to the states 2 days after that and now we are in Houston.
So there it is...hard to believe isn't it? One thing that I didn't put in there was that the reservation that Sasha had made us was at a hotel that was ran by, we think, the Turkish mafia! There was a bouncer at the door as we entered, red carpet, red painted staircases (totally socialist), smokey lobby, people sitting in corners and wires hanging from the walls in the rooms. WOW!!
Now that we are back in the states we are still in shock of all the events. Yet, through it all, we did meet some awesome people that helped us out so much. I don't think that we could have made it without them. On our last night there, we all hung out and it was a very sad goodbye. Matt and I wished that things would have truly turned out differently.
Matt and I are so disappointed that this happened. This was our dream and our plan for probably the next 2 years. It is hard to be bitter at the whole thing, however, we do know that we have an open book sitting in front of us. At this point we are homeless and unemployed...two things I never thought we would be. We are having to be dependant on friends and family and we are truly having to put down our pride. Yet, we have had so many people offer us their homes and help. It has been overwhelming to see how helpful people can be. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends and family members. To be honest, there are times that we are bitter and angry at the situation. We are trying our hardest to keep our heads up and look at the positive points of this whole situation. Please keep us in your prayers that we would be led in the right direction and that can keep a sense of peace through this whole ordeal. This to shall pass and we will look back at it and laugh.
You might be asking, "So do they have a plan?" Well...not really. We are taking it one day at a time right now. We don't want to settle and get stuck in jobs that we didn't really want just because we were desperate. We are really searching for the direction we want to go. It is looking like we both will sub at schools in the KC area. By doing this we aren't tied down to contracts or full time jobs and it will allow us to be free to go if needed. By doing this also, it will help us to get back onto our feet and save some money.
So there it is...the story of Matt and Jodi living in Serbia for a week. Please keep us in your prayers and we will keep you posted when we learn what our next adventure will be.

How not to do Serbia in 1 week...Part 2

FIRST SIGHT OF BELGRADE:
Okay...so back to the story. We arrived in Belgrade around 2:30 on Saturday. Our school administrator picked us up from the airport and got us into a cab. The cab then took us to Andrea's apartment. Andrea is another teacher at the Berlitz school and she had offered to let us stay at her house until we could find an apartment so we didn't have to pay money for a hotel. I won't lie...the first sights of Belgrade were not quite as impressive as we would have hoped but we were excited to try to make it our home. Andrea's apartment is in New Belgrade or as the Serbians say Novi Beograd. Let me just tell you right now...New Belgrade doesn't exactly look new. It looks pretty rough but it is the part of town that families and older people live. We unloaded the cab with all of our bags (4 checked pieces of luggage, 2 backpacks, and 2 carry ons) and hauled them up to Andrea's apartment. Luckily she only lived on the 2nd floor. As we walked into Andrea's apartment we saw that it was very small. We are talking like 12X15 living space/bedroom, very small kitchen and bathroom/washing machine room. She had cleared out 2 shelves for us, we unloaded some stuff and went into the city. Now, going back to the apartment, we later found out that she had a very good size bathroom. Most flats (apartments) have the washing machine in the kitchen and you can't hardly close the door to the bathroom when you are sitting on the toilet because it is so small. Anyway...back to the story. We went into the city where we rode the bus, walked around and met some people. We met Andrea's friend Marko, who is from Belgrade Serbia and knows excellent English, Evan, who was also from Belgrade Serbia, Andria, who is Aussi/Serbian and is a teacher at Berlitz, and Tamara, who is also Aussi/Serbian and had just moved to Belgrade to teach at Berlitz but they had informed her when she got there that she didn't have a job. We had drinks with them at a neat little cafe. We walked along the Pedestrian Zone seeing the old buildings and shops. While we were standing around, a man (who was selling things) asked Andrea if Matt was German. She said, "No, he is American." Immediately, the man wanted Matt to give him money because since he was American he would have money. We went to the Fortress where there was a photography exhibit. We looked around and sat over looking the river while talking about places we wanted to go visit while we were in Eastern Europe. We parted ways and went back New Belgrade for the night. Thus concluding day 1 in Serbia.

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.

My Nephew

I started feeling bad because I had put a picture of another baby before my nephew! So I thought I would show everyone my cutie pie nephew whom Matt and I love to pieces. His name is Luke and he just turned 2 last month. So cute!