3 weeks to go

Bok! (hello)

Kako ste! (how are you?)

We have been working on our Croatian. We are kind of to the point where we can sort-of pray in Croatian... as long as it's really simple. Part of our problem is that the language routinely strings strange letters and sounds together.  The word forCroatian is Hrvoski.  Humm.  How do you say three consonances while rolling the r?

And we need to get a more discerning ear.

j is pronounced yeh as in year.
lj is also pronounced as a y sound
dj is pronounced as a y sound
And d with a line through the stem also has a y sound.

I think sometimes the tongue moves through the L or the D to get to the Ysound... but it is creating a more athletic tongue than I've had in the past. Try it yourself. zdravlje - health or crkva - the Church or učiteljica – teacher (female). (the č had a ch sound).

A week ago Tom finished the painting and floor laying in the rental.  This week it was the fence.

This week we had two of our children come to help us prepare for our move and our mission. We have cattle staying on our property and Tom wanted to finish the 550 feet of fencing across the back. This week he got most all the fence posts in and with the help of the cow owner and a son-in-law got 400 feet of it put up.

A daughter and her children helped rake up and pick up all the dead-wood stick that had dropped from trees onto the front lawn. And another daughter... with perhaps some help from her children... packed up boxes of books from downstairs bookshelves.  This is where our tenants will be staying and all our personal things need to be cleaned out.

We are finishing up medical and dental issues.  We finally got all the paperwork- marriage certificate, criminal background check, and appostle back from the government entities and sent them off so we can get our visa. Yeah!  They'll let us into the country. We're getting taxes done, setting up on-line bill pay and organizing power of attorneys for a child to take care of anything that needs doing while we're gone.

I'm trying to make sure I have shoes that will be dressy enough and comfortable enough for walking a long time in.

When we stop and think about it... we're really sad to be leaving beloved friends and family. Tom was released as Young Men's president this Sunday.  For seven years he's loved these youth and been involved in their lives. It is sad to say good-bye.

I have a darling granddaughter who smiles every time I look at her. She's six months now... she'll be two when we return.

And yet, I know that we have a promise ahead of a wonderful mission. It will be a joy to serve others. It will be wonderful to focus exclusively on what the Lord would have us do. And we... and our family will be blessed for this service.

And so we move forward.