Macedonia: Day Four

Jackie makes the BEST iced coffees!!

One of the kittens that Josh rescued. It lives with another family but came back for an overnight visit while it's owners were out of town

volleyball in the park with the youth

Danny and Tale's brother who was wearing the watch we brought him from his brother

fellowship at Izgrev

After arriving home so late last night, we slept a little later today and walked to Kyle and Jackie’s for a pancake breakfast around 10 a.m. After a leisurely breakfast, we gathered volleyball materials and went to the park to play volleyball with some of the youth in the community. Jeff and Amy joined us there with their kids. It started as a small group at first, but grew as players began to straggle in. Jackie and I watched the volleyball game and visited with Amy and other adults that stayed to watch. After the volleyball game, we came back to the apartment to shower and rest a bit. Kyle and Jackie joined us at 5 to go downstairs and have coffee with Olgitsa, the woman who owns the apartment we are staying in. She had met us yesterday and doesn’t speak English so we couldn’t talk with her. She called Jackie and asked if they would bring us for coffee. As I think I’ve said before, the Macedonians are very hospitable and a home visit always means something to drink, as in juice or water or soda, and also coffee or tea. The Prilep way is to serve the coffee or tea on a tray as opposed to handing it to someone. Jackie tells me that the woman of the house always sits near the kitchen so that they can move easily back and forth. Also, the TV is always on during a home visit and sometimes they will ask you what channel you would like to watch. There are always snacks as well and these vary. Most of the visits we have made will have a sweet snack or two and a savory snack. We had a lovely visit with Olgitsa and also with her niece who shared with us a “hand treatment” from a company that she is representing. We found it to be similar to Avon except that the products are “all natural”. We visited for about two hours and then left to go to Izgrev for a fellowship. It was planned that people who had attended the parenting seminar here in Prilep might want to come back and discuss questions they might have had. We had a nice group come and had some great conversation. Kyle had forgotten that it is a holiday today and also a “name day” celebration which would have kept people away. A lot of the Macedonian names are names of Macedonian saints. Each of the saints have a day in the year that people celebrate that saint. If you are named after that saint then you celebrate your "name day" on that day. Kyle said that many times the "name day" celebration is a bigger deal than a birthday. It was getting late when we left and Kyle and Jackie still needed to attend a name day celebration for someone they knew so they dropped us off back at the apartment. We had a light supper and Danny is studying for the sermon he will deliver tomorrow. We will have church on the mountain with a picnic. Until tomorrow…

Macedonia: Day Three

Lake Prespa

Lake Ohrid

we saw many little shrines along the way

Svete Naum, the Monastery of Saint Naum

peacocks were everywhere

I believe this is the tomb of Saint Naum

celebrating Kyle and Jackie's 22nd wedding anniversary

Kyle and Jackie dance a traditional wedding dance

a traditional Ohrid home

the old colisseum

Sveti Jovan Kaneo...Church of Saint John at Kaneo. It is attributed the John the Theologian

Palachinke....crepes with honey and nuts

Palachinke....I think this one has nutella and bananas

traditional Ohrid style home but this one is newer

Gutenberg Press

Today was a fun and festive day. We were scheduled to do another parenting seminar tonight in Ohrid so Kyle and Jackie took us to do some sightseeing during the day in the area. We left Prilep around 9 in the morning and took a beautiful drive over a mountain pass between Lake Prespa and Lake Ohrid. We stopped at an overlook to stretch our legs and look out over beautiful Lake Ohrid before heading down the mountain toward Svete Naum, the ancient Monastery of Saint Naum, established in 905. There were peacocks all around Svete Naum which was very entertaining for me. Kyle tells me they are considered to be a “holy bird” and is pictured on a 500 denar note. We went inside the Monastery and saw the frescoes and icons within. It has been interesting to see the different Iconostases in these churches. The Iconostasis separates the people from what they believe to be a holy place that only a priest can enter. It is reminiscent of the Holy of Holies in the Jewish Temple of the Old Testament. The Iconostasis always has an icon of Mary on one side of the door and Jesus on the other side. There are also other icons that include John the Baptist and a saint that the church is named after. After touring the Monastery, we took a short boat ride to see the natural springs that feed into Lake Ohrid. They bubble up out of the sand in water that is clear and deep! The boats are rowed by hand so the boat ride was quiet and peaceful. A perfect way to prepare for a yummy meal. We ate at Ostrovo, a restaurant located near Svete Naum that was really delicious. We ate the specials of the day which turned out to be more expensive than what we had planned but we were celebrating Kyle and Jackie’s 22nd wedding anniversary so it was okay! There were live musicians there and they played a traditional Macedonian song that is heard at a lot at weddings. Kyle encouraged Jackie to dance with him using the traditional dance that goes with the song. It was quite entertaining for us and for all of the other visitors to the restaurant. After lunch we drove over to Ohrid, passing through a resort town or two. We walked down to an ancient Roman amphitheater and then over to the ruins of an old Byzantine church that have been excavated and preserved. The intricate mosaics on the floor were lovely. We walked on wooden walkways above them which I thought was a great way to observe the pattern in the mosaics. We also saw the Baptistry for the church. We then briefly toured a newer church, The St Clement´s Monastery Church which was finished in 2002 and is dedicated to Saints Clement and Pantelejmon. The foundations of the 5th-century basilica have been preserved in front of the new church. The church was built on top of an old mosque. The Mosque had been built during the Turkish occupation. We also walked over to see Svete Jovan Kaneo, another Orthodox church. It is in a beautiful setting right on Lake Ohrid. We walked along the shorefront and stopped for coffee and a traditional Macedonian dessert, Palachinke, which are dessert crepes!  We wandered in town before meeting up with Bryan and Mandy. They are also IMB missionaries and are living and working in Ohrid. We gave our seminar tonight in a coffee shop to a group of about 16-18. The response was good and we had some lively discussion afterward back at Ima Vreme, which means “there’s time”, and is the building that Bryan and Mandy use for their local church meeting place. Bryan told us that the rent is now funded completely by the local church. We also said goodbye to an American team from Tennessee that had been serving as volunteers with Bryan and Mandy for the past eleven days. We arrived back in Prilep very very late and were thankful for a bed to fall into.