Christmas # 2 Macedonia - Post # 2

So, here's some more on Macedonia: The point of our trip was for us to help them with all aspects of a Christmas Concert. They Celebrate Chrismas on January 7th each year so me and my team members got to celebrate Christmas twice this year! They don't have traditional Christmas carols like we do and they celebrate a whole lot differently than we do but the city of Skopje was decorated beautifully with lights and trees and stars. It was spectacular and I promise to get some pictures posted soon. The city was also plastered with posters advertising "our" concert!

It seems like everyone in Macedonia plays at least two instruments and can sing! Nikola's wife Annet actually put the music program together and was the star of the show. She also had some input regarding the set design and decoration. Since Macedonia doesn't have Christmas carols and music, the songs Annet sang were all songs that are popular here in America but translated into the Macedonian language. Annet had already done the arrangements and the band and back-up singers had been practicing for months by the time we got there.

Our time was spent making decorations, taping testamonies, arranging for Rope Trees to be made, shopping for cookies & drinks and "wrapping" hundreds of calendars and New Testaments in Macedonian to hand out at the show. Our youngest team member Kyle also did some awesome computer graphic work so we could project the words to the songs on a screen during the concert so attendees would know what was being sung. The hall that Nikola and Annet rented was in the city center and seated 650 people. They said they would be very happy if 250 showed up but on the night of the concert the house was packed and it was estimated that there were over 700 people there!!! Yay God! Needless to say, we ran out of gifts, cookies and drinks. The entire concert was very well received and Nikola said he was hoping they could do something similar for Easter. I don't know if they were able to to that or not, one thing I do know is that North Point would not be sending a team to help for that one.

On Christmas morning in Macedonia the children go door to door and knock and sing a song for gifts of fruits & nuts etc., it's very much like how folks do Halloween here in the states but they do it VERY early in the morning. I need to get the words to the particular song they sing since it's kind of wild, something about the grandmother being dead... Also, Santa comes on New Year's Eve and not at Chrstmas like he does here in America. I guess he does that so he can manage to get to all the good boys and girls houses.

One thing that was very weird for us is that there was no wrapping paper to be found at any store we went to! We still can't figure that one out! Betty & Kim found some table cloths at the Vero store and we cut them in strips and wrapped a strip around the New Testaments and rolled up the calendars and put a strip around each of those as well. One other really weird thing is that we needed to get to a hardware store to buy some dowling and lumber to make our rope Christmas trees but they were closed for inventory! We went two days in a row and they were closed. On the second attempt, we were to meet Nikola there so we had a taxi drop us there and we thought we were going to get frostbite it was so doggone cold. We waited outside the closed store, freezing our bums off for at least 20 minutes. But God had other/much better plans for our rope trees. Nikola decided to take us to his school mate/friend Ilia's shop to see if Ilia could help us and boy did he ever! Justin told Ilia what the plan was and that we wanted to make these ourselves if he could help us with tools and materials but Ilia offerred to make them! He used metal poles and then welded a ring to the top and made the bases out of wood and a way for us to bolt the poles to the bases etc. They came out looking so wonderful and he only charged us the equivalent of forty American dollars! The Lord was really with us and is the reason that the whole thing was such a success!

Home Internet OUT!!!

Howdy Readers!

Just wanted to post an explanation for not posting about my mission trip etc. The trip was wonderful and I really do plan an extended post but there's been an awful lot going on and my internet at home has been out for two weeks! UGH, I can't really spend too much time on the blog during work hours, the bosses frown on that. I spent several hours on the phone with my ISP on Sunday and we did not get the issue resolved.

Here are some of my EXCUSES for not posting about the mission trip: #1: I wanted to get the other team member's pictures (this has been accomplised) #2: I have not been feeling too well and had sinus surgery recently #3: The flooding in my house and all that's been involved to get the mess cleaned up (there's much to be told about that in a future post as well) #4: I have been working full time at Manheim and part time at Trader Joe's so I can be debt free (the car's paid off...) and #5: my internet at home is out!

I promise to get caught up just as soon as I can. I am going to try to get my weekend chores completed tonight and Thursday since the weekend is packed with work at TJ's and a couple of leadership training ops at church. I'm too old for this...