May 19

Last night was less than ideal. The bed was about as soft as a sheet of plywood. But I got through it, and the shower was utterly fantastic. After a quick breakfast, we got on the road. The first stop was a brother's house and mechanic shop. He has received a sum of money to start this business and is doing well. He also does concrete molding. His house is very interesting, as be has built it entirely himself. The next stop was a church, Futog. The family there has two young daughters, one about three and the other no more than one. They are both adorable. The baby got fussy until I came over and played with her. I got to hold her for a while. She is so sweet. From there we moved on to another church. This church had a large garden behind it, but no family living in it. The family has a really nice home down the street. They have a large garden, fruit trees, chickens, and a basketball court. They also have a gorgeous landscaped courtyard. One of the girls is eleven, and she has down syndrome! She is absolutely adorable. After sitting on their beautiful patio for a while, we left for the next church. First we visited the brother's house near the church. Out front of the house they had several pallets of fertilizer, two tractors, a few implements and a mid size shed. In the shed was a vat of milk that could hold about three to four hundred gallons. They also have two portable automatic milkers. You simply attach the machine to the top of a milk can, plug it in and fire it up.  They have a small dairy farm and also farm 170 hectares. That's about four hundred acres, which is a lot for over here. Three families work together to farm it all. The dining room and kitchen is spectacular. It's easily the nicest home I've seen yet. The family here lost a son in a farming accident, he was run over by a tractor. Before long, we went to visit the church. The church was brand new, and a sight to behold. While it was not fancy, it made very good use of limited space. Honestly, I have yet to see a church anywhere that is more practical. After a thorough tour, we went back to their house. We sat around the table and then they gave us noodle soup. I only ate one bowl cause I knew that more was coming. It was good though. Then they completely filled the table with food. There was fried chicken, roasted pork, breaded chicken cutlets, meat loaf, chicken paprikash, layered meat tort, a pork rouladen, stuffed cabbage, a potato salad, a pasta salad, a cucumber and tomato salad, and hot peppers. After all that, we had Black Forrest torte, dobosh torte, cream horns, and various little bars. For once, I was really hungry at the beginning. Needless to say, I was quite stuffed at the end. The next stop was a church in the city. The front was pretty narrow but it was very deep. In the middle, there was a nice courtyard. We walked around the church and then the minister took us into church. They were just getting ready to start church so we joined them for one song and gave greetings. As we were leaving, I got some comic relief. I had almost made it to the door already, and there were three late teen/early twenties sisters walking out a little ways behind. As I looked back, the elder got my attention and raised his eyebrows while directing my gaze excitedly to the sisters. It turns out that they understood English pretty well. It was quite amusing. From there, we went to a nursing home of sorts. A family takes care of a number of old women, while also being in charge of the church there. After a while of socializing, we headed back to the hotel. We didn't have long there, just enough time to change and then we went to church. At church we sang a couple songs, listened to the minister speak a few words in closing (their service was almost over), sang some more, and then stood around and talked for a while. There was a brother there from Australia, who is married to one of the Serbs from the Novi Sad church. They both speak English well. There was also an 18 year old young man who could speak it a little bit. We got along well, with Peter, Marion, the brother and sister from Australia, and Opa acting as translators with the others. As we were leaving, Marion made the comment that one of the sisters "wants to have us for dinner at seven tomorrow night." To which Dave replied: "oh yeah? and what is she going to serve with us? we could feed an army!" Due to the amount of exhaustion in the car, we all found this quite humorous and the car was filled with uproarious laughter for quite some time. Poor Oma was nearly crying from laughter. Once back at the hotel, I got to skype my dear friends Christina AND Heather. It was great fun. After that I tried to use skype to call home, but paypal flagged the transaction as fraudulent, and it kicked me off in two minutes. I did get to have a nice little chat with Grandma though. Mom is going to be very disappointed that she missed me. We will make sure we call as soon as we get to Antioch. My allergies have been awful the past two days, most likely due to the exceptionally large amount of what appears to be cottonwood seed floating around everywhere. Opa gave me some claritin to take, so hopefully that will help. I'm very tired, and it's another early morning tomorrow, so I'm going to sign off. Please continue to pray. This trip is getting quite exhausting. I'm tiring of taking notes. Nevertheless, I'm going to continue to take them because I know I'll want them later.