Wrap-up

As you probably have already figured out, I was away from the internet for the last week of our trip. When we last visited, we had just held a bar b que and game party for church members and visitors last Saturday. We enjoyed another worship service with the church on Sunday, had a Father's Day lunch at the square, then caught a bus to the coast.

Here is where the annual "international incident" happened. We were so excited because the bus that pulled into our bay was this gorgeous 2-story beast. Our seats were upstairs and we settled in for a comfortable 4 hour ride. The countryside was beautiful, we traveled through mountains the entire way. After a couple of hours, we make a scheduled stop at a litte town called Riyeka. One of our teens understood a local to say that we had a 30 minute break. We all get off the bus, walk around the block to stretch our legs, find a rest room, hit the market for snacks. The Sweeney family made it back to the bus after about 15 minutes. It was not where we left it. We looked around the whole parking area and just as we were beginning to feel a little panic, the rest of the group showed up except for Kyle and Vicki. We looked around a few more minutes and came to the conclusion that the bus had definitely left us! We were stranded in an unknown town in a foreign country where noone seemed to speak English. Just as real, identifiable panic set in, the bus came around the corner with the Grahams hanging out the door. Apparently, the stop was only about 7 minutes long, the bus had indeed left us. Kyle, Vicki, and my new German friend who was in the seat in front of me (and spoke NO English) convinced the conductor to turn around and go back for us. He was less than thrilled with us messing with his schedule. He was the only person we met on the whole trip who was not friendly to us~

We finally made it to Porec (pronounced like "porridge") late that night and found taxi's to take us to the Luna Resort. On Monday, we walked to the old town of Porec to see the beautiful, ancient city. Lots of tourists, mostly from Germany and Italy. In the evenings, all visitors were gathering at the cafes to watch the soccer games.

Tuesday we split up, some going into town, some renting bicycles, some staying on the beach. We caught a late afternoon bus back to Zagreb, enjoying the ride through the mountain villages again, to stay at our hostel one last time.

Gelato is an art!

This is an aloe vera plant! Sunburn anyone??

On Wednesday morning, the leadership at the church in Zagreb invited us to a delicious breakfast and "closing ceremony" before giving us a ride to the airport. It was a lovely opportunity to end our project well with them and to be able to say goodbye. This is Mislav, our brother who helped coordinate our project.

After a group photo in front of the church, it was off to the Zagreb airport for a quick flight to Munich, Germany to spend the night. Patrick got to spend his birthday in 2 different countries!
The Croatians sang to him in the morning and before bed, he was eating apple strudel in Munich for his birthday cake. Pretty memorable!

We can't thank you enough for the way you have participated in this trip. Whether you donated funds, kept our names lifted in prayer, or kept up with us in this blog, we consider you partners in our work. We couldn't and wouldn't want to do it without you. We thank God for you and pray that next time, some of you will be with us on the plane!