And so our Croatia trip comes to a close.
Friday Steve taught his last class. I worked in the library for a few more
hours and tried to leave my various piles well-labeled for the next guy.
Deborah and Joska were the two people I worked with most during these two
weeks. Both were here when I was two years ago. Deborah was a volunteer; now
she is paid to run the library and is proving very competent even if she
doesn’t have formal training. Joska will be 70 his next birthday. He has
volunteered here for years. It’s hard to convince him that we don’t need to
keep every single book that passes through our hands even if we have other
copies and this one is falling to shreds. He is too accustomed to times when evangelical
literature was scarce. But he is faithful—in the library at 6 AM to avoid the
crowds on the trolley. How many volunteers do you know who show up daily at 6?
He goes home at lunch time.
We were regular patrons of this bakery,
buying breakfast rolls and crusty buns for our evening meal. They were very
gracious as we pointed out what we wanted.
Maia drove us to the airport in Zagreb
three hours from Osijek. She too started as a volunteer and has served
faithfully for years. Her husband is a Canadian with fluent Croatian added to
his fluent French. He works an IT job in the city as well as managing the
schools computers, including the library.
I am writing from the Frankfort airport. As
I got my breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express I felt a hand on my back. Since I
had just seen Steve go a different direction, I knew it wasn’t him. I turned to
find Manfred Kohl, a long-time colleague with Overseas Council. He is here for
meetings and it was good to have a few minutes to catch up before we caught the
airport shuttle. At the airport we separated since we are on different airlines
(Thanks again, Becky and Kelvin!). We’ll meet up tonight in Minneapolis/Saint
Paul, very ready for home.
 |
| After a while, all airports look the same. Charlotte may be an exception to this with their white rocking chairs all over the place. |
No comments:
Post a Comment