Heating up, wheelchairs and garden project....

Something woke me up, in the haze of half sleep/half awake state it startled me a little. Slowly as I got my wits about me I realized that it was cool air streaming in through the open terrace door in our bedroom. When had it cooled down so we could breathe? I'm not sure, but sometime during my sleeping hours the insufferable heat of the day had turned to an amazing coolness that I quickly realized would be fleeting. I had better get up and out walking or I would be sorry. So I drug myself out of that wonderful cool place, tied on the shoes and out I went.
I have two or three routes I take. The one hour walk, the half an hour walk, the 2 hour walk or the 1 1/2 hour walk; It took the 1 hour walk today and enjoyed every minute of it. A cool breeze was blowing. The city was just starting to wake up, so shop owners were spraying off their porches or terraces getting ready for the day. Someone had thrown a match into the dumpster down the street and a fire was lustily burning, the smoke being caught by the breeze and dissipating quickly. Busses packed with workers stopped at the different bus stops as I walked around. And I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. It can't be pleasant in those busses, no air conditioning, overcrowded and stinky. How fortunate was I that I was walking! I got home and Jim was already starting to close up the house. Our day begins.

Yesterday it got up to 39.5 which is about 103 degrees, that was on the freeway coming to Bosnia. Our cars air-conditioning was having a hard time keeping up with it. By the time we got to our house it was 38 which is about 100. The humidity is the killer, and with no air conditioning we are spending a lot of time complaining. Our bedroom is on the third level, remember me complaining last winter about how cold the house is? Well, it's not cold any more. Sleep comes hard.

We had a container or wheelchairs come into port last week and on Tuesday they arrived in Varazdin. Ever wonder what a container looks like? It's a huge semi-truck, they don't load and unload the container from the ship; they just use big cranes to move it from the ship onto the truck. Very smart, I think who ever invented that plan wins a prize! The president of Caritas in Varazdin called us about 8:30 in the morning and said that the truck had arrived. He asked us to be there in 30 minutes to help unload. We got our cute missionaries and started helping the 5 or 6 guys that were all ready there. They had gotten a head start on us and already had the back of the truck unloaded. We were working away and all the sudden a ripple of excitement went through the work men and those around watching. The Bishop was coming! Now if you remember correctly we had been trying to get an appointment with him since we first came to Croatia. Today it happened, work clothes and sweat we met the Bishop of the Varazdin Diocese.

Elder Chandler, from Meridian, Idaho.

Elder Bridge, Eagle Mountain, Utah

Elder Kirkam, South Jordan, Utah. The chairs are being stored in the basement of the Bishops living quarters.

Water appeared from somewhere, poor Elder Kirkam couldn't keep his glasses on. I think it was so hot that the persperation just made them keep slipping off. He finally gave up.

Sister and Elder Erickson, Ante Shola, (the head of Caritas) The Bishop and the priest who translated for us, he also helped haul wheelchairs.

It was a great opportunity for him to see the church in action. We spent some time with him explaining the humanitarian program of the church and expressing our thanks for allowing us to partner with Caritas in Varazdin. It really was an honor to meet him and realize that although our doctrine might be very different, our desire to serve our fellow man and to follow Our Savior's example is the same.

Yesterday we dropped down to Karlovac, Croatia before coming to Bosnia. We wanted to see how our little farm project was going. I got a few pictures that I will post. We are excited to see it looking so wonderful!

Today we are just trying to get all our ducks in a row to leave for E.F.Y. on Sunday. It’s supposed to be in the mid 70's in Germany. Yeah! Here we come! Really, no more posts for a week. I just didn't want to have our wonderful wheelchair experience be over shadowed by or trip. Love to you all!

I'm about 5'4" so you can see how tall the corn is and it's just loaded with ears. They dry the corn, grind it and use it for breakfast cereal and also for corn meal. I suppose they eat some of it fresh, but I never see it in the grocery stores so I'm not sure.

I think it's interesting that in the U.S. we use fancy tomato cages for our tomatoes. These sticks seem to work just fine!



They dug a well and now have a water source. This large container fills up and then they dip buckets  to water the garden.  This is a three year project, so next year we hope to help them get some kind of irrigation system in place now that the well has been dug.