Boxes in Maribor

Grace or Works: Children's books

2012-01-29T08:07:00.000-08:00

We borrowed a book from the library for a reading program Timothy is doing with his preschool. It was a picture book written by a Slovene author, called 'Pod Medvedovim Dežnikom' (Under Bear's Umbrella). Its ending was a surprise to me, but I guess in this culture which is so steeped in a works mentality, I shouldn't have been surprised.

The book is about a bear who receives a new umbrella for his birthday. On Saturday, when it rains, he meets a number of animals who are getting wet in the rain and invites them to join him under the umbrella. They have all met a fox beforehand, who refused to share her umbrella. The following day, the fox is bored and meets the animals again. Each of them doesn't want to stay with her because they are going to visit the bear. The fox lies down on the ground and sings sad sad songs all afternoon.

I turned the page, expecting the bear to show mercy and to go and talk to the fox and invite her in. (And of course the fox would learn her lesson). But no. The book ends there - with the fox singing sad sad songs by herself.

Unfortunately this is often how Slovene culture works. If you help someone or are kind to them, they will help you and be kind to you. If you offend someone, they won't give you a second chance or show you grace. You are cut off.

I am very thankful for God's amazing grace in that he didn't leave us singing sad songs by ourselves but he died for us when we didn't deserve it. I pray that I will forgive others as he forgave us. I am also very thankful for a Christianly influenced culture in most of our children's books where grace makes an appearance.

Shoelaces

2011-08-28T04:48:00.000-07:00

We had a missionary shoelace visit us just before we came back to Australia. The idea is that the missionary families take the shoelace around with them to various things and 'the shoelace' comments on his facebook page about what has happened. I couldn't get the technology to work for me when we were in Slovenia and so have posted things since we have been back. So here is a snapshot of our life in late May, just before we headed back to Australia, from the perspective of a shoelace:

And I have arrived in the beautiful city of Maribor, Slovenia. I am staying with the Box family in a large two bedroom apartment in the old part of town. I went for a walk in the morning and saw the town from the River Drava. Its a lovely view looking at the old town with the background of a few hills with vineyards. Apparently a statue of Mary sits overlooking the town in a shrine at the top of one hill. At 6.30am I saw quite a lot of people going to work and a few children going to preschool or before-school care.

This morning I went along to take the boys to their school and preschool. Tim attends preschool five days a week (no part time preschool in Slovenia because all the mums and dads work full-time). When we arrived at both school and preschool, they had to take their shoes off and put on slippers to wear inside. I nearly got lost amongst all the shoes! They are given a hot meal at lunchtime because lunch is the main meal for Slovenes. At preschool they often go for a walk to the park or a playground in the morning and have a rest after lunch. At school they have their classes in the morning and after lunch play sport, do homework and play until they are picked up.

Today we had an unusual experience. We were invited to a Slovene family bbq. Every Sunday the normal Slovene has lunch with their extended family. It is very strange for Slovenes to invite outsiders into their homes and even stranger to a family gathering. One of the students who has been coming along to Kingsley's Bible study group invited us to join his extended family. We had sausages, chicken and fish on the bbq (but not beef - that would be extremely strange here), salads, bread and then desserts. We were at the old family home - a one bedroom home, about 10 minutes drive from Maribor. They have a well and a pump in their backyard, which the Box boys loved using. They perched me there at one stage and I was certain I would be soaked in minutes. Just managed to escape in time!

We attended an end-of-school-year event with Timothy's preschool class. They held it at a farm near Maribor. The children played soccer for a while, then they sang some songs for us. We ate typical Slovene (home-baked) food - bread with salami, cheese or a kind of pate type thing and a mariborska gibanica - like a baked cheesecake but not as sweet as in Australia. Then we had a look at all the farm animals and the children had rides on a horse. Lots of fun and a good opportunity to get to know other families from preschool.

We were invited by the neighbour of the Boxes to go for coffee and cake. This is how Slovenes are most likely to show hospitality. They invite a friend out for coffee rather than invite people into their home. There are lots of cafes with tables and chairs outside and they seem to be very well frequented (in the warmer months that is). Icecream is also very cheap here - a great plus! Tim wore me around his neck and I nearly ended up one very sticky shoelace!

Hospitality

2011-05-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

I wrote something for Nicole's blog on hospitality in Slovenia, so I thought I would post it here as well.

- Hospitality is VERY strange here. It is just weird to have anyone other than extended family come to your home (with the exception of birthday parties - and even those don't usually happen in the home). Slovenes will generally catch up with their friends over a coffee.

- Slovenia is a very works-based culture. In regards to hospitality, it means that people will not agree to come to your house unless they are prepared to invite you to their house. (If you go to someone's house, you are obliged to invite them back). And this applies to people in the church as well. They keep a tally. The first time we realised this was when we invited a family from

church to our apartment for lunch and they insisted that it was their turn and so we would have to come to their house first. So we effectively (unwittingly) invited ourselves to their house for lunch by inviting them to our place twice. This is a little awkward, because we have four children, which is WAY above the national average, so it is a big ask for people to invite us to their house. One lady in our church refused to come for lunch to our house (she did come to afternoon tea though), because she lives in a very small apartment (a small kitchen plus a living/bedroom) and couldn't cook lunch for our family.

- A Slovene lunch traditionally starts with soup, then a main meal and dessert and should be ready when the guests arrive (lunch is their main meal).

- Slovene ladies keep their houses ridiculously clean. My neighbour mops her floors every day (and even the landing outside our apartments every second day). I grew up in a more relaxed, not-so-fanatically clean house. I just can't keep up with Slovene housewives, although I'm sure they can't understand why, because they all work and I am at home!

So, how have we tried to deal with these cultural norms? Here are a few things that we have done:

- We try to take things slowly with people we have just met - we ask them out for coffee first.

- We would love to be able to break the works mentality, but it is so deep. Grace is not natural. We have tried explaining that we don't have the same expectations, but usually it doesn't make

much difference. It is a long process. For our friends in Ljubljana who are in a church which has had Aussie missionaries for over 10 years, the culture is changing. So we will keep inviting people and pray that God will allow them to break out of their cultural restrictions over time.

- We have found younger people are less bound by the culture. They are more likely to accept hospitality without feeling obliged to return the favour. As well, as we get to know people, we work out whether we need to do soup for them - some people are less fanatical about the necessity of soup!

- I try to have the apartment clean when we have guests over - it's still not to their standard but at least better than my norm was in Australia. (I have recently started working on cleaning one room well each day of the school week, so that hopefully the workload is not so high the night before we have guests).

- If we have people for lunch after church I try to have some things cooked either the night before or do a lot of cooking in the morning before church, so that it is mostly done when we get home.

Mother's Day

2011-05-07T12:31:00.000-07:00

We saw this duck with her ducklings today and I thought it was a very appropriate photo for Mother's Day. Hard to imagine having to chase around 10 babies!

I am very thankful for our mothers (Kingsley's mum and mine) and the great examples they are to us of godly mothers.

Spring!

2011-03-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

One thing I love about living in Europe is the start of spring. I love that you actually notice the change in seasons generally (which I don't really in Australia), but the change to spring is my favourite. After a winter of cold, snowy days and bleak, grey, leafless landscapes it is so beautiful to see spring arrive.

The birds are singing in the trees and there are clear blue skies and lovely sunshine to warm you (that is if its not raining, which also happens in March and April!). Leaves start budding on the trees, blossoms appear on the fruit trees, grass starts to turn from brown to green and flowers start to sprout from the earth where their bulbs have been hiding through the winter.

We can take the children to the playground in the park again. We pull out the bikes, pump up tyres, dust off the seats and put them up for half of the children. And they don't have to put on their thick jackets, their gloves and hats anymore. I can hang my washing outside. And it dries in one day! So exciting! (Although I do have to fight for the one line which services three apartment blocks... at least I have one - that's a privilege in Slovenia.)

Thank you God, for your beautiful and wonderfully created world.

Parking Permit

2011-01-26T12:15:00.000-08:00

We were very pleased a few weeks ago to receive a parking permit. We can now park out the front of our apartment block again. Yippee! Now that the students (who don't have permanent residency) can't park here, we can even find parks during the day. Thank you God.

Time for chestnuts

2010-10-19T12:42:00.001-07:00

Autumn leaves are very charming at this time of year. The park is full of colour and the vineyards around Maribor are lined with yellow. Here are some snapshots we have taken over the last couple of weeks.

Something new for us in Slovenia in autumn is chestnuts. We have become chestnut collectors - we drove a couple of weekends ago to a hill near Maribor and looked for their spiky cases and found chestnuts that had recently fallen to the ground.

Kingsley and I are still not entirely convinced that it is worth the effort - you have to collect the chestnuts, cut a cross in each of them, roast them and then peel the outside layers off to get to the cooked chestnut.

One good thing about chestnuts in Maribor is that it is very common to have chestnut picnics. People get together and roast chestnuts over a fire and often drink new wine/grape juice from the grapes they have recently picked. We went to a chestnut picnic last week with Tim's preschool class and had a nice time. It was a good way to chat with other parents and his teachers. The boys enjoyed helping to cook the chestnuts and then peeling the charcoaled skin off them and eating them! The chestnuts do taste much better roasted on a wood fire and eaten warm in the cold air.

Parking & Contentment

2010-09-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

At the start of this month, our local council decided to put in meter parking outside our apartment. So now, unless we want to pay 7 Euros a day for parking during the week, we have to park our car at least two to three blocks away, sometimes much further away. When it first happened I was quite unsettled. We already avoided going out with the car during the day because we may not find a park when we got back, now it would be even worse. I thought I wouldn't ever want to go out during the day. I started looking for another place to rent - somewhere with a garage or a driveway (and with an extra bedroom so we don't have to have all four children in one room).

After looking for a few weeks for something else to rent, we have discovered that there is nothing available (well, unless you include the house that would cost double our current rent). I have come to realise that actually God has provided us with a great apartment, in a great location and it is actually really hard to beat - even though it is without a parking space. We have a renovated apartment with big rooms, a great park 100m away, a school one block away and preschool three blocks away and the centre of the city is five minutes' walk. We can survive really easily only using the car occasionally during the week. I can be content with what God has provided for us and be thankful. And even when I go out on a weekday with the car (only once this month during the day), it is actually easier than before because now I know there is no car park and I am expecting to have to walk.

So I have learnt a great lesson in contentment. God is good and he has provided for us abundantly and will continue to provide for us in the future - with or without a car park!

Summer holidays

2010-08-04T12:35:00.001-07:00

At the end of June, we took a week's holiday in beautiful Val di Non in Italy. My parents came with us and we had a great week exploring the countryside - there were lots of valleys, gorges, lakes and apple orchards.

We drove through Austria to get there and enjoyed some beautiful scenery on the way:

God gave us some beautiful weather and here are a few photos of the valley:

We stayed in a great apartment - bigger than our apartment in Maribor! - and there was a playground right outside, along with the village water fountain - every village seemed to have one.

Last week we spent almost a week camping alongside the Savinjska river in Slovenia. It is also a beautiful part of the world, and we enjoyed some walks in the mountains nearby.

And of course we can't go camping without the obligatory campfire and marshmallows!

End of Year Madness

2010-06-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

We are in the middle of the end of school year madness at the moment. Last month we walked up the mountain next to Maribor with Zac and Sam's school. We had some chances to talk with some of the other parents. You can see some clouds in the background - we were absolutely soaked on the way back down the mountain. (We are in summer thunderstorm season now).

Zac and Sam are both in a school choir, and their school had a concert for all the school choirs and the musical group last week. They all performed very well.

Zac and Sam are also both learning piano with one of our friends from church. She had a concert at the start of the month.

There is now one week of school left. We have a few more chances to meet with other families - please pray for good opportunities to get to know them better. Pray also that over the school holidays we might be able to get to know some families when the tempo of life is a bit slower.

A Black and White World

2010-03-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I took these photos - we had had another dump of snow this week. It reminded me of a time a couple of months ago when Tim and I were driving home from Ptuj and singing along to the 'J is for Jesus' CD. We sang "Imagine if the world was black and white and colours could not be seen... Thank you God for colouring in the world." I looked out the window and all I could see was white snow, a white sky and dark trees in a forest. Black and white. It was quite depressing. I didn't have to imagine the world being black and white at all! (I guess the authors of that song have never lived in Europe!)

But it does mean that I really appreciate the sunshine and the green grass when it appears again. When the flowers start to poke their way through the ground and the leaves sprout on the trees. We had some sunshine yesterday and today and it is amazing how thankful you can be to see green grass and to feel the sunshine on your face.

Thank you God for colouring in the world!

Here are a few other photos of some sledding and playing in the snow with our friends on Saturday:

Christmas in Maribor

2009-12-23T00:22:00.000-08:00

On Saturday we had lots of snow fall and then a number of below zero days, but yesterday and today it has warmed up to about 10oC and it is raining so the snow has turned to slush and mud. Our boys were very excited to be able to go sledding and to try out their skis on Sunday morning (we had church in the evening with the Baptist church last Sunday). We are very happy that the days are now starting to get longer again - at the moment it isn't getting light until after 7.30am in the morning and then its dark by 4.30pm in the evening. Here are some photos of last weekend:

We have been busy over the last few weeks, but we are glad we don't have the Australian end-of-year madness combined with the Christmas madness so we aren't feeling quite so wiped out. We had a good response to the presentation in the school a couple of weeks ago and Kingsley is now greeted by name by some of the girls in his class every morning! Sam was pretty chuffed to have dad come and to be able to present some Aussie things to his year. We have met a few other parents from his class over the last couple of months - you can continue to pray for relationships to develop.

Last Saturday Kingsley and the boys went with some others from church to sing carols at the nursing home and it was also well received. Notice Timothy joining in the choir - he has to be in everything (he is singing from one of the evangelistic books they were giving away as gifts).

In the afternoon we had a Christmas party at our house and were very pleased to find that lots of our neighbours as well as one of Sam's schoolmates and his mum came along. Even our elderly neighbour who has always refused to come for coffee came along - she even made an effort to dress up specially! Kingsley also managed to convince her husband to join us. Kingsley and Monika sang a couple of carols and then Kingsley gave them a quiz about Christmas. The quiz got a few people talking - please pray that we might be able to follow up on some of the conversations. One of our neighbours said he would invite us over for coffee and Christmas cookies - pray that it might happen and for good conversations with his family.

Coming up we are looking forward to church on Christmas morning and then we are hosting lunch with the Hribars and Margaret (our English friend) from Ljubljana. We have a kids Christmas service on the 27th - so that non-Christian friends and family might come along to see it. In the nativity play Zac and Sam are both shepherds and Tim is a sheep - he wanted to be a shepherd as well but then settled for being Cecil the sheep (the name of the sheep in a book about Jesus' parable of the lost sheep). Sophie won't be appearing in the play, but we thought we'd better put her in the Christmas 'card' photo!

The boys finish school on Thursday and then have a week off school. Pray that we will have a fun relaxing time together and that we will all be ready for school again after the week off. Pray that the weather won't be too cold so that we can get outside most days! Kingsley is preaching on the second Sunday in January from Mark's gospel - you can pray for good preparation and that God will give him the right words. He has also offered to do a presentation on Luther and Calvin to his history of philosophy class at the university in January. Pray that he might be able to prepare something at a university level that is fair to Luther and Calvin and also philosophical. (The lecturer had Luther and Calvin on her list but wasn't planning to say anything about them and now Kingsley has to work out exactly how to present their impact on the philosophical world).

We wish you all a very happy Christmas and all the best for 2010!

The problem with having a large family in Slovenia

2009-11-28T05:14:00.000-08:00

We had some friends over for morning tea today. As per usual, they brought with them the obligatory present. This included chocolate for the boys - but not a mini packet of smarties each; three blocks of chocolate - one for each boy.

We don't allow our children to eat a lot of chocolate. So our collection of chocolate seems to increase all the time and we can't keep up with it. Currently our chocolate block pile looks like this:

When we first came to Slovenia and we visited another family, I resisted the norm and bought something different for the children (some stickers or a book or something similar). Now I do the unthinkable and give away some of the blocks of chocolate we have been given - so that I can somehow reduce our pile of chocolate!

What are we going to do when they start bringing a block of chocolate for Sophia too?!

A New Baby

2009-07-24T12:04:00.001-07:00

We were very thankful to God that Sophia arrived (23rd June) safely and without any complications. She is a gorgeous little baby and we all love her a lot. (Sometimes her brothers are a bit too enthusiastic in their affection).

Here are some photos of our little girl. (Now that we have her birth certificate we have to apply for Australian citizenship and then for a passport for her. We have taken a lot of photos to try to get a photo suitable - has anyone else tried to get a passport photo for a newborn? Head straight, no hands near the face, eyes open and mouth closed. We have taken lots of photos and none of them are exactly right!)

Sam and Tim were helping me try to take photos of Sophie one day - they had to have a photo taken as well of course.

Sophie is now one month old and although we are sad that she is growing up so quickly, we are also relieved that we have passed the one month mark. In Slovenia, most newborns and their mums don't venture out of the house much until after a month, and then only for short periods. They are worried about the newborn getting sick and also for the mother, that she needs to recover. One older lady told me off last Sunday for being at church already! We have had a few visits from our non-Christian friends here this week - they felt that they needed to wait a month before they visited - to give us some time. So we have tried to leave Sophie at home as much as possible in that first month. She has been on quite a few more excursions this week...

It has also been a challenge to dress Sophie appropriately. In Australia, they were always making sure that we didn't overdress the babies in summer. Here they are often concerned about the fact that the baby has exposed skin. Older ladies will come and feel her hands and feet to make sure they are not cold. The last few days have been over 30C, so I haven't had to worry too much about her hands and feet being cold!

You can pray for us as we continue to work out how to look after Sophia and respect the traditions and culture here.

Here are a couple of photos from outings over the last couple of weeks:

My parents were here for over a month and it was lovely to have them with us for Sophie's birth and to spend time with them. They enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren and the boys were certainly excited to have them stay with us too. They were a great help around our apartment as well. Thank God that they were able to come and spend some time with us.

Holiday in Bohinj

2009-05-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

At the end of April, we had a lovely holiday in a very beautiful part of Slovenia. Here are some snapshots from the week:

Our holiday apartment was in this building and we had stunning views from this village, which was just above a town called Bohinjska Bistrica.

We visited Lake Bled, the most well-known tourist attraction in Slovenia - a very pretty lake with an island in the middle complete with an old church and a castle up on the cliffs overlooking the lake. The boys were very keen to go for a row over to the island.

Lake Bohinj is the less-visited lake in Slovenia, but extremely beautiful. We enjoyed doing a few walks around the lake. There are also waterfalls and a number of rivers which are connected to the lake, which had a lot of water plummeting down when we visited (all the snow is now melting at the top of the mountains around about).

We treated our boys to a trail ride and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

While the boys were on the trail ride, Kingsley and I took a little walk and found some Slovene icons. First, the hay-drying rack used in this part of Slovenia is quite unique. Second, the beehive house - Slovenes are quite keen about keeping bees and making honey - honey is the cure-all for almost everything it seems. They have in the past painted pictures on the beehive panels (the coloured panels here) and copies of some of those paintings are now sold as souvenirs.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE BOXES

2009-04-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

MONDAY 30th MARCH

6.30am Veronica goes for a half hour walk through Maribor. It is a typical March/April day - it is raining.

7.15am Kingsley reads the Bible with Zac, while he eats breakfast. Usually we all eat together and Kingsley reads the Bible to all the boys, but on Mondays Zac goes to school at 7.30am for a choir practice and so breakfast and the Bible reading are in two sittings.

7.45am Zac is in the classrom waiting for his choir teacher to arrive. He will start his school lessons at 8.30am. He attends a Slovene school and his teacher says he is doing really well with speaking the Slovene language at the moment.

8am Timothy is still sleeping, despite our attempts to rouse him. We changed our daylight savings time on Sunday and he is still adjusting to the new time zone! He eventually woke up at 8.30am.

8am Veronica is working with Samuel on his English. Every other school day Zac and Sam work on their English before breakfast, but on Mondays Sam gets individual attention. He is just learning to read at the moment. We are hoping he can be confident in reading before he starts school in September.

9am We take Samuel to preschool. (Tim has woken up just in time to come along for the walk). Samuel's teacher is also very happy with his Slovene and he is a lot more confident now communicating in Slovene.

9.15am Sam's class is eating breakfast. Sam's teacher offers Tim some breakfast too and as he had just woken up before we left, he was pretty keen! We have also included a photo of Samuel and one of his teachers.

10am Kingsley is having a Slovene lesson with his private tutor, Melita. She is working with him on fine-tuning his grammar and expanding his vocabulary. Veronica usually sits in on the lesson as well and learns along with Kingsley.

11am Veronica snatches a moment to start thinking about preparing Bible study for next week. Usually she does most of her preparation for Bible study or Sunday School in the evenings after the boys have gone to bed.

12pm Kingsley hits the streets. We are trying to contact students to find someone who might be interested in reading the Bible. So he has decided to take some time out each week to talk to students in the student housing over the road from our apartment or around the faculty buildings around the city. Here he is outside the law faculty (which is across the road from our apartment). Then a photo with a student at the technological faculty, with whom he managed to have a bit of a conversation.

3pm Kingsley does a bit of study/preparation.

4pm Samuel goes to a swimming lesson. Some weeks Kingsley takes Timothy swimming at the same time, which he really loves. Today Samuel isn't all that keen about going to his swimming lesson.

4.30pm Zachary has a piano lesson after school on Mondays. He is learning piano from one of our friends from church, who is a private piano teacher. Monika also helps Veronica once a week with her Slovene. Here is a photo of Monika and some photos of Veronica and Zachary on the walk home through Maribor.

6.30pm Kingsley goes to Dejan's (pronounced Dayan) place for a meeting with Dejan and Miha, who are the two leaders of our church. They were discussing some issues in our church.

2009-04-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

EASTER IN SLOVENIA

Slovenia is a predominantly Catholic country, and so Easter is quite significant. Even for the many people who are now atheist (a result of 50 years of communism), usually they will observe various Catholic customs and traditions because that is what you do (or to keep Grandma happy).

In Slovenia, only Easter Monday is a public holiday.

On Palm Sunday, Catholics take branches to church with them, and in Maribor it is usually the branches in the first photo. In other parts of Slovenia, they take colourful 'branches' called butarici as in the second photo.

On Good Friday, Slovenes typically fast. On Saturday they go to mass and take with them a basket of food to be blessed by the priest. They break the fast on Sunday morning when they eat the "blessed" food for 'breakfast' (think early lunch). The basket will contain ham (that represents Jesus' body), eggs painted with red (Jesus' blood), horseradish (represents the nails) and potica (Slovene bread/cake which symbolises Jesus' crown and shown on the right). They meet together as a family group and to eat this blessed food. One friend told us that you have to eat seven pieces of blessed food.

The art of painting easter eggs is quite elaborate in Slovenia, and different regions paint or decorate the eggs differently. Some use wax and dyes to paint patterns on the eggs in red, white and black. Some use paint and have typical pictures of flowers.

Most people we know hard boil the eggs and dye them (often boiling the eggs in water with red onion skins and vinegar to make the red colour and making patterns using parsley leaves or ties).

Here are some pictures of Slovene Easter Eggs:

OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE GOSPEL

People are (sometimes) interested in how we celebrate Easter - as Australians and as protestants. One neighbour once said to us "You (meaning protestants) don't celebrate Easter, do you?" We told her that Easter is actually the most important celebration in our church, but that we celebrate it differently to the Catholic church. Generally people here have no idea about what protestantism is all about - its just one of those crazy cults or religions from a foreign country.

PRAYER POINTS

Please pray for us a family and for our church family, that we can be reminded of what Jesus has done for us in dying on the cross for us.
Pray that God will give us many opportunities to talk about Easter and our traditions with Slovenes around us. Pray especially that we can lead the discussion to Jesus.
Pray that we and others from our church will invite our friends to church on Easter Sunday and that God will prompt many friends and family to come. Pray for Sandi as he gives the talk, that he will clearly explain the gospel.
Pray that Slovene Christians will speak with their friends about the gospel, that Slovenes might look beyond the traditions that they follow without understanding them and that they will come to know the real Jesus and why he came to die for them.