Bled & Vintgar Gorge

Thursday's are my day off and since the weather was nice (mostly clear but chilly) I decided to go exploring last Thursday. So I looked up the bus schedule online and managed to hop on the right bus and headed off to Bled, probably the most popular tourist destination in Slovenia. It is a town with a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, the country's only island in the middle of it with a 9th century church built on the small island, and a medieval castle perched atop a rocky cliff overlooking the lake. It's simply magical! After hiking up to the castle and enjoying the view from up above, I headed off to Vintgar Gorge. I didn't know much about it except that my Lonely Planet Slovenia tour book suggested it as a good side trip from Bled. So off I went on the 2.5 walk through quaint villages and farms before arriving at the trail head. I got there only to find a posting that the trail was closed. Now, I didn't walk 2.5 miles to not even get to go on the hiking trail so off I went on the trail anyways! :-) I figured I would cautiously go however far I could safely and then turn around when it became necessary. I am so glad I went! It was an amazing trail through a narrow gorge that ended up being a wooden footpath suspended above a rushing river (nailed into the rocky cliff side) for 1 mile. It winded and twisted through the gorge. I kept thinking I was at the end of the trail and then I would turn a corner and a new vista would open up before me. So I found myself laughing out loud as I walked this trail and turned each corner. :-) The Lord impressed upon my heart that this is a good picture of what life is like here for me in Slovenia. I can't see too far ahead and I never know what is around the next corner but as long as I keep following Him I can keep moving forward trusting that whatever it is, it will be good! The Lord spoke to me and told me not to worry if things are happening more slowly in the ministry then I would like because it can all change so quickly by just rounding one corner. The pace is His job, my job is to keep my eyes on Him and follow His lead with an hilarious joy trusting in His perfect plan which He will reveal one step at a time and I will understand in hindsight the grand orchestration of it all. So I'm looking forward to rounding many exciting corners during the next year!

Language learning update

Many thanks to all of you who are praying for my learning and retention of the Slovene language! I feel like I have made some good progress in the last two weeks and it has been very helpful to meet with a couple of Slovene high school students to have them help tutor me using my abc 123 grammar book as a guide. I can now count small numbers in Slovene and I understand them if they are spoken slowly. If the number is 28 then why do they have to say the eight first and then the twenty part!? I have no idea but I don't think I will ever get used to that. I can also understand and speak some basic greetings like hi, how are you, what is your name, my name is..., etc. Just enough speaking ability to get me into trouble. So here's a funny story...today in the elevator an older lady started talking to me when I stepped into the elevator. I could tell by her body language that she was saying something to the effect of she didn't know why the elevator came up to the 11th floor (my floor) when she had pushed the button for the first floor. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. Then she asked me how I was doing...here was my moment to put into practice my new language skills. So I answered "dobro" which means good and then said "in ti" which means and you? I was just expecting a one word answer like good, okay, so-so, not so good or something like that but instead she rattled off a couple of whole sentences and I had no idea what she was saying! :-) At this point I didn't have the heart to tell her that I don't really speak Slovene so I took my clues from her body language again and used some good advice a friend gave me quite some time ago (thanks Krista!) and that is - when in doubt just smile and nod. She seemed okay with this response and thankfully the elevator was at her stop by this time so I was rescued before she found out that I'm not really fluent in Slovene! So keep praying for my language acquisition...I have a long ways to go but I am moving forward!

Sunday afternoon hiking adventure

I decided to explore the Kokra River Canyon on Sunday afternoon. I have often noticed the trail down in the canyon as I walk over the bridge into downtown Kranj. This center of Kranj is perched on a high plateau and is framed on two sides by the Sava and Kokra Rivers, kind of creating a natural moat of sorts as the two rivers merge at the south end of town. There is a staircase at the end of the bridge leading down into the canyon and to the trailhead, a mere 10 minute walk from my apartment. So off I went after lunch on Sun. for a leisurely walk in the woods along the river but as I neared the bridge instead of hearing the chirping of birds I heard the whirring of helicopter blades. To my surprise there was a police helicopter, not a KGW news channel 8 type helicopter, but an actual police helicopter hovering just 100 yards over the canyon and the same distance from the bridge. Clearly they were looking for something or someone down in the canyon. Many bystanders gathered on the bridge to watch the hovering helicopter and eventually it headed off further down the canyon but still obviously on the search. Unsure of weather it was safe for me to continue on with my plans to walk through the canyon I hung out on the bridge looking down into the canyon until I finally saw some other hikers enjoying a walk in the woods down there. So I thought to myself "ah, it's okay since there are other people down there and surely the police would close the trailhead if it weren't safe to go down there." So off I went! It was a gray, overcast day but dry and not too cold. It felt good to be out getting some fresh air and there were birds chirping and the first spring flowers blooming along the wooded path with the sound of the flowing river nearby too (once the helicopter gave up the search). As I was exploring the trail I noticed that at each trailhead junction along the way there were police cars parked and at one point I saw police officers on the other side of the canyon walking along the trail over there. Hmm...I thought to myself, oh well there are still other people out on the trail too and I don't want to bag my afternoon hike so I kept going. Finally I got to the end of the maintained trail and found a good sitting spot looking down the canyon at the flowing river and was getting ready to pull out my Bible for some nice reading time when a police officer came up to me and started talking to me in Slovene. Not sure if I was in trouble or not, I explained that I only spoke English and asked if it was okay that I was there. He said it was okay but wanted to know how long I had been there and if I had seen a man wearing blue. Having been there for only 5 minutes I had not seen anyone. I asked if it was safe to stay and he said it was okay but that they were searching for a man who had attacked a police officer and then escaped into the canyon. Then he and his partner began to search the cliff and shrubs in the area I was sitting in, looking for the fugitive. Reluctantly, I decided maybe it would be better for me to head back to the more populated area of the canyon. I can't believe that they hadn't closed off the canyon to pedestrians! Anyways, I didn't have my camera with me to document any of the events because I let Joel borrow it to take to Israel and bring back some good pictures of the Holy Land while he is at a global youth workers conference there. So the picture below is looking down into the canyon from the bridge on a sunny day a few weeks ago. That was my Sunday afternoon adventure! No harm done and it makes for a good story! :-)

Kokra River canyon

Snow and Trdna Skala

It snowed this week for the first time since I arrived in Slovenia! Here's a picture of the snowy landscape from my 11th floor apartment view...

On Wednesday we opened Trdna Skala from 3-6pm for students to just drop by and hang out and we will continue to do so every Wed. probably until June. TS hasn't been open on a regular basis since Oct. and I am glad to be here to provide more man hours so we can open it up again. I'll even be manning it on my own next week since Joel is out of town! I'm putting that key to good use! :-)

Resident photographer Nejc, Matic, Juliana, Ness

Anja and another Nejc having a serious foosball game!