On Her Way to America....

So Donata got her visa finally, and called yesterday afternoon saying she was leaving for a couple month stay in the States. She's be with her aunt's family in Nashville. It was kind of funny when Jana and I went over yesterday afternoon... shes never flown before, and she had a big bag of food for the trip :) "Um... Donata, they feed you on the plane..." "Oh, I'm so stupid, I don't know how to do this, i don't know what I'm doing..." It was humorous. I think we got her pretty squared away before we left. She's just a naturally fearful person, and she's terrified of flying. So her first trip is alone over the Atlantic. I see the humor in it all, especially since she can't smoke and she'll hate the coffee, but I've had a pretty morbid sense of humor lately. I really wanted to invite her over to watch "Plane Crash INvestigation" and "Seconds from Disaster" on national geographic, and tell her horror stories about people getting flushed out of airplane toilets, but I refrained. Oh, it would have been so much fun, though... Like I said... morbid.

Do pray for her trip. I don't want her too traumatized when she returns, but a little trauma may not be such a bad thing for her. She's supposed to go visit my church at some point, so we'll see if she follows through with that. I'm certainly not holding my breath, but have a faint glimmer of hope she actually may go. She hasn't seemed to have much of a "walk" lately, and won't have any kind of Christian influence around her - not that it seemed to help her much here, but at least she had fellowship and opportunities for growth if she wanted it. I think it would be good for her to go to my church. I guess we shall see. She wrote some other important numbers on the paper withmy friends phone number and email, so at least she can't just lose the information :)

Saturday, we head to Sarajevo wth Nela. It's her very late "first anniversary as a Christian visit to the Thai restaurant" She's looking forward to it, as are we. She'll also get to talk with one of the people from the Bible Institute to see if taking classes there one day may be an option. I have a little shopping to do while we're there, so Jana can take a few things back to the States for me.

Jana and the rest of her family here leave a week from today - next Thursday. We've had a good summer, so it will be strange to be living alone again. Pray for Jana as she transitions into life in New York and a new college experience. Pray for a safe trip back as well. Jana and I probably need to stop watching "Plane Crash Investigation" this week before she has a panic attack on the plane. At least now we know to always wear our seatbelts (you never know when the plane roof is going to peel off) and never inflate your life vest until you are out of the plane (if your're stuck in the plane, you can't go underwater to swim out if your vest is inflated). Fascinating, life-saving stuff... :)

Ok, I will post when I know Donata made it in one piece to the States, and about our trip to Sarajevo. Cao for now...