Culture Shock

You may recall the reaction I had to the Green Bible last fall. A similar - although funnier and more articulate - reaction was posted recently on the Faith and Theology weblog. If you are in need of a good laugh check out the post and the reactions. They're well worth your time. Included in the ideas for new Bibles are: - The BBQ Edition for meat-lovers - The iBible - which would insert my name into appropriate verses - The World of Warcraft Bible - " highlighting those passages in which people kill each other with cool weapons" - The Madlib Bible - "In the _________(noun), God _________(verb) the heavens..." (quotes taken from comments section of the post) All are just as appropriate as the Green Bible in my opinion.

This is a Jež (the ž pronounced the like 's' in visual). Now, before my Croatian friends (like my wife) make fun of me for having never seen a hedgehog in real life, let me point you to wikipedia where it tells us that apart from a few people who have them as exotic pets, there are no hedgehogs in North America. But here in Orahovica they're all over the place. And especially in our yard. I've been working on building a fence for a month or so now. Most of the holes have been dug. (Anyone who knows about my handyman skills will be impressed at how quickly I've accomplished the first step of fence-building.) Apparently, mid-April is the time when the common Orahovician Hedgehog ventures out into the neighborhoods and backyards to do whatever it is that hedgehogs do. But they're not very keen at walking. Yesterday, we found five different hedgehogs in our 50 centimeter deep fence holes - two of whom were dead. Fortunately my wife came to the rescue of the other ...

My high-school English teacher used to joke: "Jeremy, you know...you're a good guy. I don't care what they say about you in the teacher's lounge." Here in Croatia Hungarians don't always have the best reputation. Sure, they never started a war against Croatia, but their language is so...weird. They say the only place outside of Hungary with a language anything like Hungarian is in western Siberia. But I have to say, the Hungarians I've met aren't so bad - despite the fact that Croatians look at them so strangely. Our friend Laci , whom I've mentioned before on the Culture Shock weblog, has been serving in Vukovar, Croatia for 4 years or so. Now, God has called him to Budapest - a city with a population larger than the country of Slovenia . He'll be pastoring a new-start church on the outskirts of town. Petra and I are sad to see he, his wife and his daughters leave. They've been wonderful friends to us in the time we've spent with the...

My son blogs . I blog. But my wife won't. It's not for lack of effort on my part though: "Petra, why won't you blog?" "I don't have time" " C'mon , more people would read yours than mine" "Who would want to read my blog?" "Well me, and (trying to be convincing)....well I think there are a lot of people who would read." "Exactly!" She says noticing my unconvincing way of trying to be convincing. And so it goes. But I will share something she shared with me the other day that I thought was profound even though she just shrugged it off. Petra: "So, what are you going to preach about on Sunday?" Jeremy (with no idea): "I thought I'd preach on Easter" (which is true, they did ask me to preach on Easter) P: (without me asking her): "You know what Easter means to me ? J: (no time to answer before she continues) P: "It's a new beginning. It's the time where I go back to ...

Spring has sprung, baseball has begun. So while daddy's checking the boxscores and watching the highlights he's left me in charge of the blog - which gives me the opportunity to look back at this past weekend. I had the privilege of traveling up to Slovenia to see some of my relatives (on the Kuzmic side). Slovenia is the only current European Union country that was part of former Yugoslavia. (I'm smart for a little guy.) I got to meet my 2nd cousin who was born just two days before me... And was able to be held my some of my other 2nd cousins. I also got to spend a lot of time on the pig farm where my Papa grew up... Where I saw a piglet who was born just an hour before. Daddy told me he got to see how they make bacon. I also got to visit a park where all I had to do is sit in the stroller while daddy made a circle and I was in Slovenia, Hungary and Austria all in a matter of seconds. I ate... I drank... Mommy and Daddy even taught me where I came from. All in all it...