Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Zboruvate Li Angliski?

I am now in the Republic of Macedonia! I arrived in Skopje nearly three weeks ago. I had been in Thessaloniki waiting for someone to find an apartment for me, but one morning I accompanied someone to a place over the border in Macedonia, and instead of going back I just carried on to Skopje! I found an apartment and moved in two days after arriving! It was a good price for it's size and location, and I even have room for up to 5 visitors!
The apartment has good views from the balcony (it's on the 5th floor). Skopje has mountains around it and in July the weather gets very hot - I've been told it's got to 50 degrees centigrade in the past! Thankfully I ensured that the apartment has airconditioning!

Right now I have two house guests - one from Denmark and the other from Sweden. They are here on a two-week holiday. They have proved good to have around, and provided me with company.

So what am I doing here? Tommie Naumann in Greece invited me to come up here and start (or rather re-start) work with students. The city has a large number of university students; it seems that many young people from all over Macedonia go to University because of difficulty in finding jobs - even with a degree many of them have still not found a job.

The church here has maybe 200-300 people in it and it seems that about 75% of them are young people (teens to early 30s). Many have come because they discovered Christianity was not 'dead religion' but living and exciting. The church also has a youth work called "Glasnost", and I'm working together with them.