Macedonian Wedding

I have had the privilege of being invited to a Macedonian wedding! Two of my friends from here - Mimi and Koska - got married yesterday. Having been to Dan's wedding in England in July it was easy to make comparisons. The whole ceremony took place in a restaurant. After the wedding vows (which were probably similar to those in England, but since they were in Macedonian I didn't understand!) the music started, and it was loud (though not as loud as an Albanian wedding!). The bride and groom had the first dance and then lots of others joined in. This was before any food had been served or alcohol consumed. Granted, there were a few of the men sitting at a table making macho excuses for not joining in, but generally everyone was getting involved. After dancing, food. Then more dancing. Then more food, more dancing, more food, more dancing, the wedding cake, and more dancing! The style of dancing is quite similar to that in Albania or Greece. However, unlike in Greece, there was no ritual breaking of plates - this is apparently now illegal in Macedonia, which is one way of stopping a tradition!

Macedonia Impressions and Birthday

On arriving in Skopje I had a brief stop to drop off some of my luggage at my apartment and to catch up on a bit of sleep and then went to Ohrid. I was so tired when I arrived in Ohrid that it took a day or two to recover.
Once there, I met up with my friends from the church in Skopje. We were doing a mission in the town, so in the evenings and nights we were out meeting people. It was a fruitful time: one guy, who kept hanging around with us, was visibly changed by the end of our time there and he is intending to start going to the church we have in Struga (the next city along the lake from Ohrid). There are two others that I personally know who prayed to accept Jesus, and we made lots of other contacts as well. It was a good time for me as well, in that I got to know the others from the church better. They tell me that they are happy to have me here. As one of them said, even if I wasn't doing anything, just being here is an encouragement to them.

Last week I had a birthday! I had a party at my apartment and several of my friends came, including two people we had met in Ohrid. Lots of them brought me presents and I was so touched by their generosity. After they had gone I opened some of the presents. They were such kind gifts that I was almost in tears from the love they had shown me. I had to stop opening them and saved some for the next day because the emotion was too much.

Now I'm back in Skopje and getting back to working on a couple of websites for Tommie and the church, learning Macedonian and encouraging various people. I also need to start planning for when the students start back again at university. I'll finish off with some word-images from Macedonia:

Concrete communist-built buildings; a pedestrian-crossing light flicking from red to green to red in less than a second; ubiquitous stray cats foraging in large garbage containers; beautiful green and mountainous countryside; deep, Slavic people with a sense of humour that leaves you wondering whether they are being serious; Roma families searching for recyclable cardboard items; hot buses transporting people about their daily lives; a land of genuine friends.