Celebrate summer by being creative

On a warm Saturday in June 2017

Pebble art, 

rock scriptures,

tic-tac-toe, 

beach balls,

ice-breaker questions,

games, food, fellowship, 

and the Word of God.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17

... Might have gotten a bit carried away in the prep...

We all know we are made in the image of God. 

The first thing we read about God is he created! 

Therefore we all have some creative gene in us too! 

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.Genesis 1:1 
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; Genesis 1:27 

we had a great time getting creative... on the cheap!

Lončareva kuća, Zagreb

Check back to see what we come up with this June!
2018
Just sayin'
Summer comes early here.
 In Zagreb, this month of May brought increasingly hot days, lots of humidity with (almost) daily thundershowers and crazy lighting shows. As I write, it is late afternoon, 84F and I can hear the thunder in the distance.
(Just took in my laundry:)
Tonight the sun doesn't set until 20:35 and then it raises at 5:09 tomorrow. On average it is about 1/2 hour extra daylight and at least 10 degrees warmer than the Cape.

FYI: Over the course of May in Zagreb, from the start to the end of the month, the length of the day increases by 1 hour, 8 minutes, implying an average weekly increase of 15 minutes, 49 seconds. The shortest day, May 1, with 14 hours, 20 minutes of daylight and the longest day is May 31, with 15 hours, 27 minutes of daylight. The latest sunrise of the month in Zagreb is 5:43 AM on May 1 and the earliest sunrise is 34 minutes earlier at 5:10 AM on May 31. The earliest sunset is 8:03 PM on May 1 and the latest sunset is 34 minutes later at 8:37 PM on May 31. Unlike temperature, which typically varies significantly between night and day, dew point tends to change more slowly, so while the temperature may drop at night, a muggy day is typically followed by a muggy night. The chance that a given day will be muggy in Zagreb is essentially constant during May...the typical weather in Zagreb year-round, based on a statistical analysis... from weatherspark.com and timeanddate.com

One Year Later

SO, I haven't written in a year...

Not for lack of pictures, 
adventures or inspiration. 

Nope!

Reason #1. My frustration with the rainbow circle of death! 

Officially, the Apple Guidelines refers to it as the 'spinning wait cursor', but it is also known by many 'spinning death’ names and acronyms! It is the multicolored round cursor that indicates your Mac is waiting on a process to finish.  WAITING  being the keyword! This happens a lot and I try to wait patiently for it to catch-up! It also affects font and placement.  I have been told it is because my 2012 MacPro is old, therefore death is coming soon and the only option is to buy a new one :(

SWOD

Croatian question on an English blog...

Reason #2 My continued frustration with the language issue! 

Hello, Google (and others), The fact that my IP address is in Croatia does not change the fact that I do not read Croatian. My language settings/preferences are all in English. 
However, Google, being smarter than me, continue to redirect me back to Croatian! The worst is when it changes text from English to Croatian and then translated back to English so no one can understand the page! 
Yes, I’ve tried many different tutorials and some fixes last longer than others, but not long enough…grrr  
Not to mention I don't want to have to spend the time and energy needed to figure it all out! double grrr grrr  

However,

 I do miss recording, writing and posting pictures. 

Last month, while I was back in the states,  I was surprised at how many people asked me why I stopped posting. Well really it wasn’t a ton of you, but still, I was surprised any of you asked about it and was encouraged by those that said they miss it :)

Landing at Logan April 2018

So here is to a new year, 
a new start ... 
and hopefully, 
not letting my frustrations 
get the better of me! 

Psalm 103

Croatian sights - Staro Selo

The town of Kumrovec in Krapina-Zagorje

is a little under an hour from Zagreb by car.

A place to go to get a glimpse of old rural Croatian life.

Kumrovec's claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of 
the late communist president of Yugoslavia,
marshal Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), 
His family home was turned into a museum in 1953.
Next to the house (above pic^) is the 1948 bronze statue
of Tito, made by Antun Augustinčić.
Inside the house(below) is Tito history.

 The birth house of Tito (built in 1860 as the first brickwork house in the village) opened in 1953 to feature the Memorial Museum of Marshal Tito.

__________________________

                                              

Today, besides the memorial museum, the major attraction,

is 'Staro Selo' (old village)
link:kumrovec.hr/museum-staro-selo/

"An open air Ethnological Museum" with nicely preserved village houses and barns, displaying exhibitions of artifacts related to the life and work of Zagorje peasants in the 19th/20th century, set in a beautifully landscaped setting.

FYI:
 I looked up the word ethnological -<<<great trivia word!>>>

{ethnology, n. The branch of anthropology that analyzes and compares human cultures, as in social structure, language, religion, and technology; cultural anthropology.} 

 (The reconstruction and redecoration of these structures started in 1977.)

Driving from Zagreb, the village is easy to find and has a large, free parking lot. The entrance fee was 20 kuna pp. The day we went, we spent a few hours walking the grounds with Jack, having the place pretty much to ourselves;

only ran into a few other people, a barn cat, and a few chickens.  

It was a perfect way to spend a sunny, warm, spring day. The grounds are beautiful and most of the hundred-year-old farmhouses are open to enter.  Some display family life and some of them shops like a blacksmith's, flax, and pottery, quite a few barns with drying corn hanging from the sides, old tools, and pretty gardens.  It was a worthwhile place to visit for both the Tito history and to see a different part of early Croatian life. 

Internet facts: Tito was born Josip Broz on May 7 (or 25), 1892, the seventh of fifteen children of a peasant (poor farmer) family of Kumrovec, a village near Zagreb, Croatia. [then Austria-Hungary] —died May 4, 1980, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia [now in Slovenia]), He was secretary-general (later president) of the Communist Party (League of Communists) of Yugoslavia (1939–80), supreme commander of the Yugoslav Partisans (1941–45) and the Yugoslav People’s Army (1945–80), and marshal (1943–80), premier (1945–53), and president (1953–80) of Yugoslavia. 

Tito was the chief architect of the “second Yugoslavia,” a socialist federation that lasted from World War II until 1991. He was the first Communist leader in power to defy Soviet hegemony, a backer of independent roads to socialism (sometimes referred to as “national communism”)…

The irony of Tito’s remarkable life is that he created the conditions for the eventual destruction of his lifelong effort. Instead of allowing the process of democratization to establish its own limits, he constantly upset the work of reformers while failing to satisfy their adversaries. He created a federal state, yet he constantly fretted over the pitfalls of decentralization. He knew that the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and others could not be integrated within some new supra nation, nor would they willingly accept the hegemony of any of their number; yet his supranational Yugoslavism frequently smacked of unitarism. He promoted self-management but never gave up on the party’s monopoly of power. He permitted broad freedoms in science, art, and culture that were unheard of in the Soviet bloc, but he kept excoriating the West. He preached peaceful coexistence but built an army that, in 1991, delivered the coup de grâce to the dying Yugoslav state. At his death, the state treasury was empty and political opportunists unchecked. He died too late for constructive change, too early to prevent chaos.

WRITTEN BY: Ivo Banac 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Josip-Broz-Tito https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/16522-the-legacy-of-marshal-tito https:/ (can’t cut and paste, but good read)http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/josip-broz-tito-4333.php (good stats)

Resurrected: Easter, Passover, Uskrs ...

What is the purpose of this life?

There is a saying

 "It is not easy to convey 

a sense of wonder, 

let alone resurrection wonder, 

to another",  

I think that may be true, 
YOU have to know for yourself,
 ...taste and see the Lord is good...

The real meaning of Easter.

"If Christ not be risen, our faith is in vain" 

1Corinthians 15:14

"without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."
Hebrews 9:22

It's Jesus Christ's blood, 

His sacrificial death on the cross 

AND 

the fact that God rose Him from that death!

Year after year I would sit in church and think

“God where are you?

Why am I here?"

Then on August 26, 1984

I bowed my knee, confessed I was a sinner

- repented and asked Jesus to be my Lord-

my Savior. 

God touched me there, gave me real peace.

Really I have never been the same since.

It's what Jesus did,
on the day we celebrate as Easter,
that made it possible for me to have a personal relationship with the Holy God of the Bible.

Jesus said:

"I am the resurrection, and the life:"

The Gospel of John
...they cried out, saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”...
Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover...


Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. 
Then they took Jesus and led Him away...
<------------------------->


The Empty Tomb

The Gospel of John, chapter 20...

...Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

And Thomas answered and said to Him,
 “My Lord and my God!”
<--------------------->

Romans 10:9-10

"that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation" 

That is worth celebrating!

Sretan Uskrs - Happy Easter,

Christine

Lončareva Kuća, Crkva kršćanskog zajedništva 

Samoborska Cesta 89, Jankomir, Zagreb

Come celebrate with us on 

Sunday, April 16th, 10:30 AM

Communion Service

Hope

Destiny

Peace

Related post: Hope sent by God

            I can see clearer ...now

         A cost paid by others

Name facts: The Christian holiday Easter has several names. The names differ depending on languages, but most are derived from Greek and Latin "pascha". Latin adopted the Greek term for the feast, and in most European languages, notable exceptions being English, German and the Slavic languages...

English - Easter

German - Ostern

Croatian - Uskrs (literally: resurrection)

Bulgarian - Velikden (literally: the Grand Day)

Polish - Wielkanoc (literally: the Grand Night)

Czech - Velikonoce (plural; made from Grand Nights)

Slovak - Velká Noc (singular; literally: the Grand Night)

Serbian - Vaskrs (literally: resurrection)

Japanese - Fukkatsu-sai (lit. resurrection festival)

Passover

Latin - Pascha or Festa Paschalia

Greek - Paskha, Bulgarian - Paskha, Danish - Paaske, Dutch - Pasen, Finnish - Pääsiäinen, French - Pâques, Indonesian - Paskah, Irish - Cáisc, Italian - Pasqua, Lower Rhine German - Paisken, Norwegian - Påske, Portuguese - Páscoa, Romanian - Pasti, Russian - Paskha, Scottish Gaelic - Càisg, Spanish - Pascua, Swedish - Påsk, Welsh - Pasg

NOTE: The festival that early Christians celebrated was called in Greek Πάσχα (Pascha), a transliteration of the Aramaic word פסחא, cognate to Hebrew פֶּסַח (Pesach). The word originally designated the Passover feast of Exodus 12. {Paul writes from Ephesus that "Christ our Pascha (Passover) has been sacrificed for us", doubtless not the first interpretation of Exodus 12 as referring to the crucifixion of Jesus.}

The modern English term Easter developed from the Old English word Ēastre or Ēostre (Old English pronunciation: [ˈæːɑstre, ˈeːostre]) 

see more at wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Easter