Having Fun after the adventure

If you have read the two previous posts you know that getting to Slovenia and staying there created some exciting times for all of us.  But luckily it wasn't all hair raising adventure and car theft, although nothing brings a group closer then landmnes, storms and attempted grand theft auto.   We were in Slovenia for a team retreat.  As a team we were going to be working through some personality inventories and spiritual gift assessments that we would be using to better understand each other, work together and find the best ways for God to use us to further his Kingdom. Getting to know about people and what motivated them was great and I enjoyed seeing how God knitted our team together just way he knew would make us most effective.   We also wanted to spend some time in fellowship and having fun.  The place we were staying had in indoor water park as well as an outdoor park.  All the water was heated naturally and so even in October it was great. Here are some pictures,  I really thought I had some more of Kyleigh but she was to busy going on the water slides. 

Adventure Part 2

So our team is in Slovenia for a retreat and on our way we had this adventure.  But little did we know this was not the craziest thing that would happen to us over the weekend. 
First let me tell you a little about Slovenia.  It is the jewel of the former Yugoslavia.  A small country with a population of 2 million.  A member of the European Union, the highest per capita income in all of Europe.  Slovenia is a gorgeous mountainous region known for its outdoor adventure sports.  It also has one of the lowest crime rates in the EU, so with this information your thinking what could happen here?

On our first night the storm of the century blew in.  Rain, thunder, lightening, high winds, hail, it was all there.

This is a small tree that was uprooted as proof of the crazy storm

 But the storm was not the big adventure of the evening.  The next morning I woke up to assess the damage and noticed my teammates car was not in front of his bungalow but was down the road about fifty yards.  My first thought was "poor Josh, his car died, we need to buy him a knew one".  Then I hear Josh, yell to me from across the way "They tried to steal my car".  This was shocking on multiple levels.
1.  Only very desperate people would try to steal a 10 year old van with like 200,000 miles on it.
2.  We are in a gated community, how did the thieves get in?
3.  Why were car thieves wondering around in the storm of the century?
4.  We are in Slovenia, people need to steal cars in the wealthiest country in the EU?
5.  Landmines and stolen cars, we have only been here for 1 day.

As Josh contacted the police we found out that the thieves broke into and hid in a vacant apartment (getting out of the storm).  There were probably a large number of them (hence the need for the van). They were probably immigrants (that came from the police, assuring us that no Slovenian would need to steal a car) and after unsuccessfully trying to hot wire (yes old school hot wiring like you see in the movies) the thieves moved on and stole a car about a mile away.

Police and Crime scene tape - a dream come true for me

Scene of the crime, the thieves hideout

Josh and Kristen cordoned off behind the tape.

Luckily we were able to get the car repaired so Josh and his family could get home.

Thanks Eastern Europe for keeping the adventure alive.

Still some adventure in our lives Part 1

We have lived in Eastern Europe now for almost three years and so many things that used to be "adventurous" are now just ho hum day to day things.  The visitor may find them to be an exciting adventure but for the Stevens family it is just life.  But this month Eastern Europe came through - more specifically the former Yugoslavia and we got a big dose of adventure. Our team was having a retreat in Slovenia and little did we know the weekend would be full of adventure. 
As we were traveling to Slovenia we came across a little traffic jam.
When you see the following picture. what comes to mind?

 

Things like:

Wow that must be a massive wreck up ahead!

Maybe there is some road construction.

Is a bridge out? 

The options are limitless but I promise the reason for this traffic jam would never ocur to you in a thousand years.

As we were stopped (cars turned off, people out milling around, we were not only stopped,

 we were parked) we had these thoughts as well as some outragous ones.  We really had one clue as to why we were stopped.  It was this sign:

The exclamation usually means warning, so we assumed there was some danger  and the text basically says closed due to clearance, so that leaves us thinking what were they clearing.  If we go to our earlier list this all makes sense but the bottom part of the sign basically says that trafic will move the first 20 minutes of every hour so it could not be a wreck, this was the clearance of something planned.  No one seemed to be to put out by this so we just rolled with it and eventually moved on.  The problem was we never saw anything being cleared, no wreck, no bridge, no construction. 
We were ahead of our traveling party so we texted them and told them they would be held up a little but it was no big deal and they would get to Slovenia.  Still very curious about what was going on we hoped they could find out.
As we were pulling into our destination Jen got the following text:
Traffic is stopped because they are clearing landmines!!! The government does not want any cars around in case something goes wrong. (that can be interpreted as landmines start exploding and throw shrapnel all over the road).
Now be honest, did that cross your mind as a reason for a traffic jam?  Me neither.
On our way home, we were very observant and did see guys in millitary fatigues right off the road ready to search for active landmines.
Keep reading later this week as the adventures and hijinks continue.