a man on stilts was walking down my street today.

That was strange. Kinda creepy, actually. I wanted to take a picture, but I got the yeeks and started walking really fast. What in the world was he doing??

This was also a little surprising. We were advertising for camps in Mateja's village. When we got done some kids invited us outside for a little party. Accordian and polka in Kamnik! Yipee!! Click here to see David & Katka's blog for more of the story.





Camp teams come tomorrow!!

a shorter version of Slovenia Note #45

The vision of Josiah Venture is to see a movement of God among young leaders in Eastern Europe that finds its home in the church and transforms society. Four years ago, I was invited to move to Slovenia because there was not an evangelistic community of young people. The apologeticist Ravi Zacharias has talked about the greatest evangel of the 21st century being a worshiping community. Over the past four years, we’ve experienced that here in Slovenia. For my friend Mateja, one of the most convincing influences was seeing Christians love one another at an English camp.

Our worshiping community has seen an increasing number of new births! As these new believers grow, our group is maturing, developing and beginning to reproduce. These Slovene brothers and sisters are wonderful—and naturally fit for this ministry! :) They understand culture and language and relationships so much better than I ever could over here! And they are obviously gifted by God. It is so fun to watch them!

And so, once again, it has become a time for transition. After a lot of thought, prayer and conversations, I’ve decided that it is time for me to leave the ministry in Slovenia. I don’t have a specific place that I plan to go or a specific task that I’m stepping into. But greater than any of that, I feel a sense of God’s peace as I walk forward into an unknown future.

I plan to stay in Slovenia through English camps and fly back to Portland on July 25th. After that, I really don't know what to expect. That's exciting and scary! Quite an adventure! :)

Here goes!!!

welcome to the world!!!

Yipeeee!!!

Dustin and Natalie have a new baby girl!





Look how happy Skylar is!!








And TA-DAAA!!! This is Kaia Grace Hibbard!

Click this to see more pictures and details on their website.

wow.

I firmly believe that everyone should have a good chicken story.

Just to give a little context before I tell what happened:
This is our living room. It's nice, normal, cute and not a farm house. I live in an apartment. Downtown. There aren't chickens in downtown Ljubljana.Živa and I were deep in conversation. We started hearing chicken noises. (Bawking, bocking, bwaking... How do you spell that?!?) We have unpredictable neighbors. So, I predicted that there was just a little more alcohol and a little more craziness than usual. The people were loud. I shut the window. We kept talking.

And then, there was flapping, clucking and a chicken outside of my window! Yikes!!!!
I didn't believe that there was an actual chicken in our building until I saw that animal. But that rooster was very real. The only way the neighbor boy could get his chicken was to climb through our window, out onto the roof, snatch the chicken, jump back in through the window onto the couch. Then he shoved the rooster in my face to scare me. Oh my...

The next morning, I woke up to a good, early crow. Haven't heard that in awhile. I felt right at home. The rooster lived on their balcony for a few days.

Then I ran into my neighbor in the hall. He said his dad had butchered it. It was tasty.

Wow.

summer's here!

Živa, Naja, Christina and I went to Piran for the day. We almost died on the way there when a car near us lost control. After we recovered from the scare, we had a great time--resting, laughing, eating, playing and taking funny pictures.