Romania

Made it home safely at 130 AM after 24 plus hours of traveling. It has been an amazing ride this trip. Will collect my thoughts and do a final post hopefully tomorrow with some pics and a video

Yes theres a riot thats happened at The Presidents Palace and no we aren't near there. We are OK and leaving to come home tomorrow. Will be in DC at 8 PM.
Apparently my car AC is broke.....its been hard with no communication. I hope it can be fixed or I am going to smell nasty for work And I don't even know when I go in next.

In Bucharest we made it safely. This is a very rough neighborhood but we are walled in lolol Two services tomorrow and a short field trip then flying home Monday. I am ready.

I had a very long journal entry and lost it. So annoying. It has been a great week here but full of challenges as well. I miss being with my own church. Not that they have not been great to work with but I miss my church family. Heck I miss my own family. I have spoke with Brittany once and not at all with Terry and Jordan. It really is bad not having a phone to use and a PC that has obviously had something fried in it even though I did not need a converter and still used one anyway its not working right.

Saturday morning (11 PM your time) we leave for Bucharest. I think it’s a 7 hour trip split by lunch at some Castle restaurant. Then we leave at 1 PM Bucharest time arriving back in DC about 830 and home by midnight. I am ready to be back home.

I am sorry I did not blog as much as I wanted to. This has in every way been a different type of trip. we hit the ground running and have been going since early morning into late night. We had so many things squeezed into our week there was literally something going on every minute. It has been physically, emotionally and spiritually difficult. This is a steep terrain and they walk so much.

Alan our resident Doctor and policeman has been such a servant and such a help to us when we were sick and frustrated. It was good to have someone with that knowledge here.

The copii have been great. They have been well behaved and so very excited. The people here are truly impoverished in such a way most of you have never seen. We have taught the kids, played games with them, done crafts with them, taught them songs learnt Romanian songs ourselves.

I got to do Ladies Ministry here (they are very *serious* type women not like the ladies at Salem in Oradea.) I did meet one that looks so much like my deceased Granny and got a photo with her.

We have taken food into many of the villages and got to visit with some extremely poor people. Can you imagine for a minute living in tents or in homes with walls or doors missings? So many things we take for granted here. So very much.

I have been told Bucharest is worse off. We will *literally* be staying Saturday and Sunday night in the middle of a Gypsy Village at a church facility there called Project Ruth. We cannot even brush our teeth with the water must use bottled water. I am not sure what I nm going to do about my contact lenses.

I will try to get a blog out from Bucharest and one when we reach London if possible.

La Revedere.

Traveling Tent Gypsys

Bubble Time

Pet Squirrel

Buna Seara from Romania. I didn’t go out with the team today. We have been going from very early morning until early evening. The Village head Pastor here has added much into the Itinerary. Our 2 hour VBS has been expanded into splitting the team in half and doing 4 hour VBS. Also after that we go visiting in the villages of the Roma (Gypsys) and visiting families. We are also doing street ministry.
We also had Ladies ministry thrown in the mix and the men were “entered” into a Soccer game.

Because of there pretty much not being any bathrooms in the villages I have been skipping on taking my blood pressure medicine. Couple that with the fact we are on a mountain and doing a LOT of steep walking and that’s not a good situation. My ankles were swollen yesterday. Have had a headache several days as well. I spoke with the Pastors wife and she and I agreed it would be a good idea for me to day the day off. I took my med last night (one dose plus another half) and took it today. I have doubled up on my aloe juice and water too. This afternoon my ankles look normal. It is cooler here today too which is a help. It has been very hot.

Yesterday was a very unforgettable day. We did our extended VBS. The kids were the most well behaved children I have ever worked with. We have been tag teaming on the Bible lessons and doing crafts with them, Romanian songs and games. They are so excited to have someone come in and spend time with them.

It is so apparent that prejudice is a learnt behavior. The Romanian adults do not like the Roma (Gypsy’s). The teenagers have picked up this attitude but the children don’t care. After we had done the first lesson yesterday we broke for snack. A girl of about 14 or 15 came in with 2 younger children. Around this part of the country they could have been her children. They were her brothers though. They stood at the gate waiting. The younger children spoke with them and waved them in. As far as they were concerned those kids were future friends.

The attitude of the adults were troubling. We got the kids a snack and began trying to communicate with them. The “Christian” adults sneered at them. It was obvious they did not want them there. Several of us went out and sat with them trying to “protect them” from being turnt away. It was so sad seeing Christians that are suppose to be helping others at this way. Why would anyone want our God when we are so MEAN? It broke our hearts. The kids were able to come in and stay, play, learn a Bible lesson and get some attention and food and gifts. It did my heart good. The oldest girl was crawling with lice.

After VBS we went into the village and took the Roma some food and visited with some families. They were so happy to see us. We asked them what prayer needs they had and prayed with them. They just shared their heart and cried. They have such big hearts. One lady brought us out a table and some Orange soda with some drinking glasses. She was so happy to share something with us and turning her down would have hurt her feelings. They are so grateful for anything.

There wasn’t time for dinner as we had been asked to go straight to Ladies ministry. We were able to share with them and it was a blessing. We made them apple pancakes which they loved.

BTW we have a pet squirrel here