A Few Stories..

Fishing

The second week we were here we had to say good bye to one of our room mates. Shellie came for a week and then had to go back home to her Husband and young son but before she left she wanted to   get a taste of Romania outside the city. And so, Sandy offered to take us all fishing. We talked about it on the weekend and planned the trip for Monday afternoon.
We were all looking forward to some nice relaxing time at the lake and Monday morning went by quickly. Sandy arranged to borrow the church van so we could all drive out to the lake. Our first adventure was the drive. Yet again, the drivers here made us all a little nervous but to top it of most of the seats in the van didn't have working seatbelts, so as we made our way through the city we prayed that God would watch over us. Soon we were speeding away down a bumpy country lane. As the drive got longer we all started to fell the effects of mid afternoon and began to doze. Some of us woke as we turned onto a dirt road that then turned into a sheep pasture with no road... As we drove through this seemingly private property we once again found a dirt road. Down a rather step hill. In a van. It felt very much like four wheeling, as we came up a steep incline and on to flat land some one said "step on it" as if we were on an ATV not in a 9 passenger church van. This was the point where it seemed quite possible that we would all tumble out of our non-seatbelted seats and over the ledge on our right only to get stuck in the pit next to us. It must be that God wanted our trip to continue because that didn't happen.
We arrived safely at the lake and set out to find a nice spot to fish after talking a few pictures of the cows and goats that were grazing quite freely by our parked cars. Our small hike through the woods was delightful and we found a beautiful spot to fish. We cast our poles and waited. The last surprise came when we got our first bite. We reeled it in and at the end of the line was.. A catfish? Yup, an American Catfish. That's what they stock the lake with apparently.

All in all it was a lovely time and we drove back to Oradea into a beautiful sunset.

Our Apartment

Definitely one of the funniest things about our time here has been learning the quirks of our apartment.
We also have a door and windows that open and vent (by leaning in from the top). So the first time someone found out that the door to our porch did that they thought the door was literally going to fall out of it frame and onto them.
Next is out Refrigerator, at distort like to make it's presence loudly known by humming every thirty minutes or so. Then one night when Gets was over she "fixed' it the Romanian way- she wedged a deck of cards under one side tilting it slightly and therefore stopping the noise, only in the morning did we realize that that also made it stop working altogether so we took the card out and now I don't think it ever shuts up. Oh well...
Thirdly we have our washing machine. Our three hour cycle washing machine. Not kidding-THREE HOURS. And every once in a while it goes on a spin cycle that makes it sound as if it will take off like a racket ship. That part is still a bit frightening every time.
And one of my favorites is what we affectionately call our 'bower" it's sort of like a shower minus a curtain and the shower head has no place to stay put so you have to hold it. With no curtain one can't really stand to shower so you have to sit in the tub. Hence bath+ shower= bower.
And just in case anyone was worried about my safety here just know that my front door has not one, not two, but three deadbolts. It's quite inventive really three deadbolts in one lock, to lock or unlock it you just turn the same key in the same lock three times.
Last but not least is our elevator. (Thank the Lord we have one since we are on the eighth floor!) This elevator has a maximum capacity of four people and maybe three with groceries. It is tiny and yet it still manages to serve all nine or ten floors of our building. Though it works quite well we are all a little frightened at the possibility that one day this changing room sized elevator may plummet and that the diamond like pointed lights in the ceiling might kill us. However nothing has led me to believe that this is actually possible...yet.
So that is our apartment in a nut shell.

Devotions

Something that has been a great encouragement to me here has been our devotional times. The girls I am staying with and I are reading a devotional nook called Jesus Calling which is written as Jesus speaking abou how he would have you lean on Him in each day. The other devotion time we have every day is with the girls at the home.
We are currently leading Devos there (and they find it very amusing when we say devos) ll had some great times in the last few weeks. It really started going somewhere two weeks ago when Brittany shared our of the first chapter of Ephesians. She talked about how we are all adopted as sons and daughters and that we can trust that God has a will and a good plan for our lives. One of the girls started talking about how she has a lot of dreams but she doesn't feel like anything is happening and she doesn't know if she can trust God to make things work out for her. The next day Emily was able to talk about her dream of coming to Romania and how that had been on her heart since she was 12. She was able to finally come last year and this year and God had brought it all together her. On Friday I shared out of Hebrews 4 about Jesus being able to sympathize with out Weakness es and that we can boldly approach the throne of grace in a time of need. Again she spoke up and said that she had felt confused and was having a hard time with sins in her own life. And then this last week Jenny talked to the throughout her relationship with her father, who recently got remarried, and reminded all of us that we have a heavenly father who loves us. This has all made an impact on this girl and we are praying that God would continue to woo her and show her His awesome plans for her life.

 That all for now. Thanks for all-out support and for reading my blog. Love you all and miss you lots