Monday, July 27, 2009

Parcul Titan


Joshua is headed out to Kiev next week and I'm really looking forward to a quiet week at home. Living across the street from one of Bucuresti's most lovely parks keeps me from feeling trapped in the city in the summer. You can't tell we live in the most densely populated city in Europe from these pics, can you? If you look closely though, you can find a turtle:)

We're feeling very cosmopolitan lately...

We enjoyed hosting a family from Russia overnight last night. They came to meet a Romanian missionary to Siberia who is back here for a few weeks. They are a wonderful family who are dear friends of the Romanian missionary and his family. As far as we can tell, they are not believers. We look forward to seeing them again before they head back to Russia. It was a great opportunity for us to give a little help to a Romanian who has already been mobilized and sent out as a missionary. Noemi really enjoyed playing with their daughter until late at night and then again as soon as she woke up. Playing with toy animals on a pirate ship somehow transcends the language barrier


Joshua is really looking forward to meeting the team from Oakridge Community Church in Kiev next week to work in a children's hospital. It feels oddly normal for him to be travelling to a new country because it's just next-door (yet somehow takes 27 hours to travel by train).

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

It was a good day!

We have actually been having lots of good days. Joshua has a monthly pass for all the trams, buses and trolley-buses in Bucharest and is enjoying exploring and experiencing new things. Since that sounds like way less fun to me with two kids in tow I tend to spend more of my time in our neighborhood. I took a bunch of pictures of our neighborhood for another post to show you why I don't feel the need to get away from it all.

Romania just might be the most welcoming country to move to, as a foreigner. The people here are so incredibly patient and encouraging. That said, language and culture acquisition is still hard work. God has placed a lot of Romanians in our lives who are a great blessing to us in this process and I am so thankful for them! Today I met with a young mother in the park, who only speaks Romanian and I was so excited because, for the most part, I could understand her. She was really patient while I laboriously strung my words together into sentences. Even more exciting to me is the fact that she is someone who I can be a blessing to now, even with the limitation of my linguistic abilities ... or lack thereof. I'm farther down the road of motherhood and have the deep resources of a great God to draw on. She is home alone with a young baby most of the time and spending time with her in the park is something I can do with my children around. I have received so much here that I'm looking forward to being able to pour out grace as well.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Visa Process in Numbers

# of visits we have made to the Visa office in the past two months: 7

# of Visas we have in hand: 2

# of ice-cream cones bought to appease children tired of waiting at the visa office: approximately 6, but who's counting

# of visits to the visa office before they actually give us cards for Noemi and Isobel: anybody's guess

# of months before we get to turn around and do this all over again: 10.5

That said, it's totally worth it to be here in Romania.