Kindergarten

Joshua is working with the Oakridge Community Church team at the children's hospital in Kiev this week. From the little I've been able to talk to him, things are going well and they're getting good work done. We'll have a post on the trip when Josh gets back to tell his stories.

I was looking forward to a quiet week at home, but it has turned out to be anything but. In a good way. Our days and lives are full of wonderful people here. Today the girls and I visited a Christian kindergarten for disadvantaged children run by a friend. We all had a wonderful time. I have to confess that I am one who tends to roll my eyes when people talk about going to another country and "falling in love with the children there", but these children were seriously precious. I can hardly wait to go back and see them again. I'm looking forward to volunteering there this fall. It will be a good chance to help out a great ministry, practice my toddler Romanian and give the girls exposure to Romanian language and friends. My job on today's visit was to take photos for fundraising materials, so I have tons of photos to cull through and edit. It's getting late, so tonight I am just throwing together yet another quick collage to give you some snapshots ... the brochure photos will look a little more polished, I hope.

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).

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.

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.

Great Flood

So I took the girls for a walk this evening. It was a little warm, but not too sunny, so we went out to the playground by the ice cream stand. I looked at a big grey cloud in the distance and wondered which direction it was moving, then walked on. We were almost there when the heavens opened and poured forth rain. Sheets of it ... then blankets and comforters. We hid under a tree for a while before I decided that we couldn't possibly be any wetter if we were just walking home, so we headed out. The sidewalks were covered in water, several inches deep in some places. Noemi, shivering and running along side me commented, "I guess there's going to be another Flood after all." It was not a teachable moment to talk about God's faithfulness that never fails, etc, etc. It was time to run and run quickly to the sound of Isobel screaming. By time we crossed the street and reached the bridge by our house the rain had subsided to a gentle spring shower and there was a giant rainbow stretched across the sky. I'm sure God put it there just to remind Noemi that there will never be another Great Flood because He always keeps his promises.

Week at a glance

I'm trying to post more regularly ... at least once a week. The days here are flying by and I don't want to forget them or to forget to share them with all you.

- Joshua was able to pick up his Visa last week and the girls and I should receive ours on Monday!

- I had a great afternoon out with some sweet friends on Saturday. They showed me around downtown Bucuresti, waited patiently while I shopped for kids books in Romanian. There was ice cream, there was music and dancing in the park (folk music festival), it was a perfect afternoon. Adela took me with her to visit a mother in the hospital with her premature baby - a tiny doll of a boy. I was able to pray with them, which was really a blessing to me.

- Our grammar teacher is on vacation this week, but we should start meeting with a language helper for practice in conversation. Joshua might also be able to use some of the free time to take a day trip or two out of Bucuresti.

- Thanks to a generous tax refund we are buying a dryer this week! Some friends are selling theirs before they move back to the States and we are buying it. This may seem like a strange thing to be excited about, but I spend so much time hanging up laundry and tripping on the drying rack that I'm really looking forward to it. Now I'll have more time to post here:)