Black Sea!

My older sister came to Romania and gave us an incredible gift of a trip to the Black Sea for a week!
I think family will get into the pictures most so my apologies for the rest of you who don't care : )
We stayed in this resort strip (it's literally a strip of about 5KM I think? of land between a large lake and the coastline) called Mamaia. If you click of "Black Sea June 2007" underneath the thumbnail picture it'll take you to the slideshow of some of our pictures from the trip.


Black Sea June 2007

Romanian Laundry Lines

I haven't been able to log into my blogspot for about 3 days...sorry!

This morning Caleb and I headed off to the big outdoor market that is held every Friday. I was really excited because some of the ladies were selling raspberries. I got a litre jar (Bocan) full of them for 50 Lei which, is equal to $2 USD. A litre can sort of be associated with a quart, if that helps you at all. Strawberries were double in price from 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago they were 2 Lei / Kilo. Today they were 4 Lei per Kilo. I also bought a nice looking eggplant, but it's already gone. Caleb and I destroyed it at lunch : )

And, today's my birthday - 26 today! Instead of ice cream I'm making a sauce out of the strawberries and raspberries to put over the cake. I don't know, it's not that I don't like ice cream, it's just that the thought of it today was making my stomach churn. Something it's been doing a lot lately since I caught the stomach virus that Caleb had at the beginning of the week. This morning though I felt almost back to normal...if only those 2 stupid mosquitoes in my room hadn't woken me up AGAIN at 5:45am. Maybe the 2 pairs were friends...who knows.

The picture though is of something pretty cool, I thought. Or pretty cool for you all to see.

The women here make their own lace and crochet a ton of stuff. But, in our area you never see it. So while walking to the market I saw a bunch of it hanging out to dry outside of an apartment building (Bloc). I guess it is available here after all!

Taxi Cabs

So there are 4 things you should know about the taxi cabs that go between Marghita and Romania.

1. 4 people plus the driver will be squashed into a car that is not made for 5 people.

2. If you sit in the back you are guaranteed to not have a seat belt. The taxi driver either takes them out or shoves them under the seat. They even will get upset with you when you try to pull them out to put them on!

3. If you sit in the back you are guaranteed to have someone's arm around your should the 45 minute ride...there's just not room to have your arms at your sides!

4. The person to get the front seat has to fall into one of these categories :
A. Hottest, skinniest girl with lots of skin showing.
B. A woman about 40 years and older.
C. The guy that's best buddy with the taxi driver.

I rarely fit into these categories although I wish I did more often because sitting in the middle of two big smelly guys in the backseat who have their arms around me to make more room isn't the most pleasant experience!

These taxis are the cheapest way to head to Oradea if you are travelling by yourself. Today I had to take one back from Oradea (where I was buying train tickets for the trip to the Black Sea that my sister, Caleb and I will go on next week). I got there and thankfully I didn't have to wait long at all for 3 other people to show up. The thing is that the 3 other people were 3 pretty well sized older men. I thought to myself "Dang it! Not again!", already dreading the sandwich squeeze of the backseat. Then, the taxi driver says to ME "Sit in the front!"
I threw open that door and plopped myself down before any of the older men could contest his decision. And, added bonus of the front seat - SEAT BELT! I got a seat belt!

You have to experience it I think in order to understand just how awesome this was....
If you come visit I can for sure hook you up with some back seat squishing! : )

Tortilla Chips

Not so commonly found in Romania actually. But, they have taken Marghita by storm after a semi-truck filled with donations for FCE came by recently and, among the other donations, left us with 4,000 bags of tortilla chips. We have all kinds ranging from Cool Ranch to Nacho Cheese to "Rock and Roll" spicy. Let me tell you, it's awesome. Everyone we work with and everyone who works for the foundation is eating tortilla chips as much as possible right now. It's a race to eat them or give them away before their expiration dates. Thankfully they all have different dates but there are some that go this month! Anyone have any fun ideas that you can use tortilla chips for? Recipes, crafts? The 2 people from ECC who are coming to do the VBS with the Casa Alba kids are hard at work preparing and writing all of the material they'll need. I kept thinking today "How can we work in tortilla chips!" Want to help us? Go for it. The theme of the camp will be the Armor of God. There has to be some way to get tortilla chips into that somehow....

Tuesday Night Prayer

Today is Tuesday and that means that Salem church in the city of Oradea has their prayer night. AND, we have a car tonight! I can't wait, I love it. There's something about that church and the people there...God does really incredible and crazy things in me when I'm there worshipping and praying with them.
He fills me up there and I'm at a point right now where I really need Him to fill me up a lot more than I have before. They worship for about a 1/2 hour and then pray for about 1 1/2 hours together. After it's over I feel like I can give and love on those who I work with here in Marghita. It's been challenging lately in ministry and relationships here in Marghita but I am so thankful for how God is using this church in my relationship with Him right now.

He restores my hope in Him, in what He wants to do here in Romania, in what He wants to do with me when I'm there. Maybe it's not the same for everyone so I just speak for myself, you know?

*sigh*

For me, almost nothing beats communal worship and prayer... Thank You Jesus!

Buying Cars

It should be fun, you know? Buying a car that is. Except me buying a car as a missionary here in the country where you don't buy used cars because used cars here are used beyond repair...well, it's a little difficult.
I wish I could just pick up some extra hours at work to cover a car payment. Doesn't work that way now, I have to ask people to give money so I can buy a car. Although some people might look at this as a free deal, I don't. It's hard and humbling to have to ask for support to live every month and if I need to buy something, like a car, to have to ask for that too.
I found a good deal on a new car in the city over an hour away. The deal is though I don't want to buy a brand new car. Me as a foreigner driving a brand new car around, no matter how good of a deal it was, is not worth it for me. It fits too many of the stereotypes that I don't want to have here but automatically am placed with simply because I am a foreigner.
Then, there's the used car market here. The problem with used cars here are the roads. The roads are awful and cars wear down and break so much more quickly than they ever should. So although a used car here could be a good deal price-wise it never will be worth it once I start driving it - because I won't be driving it for long.
So where to look for a car then? Well, Sweden - Germany are two options. The problem with Sweden is that I will have to put it in someone else's name, a Swedish person's name, pay hefty taxes and car insurance yearly and have to make a trip to Sweden every year to have a strict inspection done and repairs made, if necessary. The cost of the yearly trip and their taxes/insurance don't make a good deal on a car worth it anymore.
I talked with my boss today and he said Germany is my only option. I can get a great used car at a great price. So what's the problem with Germany then, you might ask me?
Say I find a car on http://www.mobile.de/ that I am really interested in. Can I go visit it? No, I can't. If I go and visit it then I will have spent a big chunk of money out of my car fund that I am attempting to raise. That means I have to get in contact with the seller and decide whether or not I'm going to believe what they are telling me about the car. Say I decide to buy it - I fly out to Germany and pay for the car. Then, I drive it the 15-20 hours back to Romania where I have to register it. To register this German car here I have to report everything about it and then Romania decides how much they will charge me to get the Romanian plates on it. A great brand new car is about 1700 Euro just to be registered. So, a fourth of my car budget goes just to registering the car here in Romania. Money that could be spent on buying a better car.
Isn't this fun so far?
There is 1 maybe option though aside from these. There is a company in the city that goes and finds cars in Germany, then drives them back to Romania and sells them. They do this on a request basis. For instance, FCE is buying a new van so they are going through this guy in order to do so. Before buying the guy will send pictures, details and price of the car to make sure it's what was asked for. My boss wasn't sure if this guy would do it for me since I'm not interested in spending 15000 Euro on a van. But, he's going to ask him if he would be willing/interested. The guy would go to Germany, find a car similar to what I'm looking for and in my price range, then drive it back for me. I think that the price he would give for the car would include their fee.
So, we see. Much more complicated than at home - that's for sure.
If I wasn't so sure that God was telling me to buy a car I definitely would not be going through this process just for the fun of it!