Marghita's Days and Hyundai

This morning was spent cleaning and straightening up our apartment which had about 3 days of Caleb's toys, cars and blocks scattered everywhere. I told him that he couldn't go on the "Bumpy cars" again today (Bumper Cars) unless he did some work for Mommy. I've never seen toys picked up faster! We met a bunch of Casa Alba kids at the ride section of the carnival as well. We were able to help them get on some rides as well...Olympia and Kristina did a great first time job on the Bumper Cars! Caleb wanted to go on the "boats", this ride that flies around in the air really fast in circles. I told him I would throw up if I did so he went on with his friend, Dani, and his mom instead. He was cracking up with laughter. What a huge change between the age 2 and age 3. Last year Caleb was screaming all during Marghita's days, refusing to go on even the baby rides. This year he wants to go on the flying crazy boats that his Mom can't even handle. No more baby Caleb...

There are stands set up in the park, each one with massive grills going full force. The smell is awesome! The most common item on them is "mici." These little sausages are given some spice, then grilled. You have a choice of mustard or garlic sauce (mujdei) to dip them into. Unfortunately they use a lot of baking soda in them so your stomach doesn't appreciate them as much as your taste buds do. I'll be staying away from the mici this year - just enjoy the smells instead!

Today I got word that the car the Lord provided for Caleb and I is officially bought, bill of sale in hand! For those of you who want to look it up online it is a Hyundai Atos Prime 1.0 2002. It's in great shape and only has 33,700 KM (take that divided by about 1.62 and you'll get Miles) on it!!
Maybe a 1.0 Litre engine is too small for you but for Caleb and I that means Romania will let us register it for a very small price. I'm more interested in saving money than going fast. It's blue and has a sun roof over almost the entire roof of the car. I will definitely be appreciating that come summer with no air conditioning. It's not a huge car but it is one that will work perfectly for the needs of Caleb and I getting to church the couple of times of week that we need to.

I'll be headin to Germany with Courtney on Wednesday to pick it up. My friends in Germany are anticipating problems with me obtaining temporary plates for this car. I need 30 day temporary plates in order to bring it back to Romania and permanently register it here. Please pray about this. Courtney and I need to leave Germany next Thursday by 11am in order to make it back around 2am - which is our goal. Please pray that this process goes smoothly that morning!

10:36am Update of Events

Okay, today has been interesting so far. Thought I'd share...

1. A fire broke out at our volunteer house, where some short term volunteers live - where we eat and hang out etc... Two rooms were destroyed, everyone is safe! Cool story - the Bible of one of the girls was in the middle of a pile of books...everything badly damaged except the Bible.
Thank you Jesus!

2. My internet WAS RE-INSTALLED! After a month I finally have internet at home again! Thank you Jesus!

3. Marghita has shut down all of the main streets in preparation for "Zilele Marghitei" (Marghita's Days). Big carnival will roll in for the weekend and the missionaries who have apartments facing the main street will be treated to musical 'delights' from the 'main stage' until 4 am for the next 3 nights!

4. I will fly to Germany next Wednesday to bring back the CAR that Jesus has given Caleb and I.
The payment will be hand delivered today by a friend that has been helping me in this whole process in Germany. So now I just need to pick it up! Thank You Jesus!

Some Updates

Okay, here are some quick updates on life right now!

1. Program at Casa Alba still hasn't begun yet. I know - I'm sorry! Some unexpected things happened this week and I found out some new knowledge that prevented me from starting.
These are :
A. I planned on doing the Casa Alba program 3X in the mornings and 1 afternoon per week this week. I found out though that only 5 children will be there in the mornings this year - many more are starting kindergarten this year than I anticipated. So, a change in schedule is needed - unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to do as many afternoons as mornings. Praying about this this week I happened to be at the volunteer house while the Handicapped School Team was meeting. They expressed a desire to have a Bible program some during the week with the kids they work with. Immediately I heard the Lord speak to my heart that I was to offer one of my mornings to do this. These children will come to Casa Alba and I will divide the 5 Casa Alba kids into 2 smaller groups. I will then do the older kids - who are now going to school - 1 afternoon a week.

B. We have a warehouse with donations from Sweden and Scotland. This week about 150 packages were needed to be put together for the poor families that we provide assistance to. Our volunteer who runs the "depot" was desperate for help in putting together these clothing packages. I felt that I was needed there and so have spent 3 days helping put together these packages. Just for some understanding in what it takes to put these packages together, it took me about 2 1/2 hours to do 1 package for a family of 13 today. Not as easy or quick as you might think - and with 150 to do...the help is needed!

C. There were more problems concerning my residency, more than what I described in the update I sent a couple of weeks ago. This has required me to go to Oradea 3X this week to try and work out these problems. Lots of people to re-explain my story to, lots of papers that were expired and needed to be re-done, computer systems not working etc...
I started laughing yesterday after some more of these because God is really doing something crazy with all of this! I am fighting disappointment and sadness with my armor as much as I can and God is blessing that, I feel, with a hope that I could not 'make up' on my own.
Monday morning we will make more calls and *hopefully* they will finally send my request and file to Bucuresti.

D. Barbro, (she and her husband lead the work here), will be gone for 3 weeks. Her, a pastor and I - along with some of our older orphans, make up the ministry team that goes to the local old people's home every Thursday. This past week the pastor and his wife decided to move to Oradea. With him gone and Barbro gone, that leaves me to lead this team. So, I need to work on finding people to come and lead the worship and the Bible studies for those weeks. I will be doing some of that so preparing Bible studies in Romanian takes a lot more work than English (go figure) : )

E. I will be leading the next 3 Friday worship/Bible study nights at our Clubhouse. Those that come are our orphan youth and young adults. Those of you who know what "Connexion" is think of a mini-version of that. These nights are in a transitional period with no one to take leadership of them. Last spring I began praying about perhaps playing a larger role with these Friday nights and approached leadership in late July. Their answer was vague and more discouraging than 'yes' so I figured they had another plan with some other people.
What's interesting though is that my boss, for the past 3 weeks, has been sharing with our team a need for someone to do this and how great it would be if some from our team of missionaries wanted to do some parts of it. The next morning as I was making breakfast the Spirit started going crazy with a 3 part series, skits, worship ideas...the whole shibang! I wasn't praying for it - He just started speaking. I grabbed a piece of paper and starting jotting notes as fast as I could. That day I approached leadership about doing it for the next 3 weeks and they were really excited about it. (Note: I put together one of these nights this past spring and it was incredible! I know I have giftings in this area and it was awesome for God to use me that way.)
But because they weren't at that night in the spring they thought all I was going to do was stand on the stage and just 'preach' for an hour. Heck no! Hopefully the leadership will come to the worship nights and see something very different...
Anyway, preparing for these next 3 Friday nights will be a lot. Part of the responsibility is working with 3 new worship team groups, made up of our youth and young adults. I was told that the groups were formed this week and that they should be included in each Friday - awesome! So cool...very excited.
All this to say that this extra stuff also made going to Casa Alba a little impossible this week.

To Sum it All Up :
Please pray for all this planning and prep that I would be listening to God and not myself : )
Please pray that the Casa Alba program starts smoothly this next coming week and that I am able to adjust to the different groups of children!
Please pray for the Thursday services at Ciutelec and Friday nights with our teens!
Aaaaaghghgh! Lots to pray about! Lots to be excited about! Go Jesus!