Life in Fast Lane!

Okay this has been a busy week!!! Had a culture awareness course this past weekend! It was very interesting to learn how Romanians’ see Americans, understand the importance of language and culture learning, learned about the Revolution and whole lot of other stuff. It was long, 20 hours of classes plus 3 hours waiting for our dinner Thursday Night! (It really is an event to go out to a nice restaurant here.) Friday night after our classes we went home for an hour and then me and a few friends went to the 9 pm showing of Pirates (and yes it was in English, it was about 100 degrees in the theater.)



Saturday night I got a plane back to Bucharest, where I will be for a couple of weeks. When I got home Friday, I had 2 packages that my mom sent with teams, waiting for me in my room. The first one was my Christmas package and in it I had many Christmas cards (Thanks, I love getting cards, no matter what time of the year), a couple CDs, and a new Bible. (Merry Christmas to me!) In the second package, my mom sent me cookbooks, summer clothes and a couple of movies (Happy Birthday Me!) I love getting presents.






Also that night I was entertained by our dog, Sami. Sami is about 1
year old yellow lab. And he thinks he is still small, but he is not. Did you know, dogs really do try to catch their tails. He caught it a couple of times, and went around in circles till he got dizzy.

Sunday went to Church, it was nice to hear English preaching, (I was informed by my pastor that in August when I return I will be preaching in the English service.) After church, we ran to the mall to get the movie schedule, have lunch, and have Caramel Frappuccino from STARBUCKS!! Yes we have Starbucks here. And I have a feeling it is going to be new office away from the office, (it has free wireless, too).



Monday, I went and picked up my resident visa, so I can legally stay in the country, and from there, I went to Toyota to get my car!!! Yes, I got my car and insurance and slowly merged into traffic. It wasn’t too bad, it will take some time getting use traffic (Houston traffic is nothing compared to Bucharest traffic), get use to rules (written and unwritten), and well just get use to the craziness!


Tuesday, was my first real day of driving, and I did well considering I was scared out of my mind. Went to the bank and from there drove out to the airport (a place I will get to know very well). Drove a friend home and after about 2 hours of driving I was tired, so much so that my head was hurting (don't know if it was cause of the heat, the temperature in my car was reading 44C which is 108 or more, or if was cause I was concentrating so hard on driving. Anyways I had enough, and so I turned to my friend Raegan and told her she could drive cause I was done for the day.

(Yes I am parked up on the sidewalk! The street is very narrow, & if cars are parked on both sides, you have only a inch or 2 to play with when driving thru the cars. I park on up on the curb).

Today, was a better day of driving, well I didn't very far, just to the office and gas station, but I drove like I knew where I was going. :)

Well, I thank everyone for your prayers about the visa, and car. I should be getting the car registered in about a week or two! So life is going great here. My first team gets here next week, keep them in your prayers as they travel and ministers here.

Slow week

Well this has been a slow week, the calm before the storm! I have 3 more days of classes and then I have 3 days of cultural studies and then, I am off for 3 weeks to Bucharest. I get to pick up my car when I am there, and start learning how to drive in the city. I have a couple of meeting planned for the first week I am there, and then my very first team arrives! I am so excited about them coming. They will be hosting a retreat for our staff at the seaside.
I can't wait for a change in my routine. Once they leave I will hang out in Bucharest for one more week and then, I head back to language school for 2 more weeks and then I am done. I can't wait. I will keep taking language lessons once I move back to Bucharest, but I get start ministry, too.

That is what is happening here, not much, but God does like to remind me that I am still living in Romania every once in awhile. This week was our week of no hot water! 5 whole days and night without hot water. The city turns off the hot water to repair and clean the pipes. Let's just say, I took some very quick showers this week and well only washed my hair once. But the hot water is back on and I am nice and clean again.

Have a great week!

What did they say?

Okay, this evening some friends and I went to the movies. I love going to the movies as many of you know and what I love even more is watching an American movie in English and reading the subtitles in Romanian. Anyways, we went to go see Shrek 3, as the movie started I noticed something wasn't right, I didn't catch it until I hear the couple behind me say, "IT'S IN ROMANIAN!" It had been dubbed into Romanian, which means none of the voices were right or how I remembered them. This has never happened to me before, normally it is kept in the original language and subtitled. Oh well, I guess can't be too mad, I only paid like 2 dollars to see it. So, I sat there and watched it in Romanian. Talk about have a language lesson. I understood most of the movie, but I know I missed all the one liners. I am just going to have to wait till it come out on video to see it in English.
Well at least know that Pirates will be English when it finally come to town in about 2 weeks!

My Car is almost here!!

Hi all!
Well I just wanted to share some good news with everyone! I got a call from my car dealer at Toyota today and he said that my car is almost here!!! I think it is in Romania somewhere, I think at the border, or on the way to Bucharest. Anyways, in the next five days or so I will be paying for my car. Now I was hoping that my car would come in at the end of the month when I was planning to come in town, but now it looks like I will be heading to Bucharest next week to get my car!
So please keep me in prayers as I try to get all the documents, money and everything else that goes with buying a car in a foreign country. And pray as I start driving in this crazy country!!!
As soon as I get the car I will post pictures! And before I forget, "THANK YOU SOUTH TEXAS YOUTH MINISTRIES AND SPEED THE LIGHT!"


***A friend of mine in Bucharest, was able to go to the bank and wire my money to dealer, so my car has been paid for!!! Again thank you STL and South TX youth ministries!