“When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comforts delight me.”
Psalm 94:19 AMP
When people ask us how life in Romania is, I often respond with, “It is good, and it is hard.” We love living in the rural village of Şiştarovăţ! We thoroughly enjoy the walk to school every morning, the agricultural lifestyle of the people, and living in a place that is less busy. One of the things I find fascinating is that people’s lifestyle has not changed much for hundreds of years. Some people do not have running water in their home, but have a well with a bucket and a crank. We regularly see shepherds watching over flocks of livestock. We appreciate that the people in the village are kind and welcoming! Life is a bit harder though. For the most part, the laundry all needs to be hung up to dry. Instant food is not so available in Romania, so every meal needs to be made from scratch. The grass must be cut with a weed hacker instead of a lawn mower. We’ve actually seen some people cutting their grass with a scythe! We don’t mind this, but it does make life a bit harder. Yet things are slower paced, and people have time to come over for a visit.
Getting sick is never fun, but when you are in a foreign country and you don’t know where or how to get medicine that you normally would take when you are sick, it’s hard. All of us got bad colds shortly after school began. Both Timothy and I got bronchitis. We are thankful that Adi helped us find a good doctor in Arad who wrote prescriptions for everything we needed and in a few days we were feeling much better! Praise God!
September 30 we were able to have our first Friendship International Romania ministry meeting since our family moved to here. We discussed plans for Friendship camp 2022, and how our family can fit into the ministry of Friendship International Romania. Two things that are on our hearts as a way to do ministry in the village are to have an evangelistic children’s club, and a Bible study for new believers. Please pray that these two ideas will actually come to fruition and that people will come to Jesus, be discipled in His word, and become reproducing disciples of Christ!!!
Even as the meeting was taking place, we were aware that there was a good chance we might have to leave the country. David applied for his visa, and the rest of our family can apply after he gets his visa. People in Romania don’t exactly seem to be in a hurry about much. Unfortunately for us, that means that David’s visa is still being processed. The time we are allowed to stay in Romania as tourists would have come to an end on October 15. So, we left Romania on October 12, that allows us a few days left to be able to re-enter Romania, collect David’s visa, and apply for everyone else. We will be able to stay once we have submitted everyone’s application for a visa.
Praise God, David’s work had a meet-up in Berlin Germany, so we were able to come to Berlin and we are waiting here now for news that David’s visa is ready. Berlin was not my plan, and I was actually really hoping that something would happen so that we wouldn’t have to leave Romania. But Berlin WAS in God’s plan for us! It has been good to stay in a hotel for a few days where someone else cleans the room, and the hotel provides breakfast and evening snacks which are ample enough to suffice as our dinner. I am very glad for the break from cooking and cleaning! We are also planning to buy a van of our own while in Germany. Everyone says that the best place to buy a used van is in Germany, so pray that we get a good one that will meet all of our needs! We want to be a light and a blessing wherever God puts us, but our hearts are in Romania. We know that God has called us there and He will work everything out for us to be able to return. However the time in between when our faith becomes reality, that is a stressful time! Please pray for us!!! Pray that David’s visa will get finished so we can go back to Romania! Pray that we will find the right van! Pray that we will be a light and a blessing even here in Germany! Pray that we keep our eyes on Jesus and don’t get stressed! I’ve been praying about Jesus’s invitation to come to him. I know it is not his desire for us to be stressed! His yoke is easy and His burden is light! God has a plan even if we can’t see it yet!