Adventura 2 {Romania}

Romania.

Wow.

It is always hard to know how much to say, how much to leave unsaid, how much my friends and family want to know and how much had rather stay in my travel journal to be remembered only by those of us who went on the trip.

I want, first of all, to thank those of you who contributed financially to the trip as well as everyone who prayed for us. We felt the effects of your prayers in a beautiful way and several things came through that made me realize just how important your prayers for us and our ministry were.

The main question I got on the trip as well as coming home, was how it compared to last year. Was it more fun? Less fun? More enjoyable? Less enjoyable? For me, that's a super hard question to answer. Last year was the first time I had ever left the country, my first time working with a translator, my first time meeting all the friends I found so hard to leave. Emotions ran high and I experienced some of the greatest and hardest and most wonderful things I've ever gone through as an adult during and after those two weeks. This year, I was returning to a place familiar to me, and if you've never known the sensation of reaching a foreign country and being home, you'll not understand the wonder in it. This year, I returned to friends, not strangers, and the relationships therefore were deeper and far more wonderful than I had even hoped.

Cristi's wife Alina? We adored her and she (thank heaven) liked us rather a lot too. We were thrilled when we heard that she had taken a week off of work to be able to travel with us around the country. Alina is equal parts sweet, sassy, and smart; she proved an invaluable asset to those of us trying to learn Romanian and we in turn helped her perfect her already wonderful English. Language lessons while road-tripping: so much fun.

The first week was spent in visiting churches with testimonies and music. The second week we spent road-tripping across Romania, seeing all the places near to our hosts' hearts. Romania is the third most beautiful country in Europe, right behind Switzerland and Austria. We saw view after view that appeared photoshopped and even though I had only my tablet camera with which to capture the beauty, it was undeniable.

Among the many beautiful places through which we passed, we were able to take a cruise on the Danube River and practically touch Serbia. In the photo below, Serbia is on the left, Romania on the right, and we had to be sure to stay in our half of the river. Cristi says it counts and that we should be able to claim having set foot in Serbia. No matter whether we have bragging rights in that respect, the views were absolutely gorgeous as we zoomed down the river with granite cliffs on either side.

I caught a cough from the hot springs at Baile Herculane. They were hot springs which have been in use since the ancient Romans and we stayed in a cabin up on the beautiful mountains. We chose to walk down to the little family-run outdoor bistro that night: a 7 kilometre (around 5 miles) round trip, so we were good and hungry by the time we came back. Thankfully, we had snacks. The cabins were the perfect size for "Shorty":

Not too fabulous for Oliver (or "Watermelon Boy" as he came to be called):

The Lord gave us such a great team this year just like last year and prepared each person for the work required of them during our trip. One example of His grace was Elissa's willingness to take her mother's "herbal pharmacy" along, even though she doubted she'd need any of the things. Well, Elissa didn't need them, but I came down with a cough and sore throat and Alaina got the same thing plus a fever and headache. If it wasn't for Elissa's pharmacy, I doubt we'd be feeling half as well as we were by the day we left. I so much enjoyed getting to know Oliver and Stephanie as the two people who were "new" to my closer circles of friends.

Their fun-loving personalities, ping-pong prowess, testimonies, and high spirits endeared them to me and they soon became integral parts of the machine that was the 2014 Missions Team. I hope we'll be able to continue these awesome and new relationships even though Stephanie (AHEM) is moving off to Texas for her summer internship after graduating Liberty U with A's. <3

Over and over, God put us right where we needed to be. Sometimes it felt that we were doing nothing but singing and telling easy-to-tell testimonies in the churches. Surely there was something more we should be doing? But Cristi told us that in Romania, this sort of ministry is needed terribly and already he had received phone calls from members of the various churches telling him how much the body of Christ was blessed in that village by our hour and a half in the church. In our very weaknesses, He is strong. After the first couple of nights, Cristi urged us not to use notes but to pray before we stood up that God would give us the words we ought to speak. The night I began to heed this advice was one of the finest nights of the trip. We can never prepare enough compared to asking God for His words. 

There were stresses (Cristi and Pastor John had a pretty crummy two weeks with family in the hospital, church members dying, weddings and funerals to conduct, etc.) and there were blessings. God worked some in the ways we'd hoped and some in ways that were completely unexpected and delightful. We had adventure upon adventure and I wrote more pages in this year's travel journal than I had last time. I visited two real live castles, darlings! I will obviously tell more about the trip in detail in subsequent posts but I wanted to give you a brief over-view for now and to let you know that our time was blessed and your thoughts and prayers were cherished.

I have so many stories to tell and pictures to share and things to laugh over with you so please stay tuned to this blog! I'll be posting Romania posts for the next while with Plenilune makeup posts scattered through, so keep a weather eye out! For now, drum bun! (droom boon) This expression means "good road" and is basically a sort of "bon boyage and have a safe journey" saying. Till next time, darlings!

Matthew gets credit for this photo. ;)