Gata

I'm happy to say that we all made it back to the States safe and sound! But let me back up a little to the last few days of our trip.

Thursday and Friday we had classes as normal. Friday's classes were a little sad since we had to say goodbye to all of the students. But it was very neat to see them be able to remember everything that we had taught through out the week and how much they had improved on their typing skills.

Thursday night we had the neat opportunity to participate in a small church service in a near by village. We arrived in the village a few hours before the church service started and went around in groups talking to the people and inviting them to come later that night. My group ended up talking to some men for a long time, it was a good relationship builder for the Romanians. The church service went really well, the Romanian missions team that was there helped in the service by leading singing and sharing a few testimonies and then Dr. G, with the help of Jordan for the demonstration, gave a short message. It was really neat to see all of the different people come together and share the Good News with the villagers.

Friday night was a little more relaxing for us and laid back. We had a bonfire with the Missionaries from Drăgăneşti. It was a very nice time to just hang out, talk to them and also to say good bye to most of them since we had to head out the next day for Bucharest.


After breakfast on Saturday we loaded up Pastor Raul's van and headed for the church, where we helped out in a children's class. They were learning about how God was the creator, and how we needed to keep the earth clean. They broke up the children in teams with one of our team members as a leader of each group, and then we went out with a garbage bag and picked up some of the trash around the city for about 10 minutes. It was neat to see the children participating and enjoying helping out their city. Once class was over it was time to head out to Bucharest, with a short stop at one of the missionary's house. She was a doctor and had set up a clinic in a small village out side of Drăgăneşti. She told us that on an average day she would see about 20 patients. She also had a good supply of medicine which she gave out to the people free of charge. Her clinic was known as one of the best in the area and it was really nice to have the chance to go see the work that she is doing there before we left. Saturday night we made it to the hotel, and after dinner at McDonald's we relaxed and went to bed a little early since we had to start our trip back home the next day at 4 AM.

The trip back went very smoothly and fairly fast. Thank you for all of your prayers these past 3 weeks, it was a great encouragement to know that we had people praying both for our team and for the Romanians. Please continue to pray for the people in Romania, the children that we ministered to, and the pastors and missionaries who work with them.

Sunt cântând în ploaie

Someone who actually speaks Romanian will probably correct me, but I believe today's title means "I'm singing in the rain." It has definitely been a bit on the wetter side here tonight. Let me back up a bit though.

Saturday we said goodbye to the Vasile family and went further south in Romania near the town of Drăgăneşti-Olt. Like Jordan said, we're staying with Kevin and Michelle, a Canadian missionary couple here. Sunday we got a chance to visit a smaller church out in a village about an hour away. After church we went and saw ruins of an old Roman fortress on the Bulgarian border. Those were pretty cool - we'll hopefully have some pictures up soon. Sunday night we joined the Romanians at the church here in Drăgăneşti. This was probably the biggest church we'd been to so far, with somewhere around 75 people we think. The service was very upbeat and we made a bunch of new friends that spoke English, so we had plenty of translators, which definitely helps.

Each morning here, we have a computer class in the church in Drăgăneşti, followed by a break for a few hours (which we've recently been filling with computer repair appointments), and then another class here at Kevin and Michelle's house. Our evenings have been filled with various activities. Monday night we played soccer at a nearby field with a bunch of youth from the church and the town, and then we went around inviting people to a concert that would be held here on Tuesday night. Tuesday night, obviously, we went to said concert in the church. From what I could tell, we had even more people in the church than on Sunday night, and it seemed like quite a few of them were people that hadn't attended there before. The concert was for a famous Christian Romanian singer. He was quite good, and even did a few songs that we recognized. Tonight, we did some evangelism in a nearby village followed by another soccer game with youth from the church and the village. Like I mentioned, it ended up raining most of the night, and we had quite an adventure driving back in the pouring rain with somewhere around 16 people in a 9 passenger van. Despite the rain, from what we heard God opened several doors tonight, and the people here will continue to minister in these villages after we leave.

We're quickly approaching the end of our trip here. Thanks for your continued prayers:

• Pray we'll continue to be enthusiastic and full of energy for the kids in our classes as we finish up our last two days
  
• Continue to pray that God will work in the hearts of those we've encountered throughout all three weeks we've been here
• Pray especially for the people of southern Romania. (Câmpina and Drăgăneşti both are a part of this area.) We had known this area was more unreached than the northern part of Romania, but we recently learned that only 0.2% of the population here is Christian.
• Pray for all of the missionaries and their families that are working here. God has sent a fantastic team of people to work in this area.