Day 6-Romania

I am sitting in a Romanian church viewing and experiencing worship in a primitive form. Several members of our team have preached through Alex, our fantastic interpreter. I was able to perform "Worthy of Glory" earlier and Alex translated. It was a very sweet experience. Mijhai smiled at me the whole time!

The past several days have been wonderful! We arrived in Romania on Friday after a rather interesting flight. Let's just say that there was so much luggage for the flight that half of the suitcases were put in the cabin. I was originally sitting in the back of the plane and got bumped to "first class" to make room for the bags. And by first class I mean the first seat on the plane. :) We were taken to the Hotel Christian as soon as we arrived and I'll never forget the feeling of darkness I felt in the street. We settled in and Daniel, the M for the region, took us to a really cute pizza place for dinner. We had fantastic conversation and then filmed Daniel's interview in the restaurant. We got a walking tour of Cluj after dinner and then hit the hay to get ready for the next day.

We loaded up early and went to the village where the four students we prayed for last year live. We found Alex, Adam, Mijhai and Mirela easily and spent a wonderful few hours getting to know them and conducting a follow up interview. We played in the snow and they taught me how to ask questions in Romanian. They were so much fun! When I asked them what their favorite things to do where their list included things like, "read the Bible," "sing songs to Jesus," and "memorize Bible verses."

After we left that village we went to another village to minister to a young woman who was pregnant when Daniel left on furlough. All he knew was that she was pregnant and the only believer in her village. It was a miracle we found her! We drove around and Alex just asked people on the street if they knew who we were talking about! We finally found her and she had had the baby, a son named Stalion. We were able to pray with her and for her child and encourage her family. We had to hike up a hill of mud to get to her house and we removed our shoes in freezing weather so we wouldn't track mud in their meager home. Her family was so incredibly gracious...when we were leaving the men of the family laid cardboard down for us to walk on and they had laid out our shoes in pairs! It was so sweet to see their desire to serve.

And this brings me back to Sunday, our last day in Romania. We had lunch at the church and then another lunch at the pastor's house! While we were at Pastor Florine's Daniel told him and his wife that my birthday was the next day. Florine pulled out his accordion and he and his wife sang Happy Birthday to me in Romanian! It was so cute! Later that night our team plus the World Changer team got together at McDonald's and Daniel surprised me with a mini birthday party filled with ice cream sundae's and apple pies. It was definitely a birthday to remember!