Well, we have a new week. The weekend was nice. We went to the kids program Saturday and then to Fedi’s home town for a couple of things.

The kids program is staying a steady 30 - 40 kids. We are getting to know the kids that are coming steady. There are more gypsies coming again. This means things are usually wilder. They are often disruptive and fights even break out here & there. But they also listen to the Bible story and sing with enthusiasm. They sometimes wait for hours outside the building for the kids program to start.

At Fedi’s home town - we took some money from Jozsef & Sandor up to some good friends of their’s named Arpi & Maris. Their daughter Aniku is going to America to visit Jozsef, Sandor & Irma. In the little I have gotten to know Aniku I have been impressed. She is a very sweet Christian girl. She can get a visa because of a program for university students.

After their house we stopped in Hueni’s. We don’t see him so much now that he has a job. He fixed our computer for us, as it was broken. His mom is in Hungary right now. She goes there to clean for 3 weeks, then stays home for 3 weeks( I think). It’s the only way they can make it. Heuni’s dad is an electrician with the highest training possible and he earns about $100 a month.

We still have loads of waterpower. It saves us a lot of money on gas for the generator, but it gives me more work. I wash the clothes by hand since our wash machine does not work on the batteries. We want to try to trade it for someone’s older model to see if the wiring will work with the transformer we have.

Fedi left this morning again to try and have the part made for our jeep. The place that made it before went out of business. They made it wrong anyway. We are keeping an eye out for a bigger vehicle too.

English class on Tuesdays is fun but the spring weather has the kids kind of wild. My class ranges from 20 - 25 beginners. The school provides us with a heated classroom and the kids just come from word-of-mouth. I think they enjoy it. There is no risk to me of losing my job, so I feel free to have fun with them. Fedi has the more advanced kids and later does an adult class.

Church was a blessing yesterday. It seems to be such an effort to get there, but it is always worth it. Leventa was gone so 3 or 4 men shared Bible verses and thoughts. Later they had a discussion on Church unity and a prayer time together. Csilla told us that the Baptist Leaders are expecting Leventa to document his ministry time and he needs to log in 40 hours a week to even get the $50 they dropped his pay to a month. I think it’s time for Leventa to look for a normal job and still be a minister on the side.

We are having another snowstorm. It is beautiful!

Fedi went to the prison again with John (the old man). He has sort of given up on Fedi buying him a car. There is a group of 10 Germans coming here to help with the prison. He told Fedi he was going to ask them to give him money for a car. He asked Fedi, what does he think he should go for, 2,500 Euros (about $3,000) or 3,500 Euros (about $4,000)? Fedi was taken aback, but said “Well, as the Spirit leads.” Anyway, it gave me a good laugh. Fedi did at one point pin him down on why he would need a car - he really doesn’t. The bus is actually cheaper than the gas alone would be for him. We have tried to tell him how much repairs have been costing us for our car.

Oh yeah, Fedi gave John $100 from the donation money for the month of March.

Well, our car is making our life interesting again. It didn’t get done Sunday, so we stayed home. On Monday, about 6:00 p.m., the mechanic called and said it was done and he would bring it up. Fedi said, Great, because we were running low on food. We decided to walk part way since our driveway is very muddy. Well, we walked and walked and finally decided to give him a call. He said he drove out the drive and everything locked up again. So, it’s back to square one. We walked back home, planning to use the last of our potatoes to make french fries. Fedi said this was the season to catch frogs, so he would go out to try and add frog legs to our dinner. We got a little goofy and started making “F” sentences like - fearless Fedi will find frightened frogs fast for food. Well, the frogs had nothing to worry about, but the french fries tasted great alone anyway. Csilla offered to bring up some food, but Fedi will go shopping tomorrow with Attila, so we didn’t see the sense of it.

We have about decided to try and find another vehicle. We want something bigger anyway, besides all the problems this one has had. We will advertise it after it is fixed.

We just returned from Budapest. I wanted to get out of the house so when Fedi was being urged by two different people to go to a Christian conference in Budapest, he took us all along. It was nice. There was nothing said that was anything striking, but the time away and the spring weather that’s here now, has given things here a better perspective. Our accommodations were basic - toilets and showers down the hall, but the beds were clean and comfortable and the price was right - $12.00 a day for room and board for the 6 of us. The food was sandwiches - every single meal. It was a special price for the people attending the conference.

I was surprised how well Hungary is doing financially. It felt like we were in the states. Nice cars were way more abundant than old cars. I only saw 1 horse wagon the whole time we were there. In Romania, it is normal to pass 10-15 every single drive.

We splurged on Kentucky Fried Chicken, but came away with sticker shock when the price came to $30.00. I looked everywhere to buy a pair of shoes for myself, but I think I must be the only one around with size 9 feet. No store carried that big of shoe in women’s.

Erika stayed at our house while we were gone. Going up our drive the car got stuck in neutral. Hey, it’s been running now for two full days, so it’s time for it to break again. Erika really wanted to get home, so I walked with her down the road until a horse-wagon picked her up to take her down the mountain.

There has been some beautiful spring weather here while we were gone. As a consequence, of course, the creek is huge. We have the under flow (for draining the pond) and the water power wide open and it is still going about 3 inches over the overflow. The only danger, if it gets much higher, is flooding the meadow. So far - so good though.

Attila & Erika both went to church last Sunday. They both said they liked it. I am very hopeful for them.

While in Budapest, we arranged to have an ad put in the paper, advertising our house as a vacation house for rent. It would be a lot of work to get it ready, but if it goes, it could mean something to do with this house to provide some income for us and some jobs for some of our friends here. It would not be too hard for us to move out for a week to one of these other summer cabins near us (I think we could rent one ourselves for next to nothing). I know if we had to do this constantly, it would be very inconvenient, but for a few months it may be necessary to get this set up. The ad will show us if there is enough interest to make it work long-term.

We also found some salad dressing while we were in Budapest. They have started to have lettuce at the market occasionally, but this is the first store-bought dressing we have seen.

Oh yeah, a couple of weeks ago, when the meadow was one flat, untouched blanket of snow, someone (probably a teenage boy) did donuts all over it. The funny thing was, that it was a horse wagons track. I would liked to have seen the sport horse that did it.

Beginning of March
Well, I lost part of my journal. Nothing huge happened. We got our car back after one month at the mechanics. It lasted a week. During that time Fedi was gone from morning to night helping everyone and their brother. On Monday, he went to the Baptist Camp with Leventa and another missionary for a meeting of Christian workers. It was less than inspiring and not worth his time. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he drove Micky around, trying to help him get his logging business going. Thursday he went to another town to help another missionary with something they have going. On Friday and Saturday, same city, different missionary. Enough was enough for me; praise the Lord our car broke again.

This time, it took about 10 days to have all the same parts made again and get it put back together. We drove it up to park about 60 kilometers away so we could take the van to Budapest. It got us home okay, at least after Budapest. Our mechanic told Fedi, if he wasn’t ashamed, he would have cried the last time it broke.

Well, we have plenty of waterpower again. Yesterday was so beautiful & warm we went on a hike. In many places the snow was still 2 feet deep making it pretty challenging to walk through. We followed bear tracks for awhile (they were not very fresh) and saw where the elk had been eating bark. We saw plenty of elk droppings but not the shed antlers we were looking for. All in all it was a great hike. On the way home some big clouds rolled in - we heard one huge thunder before it started to pour down - SNOW - On one steep hill down Fedi & I were plowing our slow way through when the kids tried to roll down. It worked so good for them as they stayed on top instead breaking through, that I rolled down too!

Yesterday evening was strike two with Attila (the horse owner) and his family coming to church. They told us this week for sure a couple times. We waited outside their gate & knocked but only the kids looked out. I’m not too discouraged though. I see Attila (the cow owner) and Erika both taking steps of faith. Also Rebekah is doing well.

We are using $500.00 of the donation money for something I feel great about. Fedi is giving it to a man in church who is starting his own business. He used to be an alcoholic who beat his wife. Since his conversion - maybe 3 or 4 years ago he is a totally changed and humble man. Micky and his wife have 3 kids in a small apartment and the new news is there is one more on the way. They are starting a logging business. His wife just lost her job as she used to work in the orphanage.

We will also give Leventa $100.00 for March and John more than normal. (I’m not sure how much Fedi decided on for John)

Oh - we got our car back yesterday. We had been borrowing Jozsef’s car for the streets and we had to have repairs done on it twice and Attila’s (the cow owner) jeep for the mountain. Fedi has worked on the electrical mess on it for over 30 hours. It hurt his pride to have to give up and hire someone, but enough was enough! At least if we are back to our car we don’t have to keep repairing two other vehicles. The Romanian made cars are made so weak. If you roll down the window, chances are good it will get stuck. I pulled down the sun visor and the dome light fell off! Most of the doors don’t shut right. One thing you never see on the roads in Romania are rusty cars. It’s not legal. I mean even a little bit of rust is not seen because you can have your driver’s license taken away. While our car was sitting in the shop for one month we had the man paint it. Cost was about $85.00 - $90.00. It was starting to look bad and when we had it inspected to get registered they let it pass but said we would need a paint job soon. So, call it a necessary luxury, I guess.