We’ve had guys from the church here since Tuesday. Mickey had no work in his logging business. I don’t know why - maybe his tractor was broken. Fedi & I were talking about that & how he would sure like to get someone up here to work on re-doing the concrete of our porch. A light went off and our porch is now done. Of course we had 3 guys spending the night the last 3 nights so there was plenty of commotion.

We traded our jeep for a minivan, plus they gave us about $1000.00. We are really happy. For winter, if we stay again, we plan to give the (cow) Attila $500.00 to use his 4wd jeep when the snow is too deep.

The weather has been beautiful - in the 60's during the day & 40's during the night. The village people are hard at work planting potatoes. The city people just stroll around in the sun in the city center in their nice clothes.

Lehel called.; He is coming back from Hungary. He is broken up from his girlfriend now. I hope he will come back to church. (Later note: all rumors - they are still together)

Attila & Erika continue to take steps of faith. Erika reads the Bible with us when she stays here and has good questions. Attila has had some good talks with Fedi. He said he is trying to trust
God with the details of his cow business instead of getting stressed out. He had a couple of bad days when someone tried to steal a calf in the night. He also didn’t like it when Erika cried at church. He said he didn’t know what was wrong, but she was fine. I think she was touched by something that was said; which, if I could just understand anything, maybe I could figure it out.

The orphanage got a surprise “inspection” and the manager is kicked out. Hopefully that will solve the problem, though I know there are still money problems.

Attila & Erika asked to come to church. During the service & prayer time, Erika started crying. She really wants Jesus in her life and was prayed for. We are very, very encouraged. Also Kinga stood up to give her testimony. They are going to have baptisms in May, I think, and Kinga and Jozsef are included. Kinga’s testimony was very nice. I can’t wait to hear Jozsef’s because even his wife was surprised that he wanted to be baptized. He doesn’t tell anyone anything personal.

It looks like we found a van. The man said he would trade us for our jeep. It is not 4WD but we will worry about that later. We don’t need 4WD until it snows and then only on the mountain. We can buy an old jeep and not register it just for the mountain, or maybe we can work out something to borrow Attila’s jeep. I will be sooooo happy to have more room.

Fedi went today to run errands and also to give a man in church $100 from the donation money. He works with Mickey’s new business, got hurt and has been off work.

We exchanged wash machines with Csilla & it works!! No more washing clothes by hand. Life is good!!

Our car is fixed and running well. Now we plan to advertise it. Also, the creek is down some so we were able to clean the silt away from the pipe and get our electricity going again. Most of our pond filled up with sand. This shouldn’t bother the waterpower much and the kids think it will be great to play in when the weather is warmer.

Attila & Erika came to church for the 3rd time. He told Fedi this was the best time of all 3 for him. He is a little worried about the summer because he got the use of the government land for the summer, which means he has to take care of everyones cows that want to be there. He gets half of the milk but it could be hard to arrange enough employees. He had a lot of people tell him they are bringing their cows and he is worried this one family won’t be enough.

Well, the orphanage. We called Linda from the U.S. who helps manage them. She said the information we have is wrong and the other employees are telling her things are OK. Could the lady in our church be exaggerating? Or is the manager - who is the only one who can speak English - so is the only one Linda talked to otherwise lying and stealing the money? We left it that the lady in our church that works there should get signed statements from the employees if things are that bad and we will fax them to Linda. Also we did not give the $200 because even the lady from church said that now they were sent some money and have food this week. Linda said they are scrounging around for money left and right. Now that all foreign adoptions are stopped, their source of income is also stopped. Unless the A.C.’s want to run an orphanage in Romania, I don’t see any way we can help.

Until our new garbage hole is finished, we have been taking our one bag a week to the city dumpsters. I asked Fedi if this was OK and he said “oh yeah, the gypsies are going through it as we throw it in”. The next week I was with him and sure enough as soon as he threw it in, two gypsy girls moved in to check it out.

Also, I don’t know if I wrote yet that the storks are back. They return every spring and make their huge nests on top of electrical poles on unused chimneys. We pass by a few nests frequently and have given them names. We see Ethel & George the most. They are often standing in their nest rearranging the sticks. The kids often mimic Ethel saying “George, how can you leave these sticks all over our living room!?!”

Also, the Kookoo Birds have got their voices back. Fedi said they don’t leave for the winter, but they lose their voices until spring. Now we hear them all the time to the point of wondering when someone is going to turn that kookoo clock off!

The orphanage is back in the picture. They didn’t pass out the kids to the workers as I was told. A Romanian law won’t allow that without the families being approved. I have to say, I agree with that. Now I just learned the situation has gotten very bad. The workers have not been paid for two months. They are feeding the kids (18) tea and crackers. Heidi went there and said 5 of them were sick and they had no money to buy medicine for their fevers. It has become very complicated since the American owners of the orphanage are hard to get ahold of. The heartbreaking option is to report this to the government, which means the kids will be sent to the state orphanages. My understanding is these are bad, but at least there is food. We will give $200 to a lady in church, who will buy food from the donation money. Tomorrow I want to try and call the Americans who own this. They had 3 orphanages and one has been closed already.

Mickey’s business is off to a rocky start. Their tractor keeps breaking down and his worker has been off work twice with injuries. He has become scared about being able to pay back the money he borrowed (about $15,000.00). I really wish him well though - he hired two people from church, which means 3 families will have an income if he makes it.

The pregnant cat that wandered into our lives delivered four babies. They are beautiful. Two calicos, one black and one black & white. I hope this will be a fun thing for the kids. Ryan, Steven and Anni are fine. I’m a little worried about Rebekah. She learned that her two cousins were taking a vacation in Gulf Shores and “ouch”! I’m worried she is getting a little depressed being here without friends, and feeling left out. I told her to pray about this & she said she has been.

We gave Leventa $90.00 for April from the donation money.

One bright spot. We have been praying with the cow Attila that he can find an employee. He did and he is so happy. It is actually a family with 3 kids. Their oldest is an 11 year old girl and then 2 younger boys. They will all help. They said their 7 year old boy can milk 3 cows by himself. They plan to move with the cows up to a high meadow 2 km up our road for the summer. They will take care of other peoples cows also & Attila will get half of the milk.

Well, we found out why no water was going into the pipe for the waterpower. So much silt has poured into the pond that where the pipe is, it filled up about 2 feet. The underflow though is still pouring out water so there the depth is the same. It is impossible to fix now with the water pouring so wildly over the whole dam.

Easter is finished. It was very thoroughly celebrated. Monday was cute. We drove to town with Ryan & Steven all prepared with their perfume bottle and poem. They quoted “Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you, please give us an egg when we are through”. They first visited Erika, then the horse Attila - because she has about a 6 year old daughter. There she sat all bedecked out, alone in the room, with a basket of eggs on the table by her. The boys said their poem & then she bowed her head down to get her hair sprayed. The streets were full of groups of boys carrying sacks & perfume bottles. They looked mischievous. We saw about a 12 year old boy holding a big water pistol behind his back. Some houses gave chocolate and some money. We visited a few more houses and then went to Csilla’s town where our girls had spent the night. We were greeted at the door by 4 sweet looking girls - Kinga, Reka, Rebekah & Anni. They waited all day there as different boys, neighbors & friends came.

It has rained quite a bit and our dam is in danger of breaking. The creek is huge. Fedi made a diversion canal, but it doesn’t take enough water. For some reason our filter is completely plugged up and we can’t get down to figure out what is wrong, so no waterpower either right now. We have been praying about this.

The Saturday before Easter, Romania has some charming traditions. On Thursday we saw every one walking to church carrying branches. Friday is fish day. They call it “Big Friday”. On Sunday everyone - I mean everyone! - eats lamb. Monday the boys of all ages go to the girls houses of all ages; spray them with perfume and say a poem. Fedi said by the end of the day the girls are a stinky mess! The boys get colored eggs for their effort. I’m going to have Ryan & Steven say “Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you”!
For about a month now, our driveway has been too soft to drive on. It should dry up soon but in the meanwhile we park on the road. This means, we tromp through a soggy meadow, cross a raging river on a narrow log bridge, then climb a slippery mud mountain up to our house. The worst is we usually forget a flashlight so we wake up the kids sleeping in the car when we get home late, and do all that in the dark. Actually it’s not that bad - the river is only a 5 ‘ wide creek and the mountain is only 50 yards up to our house. But the soggy meadow and the dark are true.

Yesterday, Fedi & I drove 90 km up to where our car part is being made. They ran into a snag and said we needed to come, pick it up & take it to another place to have something on it dis-assembled and then return it to them to finish up. When we got there though they said now it was necessary also to re-do a part of it and maybe it would be ready next week. We are looking for another car to buy and sell this one after it is fixed. Meanwhile, we are still using Csilla’s & Jozsef’s.

We also had a disappointment when the men finished raising the chimney, our fireplace still doesn’t work.

The kids are enjoying the warmer weather. They go outside as soon as I let them and don’t come in unless they are hungry, it gets dark, or they fall in the creek. Rebekah is running around pretending with the rest of the kids. I guess 12 years old is the age you switch from grown-up to kid to grown-up.

We’ve been seeing the cow Attila a lot as he is doing some work on his land next to us. He would like to get out of the cow business. It is too much work. Fedi asked him why he and Erika don’t get married and he said that they don’t want to live with in-laws and are hoping to wait until they can have something on their own. They have been together 5 years.

Our house is buzzing with activity today. Erika is here. The horse Attila needs money again so he came up to get wood for us. Fedi told him that the first load is to make up for what we gave him last time and after that we would talk about more money. He has been drunk almost every time we see him in town. There are 2 guys here working on the gutters and chimney. Later today, the couple (Zoltan & Andrea) will come up to practice English.

Yesterday, we ran into Robbie, the cow Attila’s brother. He said his political group is renting a storefront in town. They want Fedi to come on Mondays to have Bible studies. Talk about an open door!!! We also took the horse Attila’s wife & sister to church with us on Sunday.

So far it’s been a busy weekend with beautiful weather. Fedi spent Friday digging a new garbage hole. Our other one filled up after 7 months. We have much less garbage here. Then in the evening we went into town to a restaurant with 3 others couples. Our neighbor in America sent money and told us to go out to eat with it. The prices are cheap enough that we invited friends too. For the eight of us with drinks & desserts it came to about $50.00.

On Saturday we went to the kids program and then on a picnic with Heidi & Edda. They took us to a beautiful mountain lake we had never been to before only about 15 miles from us.

Edda is planning to build a house this summer and is looking for help from Fedi. He wants to do the upstairs in wood-framed which is almost unknown here. He is a university professor who has had work in U.S. and also in Hungary doing research. They have more money than other Romanians. He said he has calculated the cost of building his two-story house at about $20,000.

I got Fedi out of bed by taking advantage of April Fools Day and telling him there was a bear outside. It would have never worked so good in Illinois.

Monday, I went with 3 other ladies to a health club. By splitting the cost, we were able to rent the pool, sauna & hot tub for $2.80 each for an hour and a half. I was a little reluctant to go as it was a far drive & I’m a little shy around the Romanians without Fedi there to translate, but it went really nice. This was about the 4th time I drove a car in Romania. It felt very adventurous.

Fedi is staying home more and starting to work on our house. We found someone that will help us raise our chimney with a tin insert so we have hopes that our fireplace will be functional next week.

We just had a couple visit us for a couple of hours. They are trying hard to perfect their English so they want to come to our house sometimes. Fedi and I had a good chance to share our faith and make friends. Their plans are to work at a restaurant in Greece for the summer, for which they need to speak very good English. They told us, as have other people, that in Greece it is possible to take a very cheap vacation.