Yesterday we drove down to go to a display of the prisoner’s artwork set-up in the civic center. There were speeches given and people were dressed up. They said this is the first time anything like this has happened in Romania. Afterwards, Fedi & I went to pump some iron. A month membership with a personal trainer was for both of together, $6.00. What a woman does to please her husband. There I was - 43 years old with all these muscle bound young men, lifting weights.

Before that, actually I forgot to say, we spent about an hour at the internet club trying to get information for Eniky. She called us from Bucharest Airport and said she found out that no one would be meeting her in New York to take here to the orientation site for exchange students. Now - what’s a young girl supposed to do - alone, arriving at 11:00 P.M. with little English skills and only $50.00 in her pocket. Aunt Jinny gave us information on a safe & cheap way for her to travel and also we found some one else who was going to try to meet her.

In Carta, we stopped at the old man’s house to give him some money for the funeral. He told us they had enough after all & didn’t need it anymore. We wanted to get home, but it was impossible without being incredibly rude. They wanted so bad to be nice and quickly brought out coffee & whiskey and cake. They thanked Fedi over & over. All those evenings when Fedi came home so late & told me he couldn’t be rude, he wasn’t exaggerating. There was no way out of this one.

The next day, we stayed home mostly. Fedi & Lehel worked all day on the bridge - replacing the whole thing. They did a great job. I had to drive to Csilla’s town to give Leventa his spare house keys. They were locked out.

In the evening, we had a great Bible study with Attila, Erika & Lehel. It was Attila’s first time praying out loud that day. He concluded with “that’s it. Fedi told them that anytime they wanted to make the commitment to become a Christian, the package was there for them. Attila said a year ago they had zero (0) chance to even know this was available to them. Erika has made a comment similar to this before also saying that she never knew there was any other possibilities other than the Catholic religion.

There is a building, not very big, that is empty in Carta. We’ve been talking about trying to rent it and open a Christian library/bookstore. It’s pretty easy to get free literature - lots of Western European countries send it in. This would also give us a place in town to hold Bible studies. Leventa agreed join us and take over if eventually a group kept up meeting regularly. I feel there is a chance to start a church here. For almost a year Fedi has been getting to know people, making friends and talking about God. Some people are interested. Attila & Erika are key people in this town. They are hard workers, don’t smoke or drink and have good reputations. They may draw others in also. Erika has already been talking to her Mom about the Bible. Lehel & Eboya are coming regularly to Bible studies because they are friends of Attila’s.

At the same time we have our house for sale. We had four people on the internet e-mail for more information. If it would happen to sell before we are ready to go, we will rent something. Rent is cheap here.

We are hoping to have a Bible study tonight again. Attila stopped by and said he would try to make it but just finished milking in the morning, he gets up about 4:00 A.M.; then he has to go and cut the hay in one field; most of the people do it by hand with a scythe though some have walk-behind mowing machines; then he needs to pick up the dried hay in another field; this is with pitchforks and usually horse drawn hay wagons and there was something else he said, but I forget. Fedi will go to help him a little.

The old man’s (that we give rides up & down the mountain) wife died suddenly. They asked Fedi to collect pine branches to put around the casket. This morning he left early to drive the relatives to Csilla’s town to pick out a casket and then bring the casket back. He also asked for some help with money. Fedi said it’s a bad custom in Romania that after a funeral the family is expected to pay for everyone’s meal at a restaurant. If you don’t go-it’s disrespectful, if you do, it places more hardship on the family.

Lehel & Eboya came to church, but Attila & Erika had company.
We found out that some of the orphanage kids actually got placed in our little town of Carta. Most of the families here are decent people.

The English class (5 girls & 1 boy) came - spent the night and left Sunday afternoon. It was nice. We kept the Christian Witnessing low-key because the kids are only 13 years old and their parents only gave permission for an English camp. We did pray at all meals though & had a campfire talk on Evolution and Creation.

We dropped them off, then one hour later picked up Attila, Erika, Lehel & Eboya for church. Eboya asked for a Bible now after listening in on a few Bible studies. I think these four are very very open. They are coming up again tonight for another Bible study.

We just returned home after spending 5 days in the city. We switched houses with Leventa & Edith and their 5 kids. Their apartment is on the 6th floor directly above the market. It was very convenient for food. I think their kids enjoyed getting to spend time in the mountains and my kids like having TV & lots of new toys. We walked in the city square in the evening. Lots of people hang out there - of all ages. We stopped where a man was selling cotton candy for about 30 cents. I laughed so hard tears flowed when he started the machine, misjudged the amount of sugar, and pieces of cotton candy began shooting in the air & floating down on the people sitting at an outdoor café. Fedi bought some food for some of the ever-present gypsy kids. Two of them had a squall and the one that looked about 5 hit the one that looked about 3. There are, of course, never parents present for these kids.

We have a very low charge now from the water generator. It would be enough if we had a propane refrigerator. It’s an unknown commodity here, but I saw some on E-bay in Germany. The problem is in order to get it we need to get our windshield fixed - about $300.00. Another one of Romania’s incomprehensible laws is you can’t cross the border with a cracked windshield. Our other options are to do without the refrigerator (we get fresh milk delivered daily) or to run the gas generator occasionally to charge the batteries.

Oh-yeah, speaking of Romania’s wacky laws, last week we went to a busy office to check on the transfer fees if we sold our house. The lady there, very business-like informed us if we sold our house for say $30,000.00 the minimum amount we can report in order to cheat on the taxes is ---------here she flipped through some pages and showed us the exact amount written down that we are allowed to cheat. I asked her couldn’t we get in trouble for doing that? - she said it has never been recorded that any one has every been penalized. What I wonder is who sat down & organized the amount you are allowed to be illegal by?!?!?!?

Anyway - home, sweet, home. Now tomorrow Fedi’s adult English class is coming for a cookout. Put the food for all this entertaining down to donation money. Then - maybe - hopefully - life will find some kind of normal routine.

Our company left yesterday. It was an old school friend of Fedi’s, his wife & their son. Fedi talked with them until 2:00 A.M. about the Bible. He said they had a lot of questions but didn’t seem open. The next day they left just as we were starting a Bible Study with our 4 faithfuls. (Attila, Erika, Lehel & Eboya)
Now we have a day to ourselves. Mostly we are cleaning to get ready for the kids from Fedi’s English class. There are 6 coming up for 2 days.

We just finished a great 2 weeks with Mom & Dad. I hope they made it home alright and the trip wasn’t too hard. We went to places in Romania Fedi & I had never seen and some of these places were spectacular. We drove up a mountain road with so much snow that at the top people were still skiing. There were big waterfalls and streams everywhere from the melting snow. The road was barely open. In places, rock slides or deep snow cut it down to one lane.

Other days we just relaxed at home. Mom & Dad are so fun to vacation with. They never complain. They laugh & joke around all the time. As long as they are physically up for it they are ready for any adventure. We took them on a horse wagon ride up from our house. It turned out to be more of an adventure than I ever intended. It was scary! The horses charged up the hills, running and bouncing over boulders. At one point Mom & Dad’s bench fell down in the wagon. After we made it up & sat looking at the view for a while Mom said, “Oh Well, I guess it was worth it. Down hill was better, the horses went slow.

We called ahead and went to visit the orphanage run by Americans, that has been in deep financial trouble. Some other ladies showed up just as we did. They were from social services there to place the kids in foster homes and to close the place up. Since the employees and temporary manager were very distressed with this situation, Fedi asked them to hold off for 2 weeks if we gave them some money, to see if there was a better solution. They said if we would give them $300.00, to at least make sure there would be enough food & diapers for the kids they would wait. The temporary manager was so thankful, but it turned out that the manager in America was not. She (Debbi) never told the temporary manager or the workers that they wanted to close the place up. All they knew was that they were behind paying for diapers, the telephone was cut off, the electricity was off, but it got temporarily reinstated. The workers had not been paid for about 7 weeks, and the gas company was coming the end of the month to shut off the gas. We asked them why didn’t they call the managers in America & they said they had no way to get hold of them except e-mail and they weren’t replying. We did finally get ahold of Debbi, as some one in our church knew a European telephone number where the people could contact her and leave a message. Debbi called us the next day and boy, was she mad at Fedi for interfering. Oh-well, I figure if she would have just stayed in contact with her employees, they would have known that she wants to close the place down, so it’s really her fault. Dad said he would ask Ken Hoerr if the A.C.’s would be interested in the orphanage. But in my mind it needs too much money, too fast. May God bless & help these kids wherever they go.

Dad caught a bad cold the last couple of days. Bummer, because otherwise I think he felt pretty good while he was here considering his heart condition. It was just so nice to spend time with them. It made me think of heaven - because there we can be with the people we care about all the time.

Fedi left this morning to purchase 5 computers for the educational department at the jail at a cost of $100.00 each. So that’s $500.00 from the donation money - plus $300.00 for the orphanage. Dad agreed that we need to keep the guards on our side in order to gain better access to the prison. It does look like they will start letting Fedi in once a week now instead of every other week for the Bible studies.

We have done about 3 Bible studies with Lehel, Eboya, Attila & Erika. Our plan is to keep it up on Wednesdays and Fridays. Attila & Erica mentioned a couple of times how much they liked it when Dad helped too. Fedi has been giving them good teaching, but I think it is good for them to hear the same things from other people too.

We are expecting a couple and their son to come today to spend the night a few days. On the weekend we plan to have an overnight weekend here with about 4-5 girls from Fedi’s English class. On Monday we will switch houses with Leventa and Edith and his 5 kids so they can spend 5 days in the mountains & we will hang out in the city. Then on Friday when we switch back we need to prepare for a big picnic here with the adult English class and their families on Saturday. After that we can relax a little and get the kids school going again.

Fedi came home about 12:30 a.m. He said the bible study was great; three new people came; Lehel’s mom, his niece and the building owner’s mom. Also Robbie (Attila’s brother) wanted to come but Fedi forgot to call him on the time, so he showed up at the end. He told us of about 3 others that want to come also. What is happening? Fedi said they talked about the sower and the seed. After they were done, some of them started gossiping about the village priest, so Fedi read to them about the women caught in adultery and how Jesus said the one who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.

As they were cleaning, Lehel put a rock concert tape in to play, but Fedi said no, he wanted it to be clear what this building is all about. It’s very visible and it would be a bad start for sure for the villagers to hear that kind of music coming out. Remember even though the four who have been coming regularly have not made the commitment to be Christians yet, and they know it’s a definite step they need to take. They’re funny though. They are cleaning the building and helping get it set up, and talking about how to invite people to come.

We can’t do anything there this weekend. Attila’s employees, the family that takes care of 120 cows and milks 30 of them, up in the mountains, needs to go to their hometown for the weekend. Attila really has to help. Fedi will drive the milk down the mountain once a day and help milk. The families oldest boy is staying back to help also. I’ve been wanting to take the kids up to visit with their kids, but it’s too scary. Fedi definitely has to be with us. They have been chasing bears away regularly from the cows. They also have about 5 big dogs for protection and they are dangerous for strangers also.

I stayed home with the kids. They are trying to make an ant farm. They have everything set up and ready, but it’s necessary to find the queen. After about 2 hours of trying they came running in yelling. They found the queen. She must have been injured with the digging though, because she died. They want to try again. Hey - with no TV, even I sat for a long time watching these little ants lifting huge pieces of sand (in comparison with them) to make tunnels.