One very full day

---

Friday, December 31, 2004

This is the website of the family that we are working with her in Romania. www.hopeforromania.com

This was a full day and this entry is very, very long but I didn't want to miss anything!

Today began just as the rest have here in Romania. We ate breakfast and loaded up the vans by 10:00 a.m. (3:00 a.m. Orlando time). I think that Julia told you in the last journal that 3 of our Romanian friends drove 10 hours (one way) to Bucharest to purchase coats and boots on Tuesday and Wednesday. The reason was that they could purchase these items cheaper in the big city. They spent about $3,000 there and the same items would have cost about $5,000 here. Tony gave them strict orders to not come back with any money. It was all to be spent there. This time we loaded up about 30 food bags and about the same number of coats and boots. We then headed off to the village of Ghida (Gee-da). This was about an hour drive. The last part of the trip was exciting to say the least. We twisted and turned through the Romanian countryside and the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. I think we have finally gotten used to the bumpy roads or at least learned to tolerate them. About 5 minutes from the end of our journey we had to leave the paved road and venture out on to a mud packed road. We had a caravan of 1 car and 2 passenger busses. Unfortunately, this mud road was on an incline. The car made it down the hill with no problems. The next vehicle was the first passenger bus. It was the bigger of the two and had about 15 of us in it (I was in this bus). We stared down the hill and about half way down the backend slid around and we were sideways. I think it was at that point that the driver figured out that if we did get down the hill in one piece, we certainly would not be able to make it back up. At that point we all got off. I soon saw why the bus was having so much trouble. The mud was really sticky and deep. It stuck and caked your boots in thicker and thicker layers with each step. The bus tires had become caked with mud about an inch think and they could not get any traction. The girls stood on the grassy hillside as the guys were instructed to push and try to get the bus back up the hill. It was an amazing sight to see about 10 guys pushing as hard as they could to get the bus to move, but it would not budge. We have lots of fun pictures and video footage of this. They tried for about 5 minutes with no progress whatsoever. The language barrier was also difficult since the driver knew no English and the majority of the pushers knew no Romanian. Finally, they decided to load about 5 or 6 of the girls back into the bus to sit over the back tire area and add some weight. This with a combination of rocking made some progress. They finally decided it would just be easier to push the bus sideways onto a patch of grass in hopes that the wheels would find some traction. It worked! After 30 minutes of pushing, the bus was back at the top of the hill and the boys’ boots and clothes were covered in sticky mud. Luckily the second bus never even attempted to go down or we would have had a bigger mess on our hands. Tony quickly pulled some Romanians out of the group that had assembled to watch the Americans that were stuck in the mud, and asked them something in their language. About 5 minutes later we saw a team of two horses pulling a buggy up the road. We quickly transferred the coats, boots and food bags into the buggy for transport. The irony made me laugh. Here we were with our “modern” marvels, the automobile which couldn’t deal with a simple thing like mud and a hill. Yet the “antiquated” horse and buggy mastered it. It also saved us from having to haul all of that stuff a quarter mile by hand. With that taken care of, we started on our quarter mile trek to the Gypsy village.

Tony had warned us to prepare ourselves emotionally for this day, but I don’t think that I could have done enough to prepare my self for this. We came upon a very small village with 5 or 6 “houses.” I am using quotation marks here because none of these buildings could qualify as habitable (by our standards). They were small, one-room mud huts with thatched roofs and a piece of plank wood that covered a door. The same thick, sticky mud was everywhere. In the middle of all of these “houses” was a small, yellow building with wooden siding and a “real” roof with shingles instead of thatched and a “real” door. This was by no means a “nice” building as we would think “nice” to be, but compared to the other “houses”, it was Buckingham Palace. We were all led into this building which we soon found out was the church that they had just built this last November. The inside was one room barely bigger than my bedroom at home. It had unfinished sheet rock walls, 2 bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and a gas heater. At the front there was a table with a small Christmas tree. Rustic wooden “pews” lined the outer walls. When we arrived, there were already about 30 people in the building. If you stop a minute and do the math, there were 5 or 6 ONE ROOM “houses,” and 30 people there. Not everyone attended church that day . I believe I heard Tony say that it sometimes works out to 8 to 10 people living in one “house.” These people were dressed in clothes that we would not even see fit enough to give to charity. Many were poorly dressed for the cold and some were even wearing sandals with thin socks. One older lady we saw had sandals with no socks. When they built the church in November, they ran electricity down to the village. They also installed electricity in all of the houses for the first time. They still don’t have running water. Their toilet is the bank of the river that runs nearby.

If you add our 20 people and all of the stuff we had brought, it was mighty close quarters in the church. I was glad for the warmth after my walk. We began our service with Tony announcing who we were and what we were doing there. We then sang 3 or 4 songs with Shannon leading us on the guitar. The Gypsy people smiled and clapped along to the songs. They were so excited to hear us sing. In between the songs, some of us gave testimonies of our salvation through our translators Vlad and Jessica. We ended with Tarl giving a salvation message and an invitation. We were so excited to see about 5 people accept Jesus. Some of us could not control the tears. By nature, I am a crier. I am glad that I bought tissues, because I am not the only one that needed them. It was probably the most emotional thing that I have ever experienced in my life. One of the ladies that got saved commented that this was the best day in her entire life. She got a new coat, new boots, food and Jesus all on the same day!

One of the things that I had brought with me was 2 bags of DumDum lollypops. If I had even understood how much these kids love candy, I would have filled my suitcase with them!!! Julia, Heather and I took all of the kids outside and they sang 3 or 4 songs for us. I then gave them all a lollypop and I could not believe the smiles!

While we were outside with the kids, the rest of the group was inside handing out the coats and boots. I really didn’t get to see this, but Gilbert told me that it reminded him of footage of the floor at the New York stock exchange. “I need a large coat over here!” “We need a size 42 boot over here!” Not chaotic, just busy and exciting.

One of my jobs was to keep the kids outside while the parents got the coats and boot. One thing that I need to explain here is that when we bought the coats and shoes we only purchased adult sizes. The reason here is that when people give to the Gypsies, they always give to the children. The adults go without a lot of the time (as it would be anywhere I think). This time Tony wanted to do something special for them. Afterwards, some of the older teenage kids and a few of the 10 to 12 year olds also got new coats. Anyway, to keep the kids busy we took pictures and taught them songs. The digital cameras were a huge hit! The kids loved posing for pictures and then running over to see their picture immediately on the screen. Whenever they saw one of us pull out a camera, they would flock to that person and push and shove to be up front for the picture. I think that my favorite thing was teaching them the “Hokey-Pokey” and “Father Abraham.” It seems that songs with motions are universal. The children were so quick to learn. I caught a few of them humming the tune of “Father Abraham” long after we had finished that song. Tarl got it all on video. I was so busy having fun that I didn’t get to take any pictures of our song fun.

After about 2 hours at the village it was time to go. Two boys stopped me and made the sign of a camera. They wanted me to take their picture. Tony took my camera and we all 3 took a picture together. After that, through Tony, I asked their names. I can’t remember the first name but the second was Feri. After we took the picture I told them “multumesc” which is thank you in Romanian. Feri stopped me and said “nu, nu, nu . . . multumesc!” (no, no, no, thank you!) while patting his new coat. I said “you’re welcome” since “cu placere” (you’re welcome) didn’t come to my mind at that moment. He smiled and ran back to join his friends.

We began our muddy walk back to the bus and got ready to go. We made it back to Tony’s house and had a snack and rested for a couple of hours. Then the group headed off to another church for a New Year’s eve service. I have failed to mention to this point that I have been nursing a cold since we got here. It started with a sore throat on the plane and by the time we got here all of the symptoms were in full force. Tony gave me the option of resting this evening. I took him up on it since we all had been going non-stop for about 2 days. I can’t really comment on the service since I wasn’t there. This was kind of a different service. It was a Gypsy church. Since it was New Year’s Eve they decided to do something special. The church hosted a “Wedding Ceremony” for the Gypsy couples that had never been legally married. In Gypsy culture, when a man chooses a wife, he just takes her by the hand one day and takes her to his home, and she just lives there from then on. They never really have a wedding ceremony. But on New Year’s Eve this church married 11 couples one by one and dedicated each one of their children to Christ. The group left after the first wedding in order to get home and get maybe a little bit of rest.

When we got home, we were hosted again at the Pope’s home for a traditional Romanian dinner of country soup with meat and vegetables, sarmale which is rice and meat that is wrapped in a cabbage leaf and steamed and is topped with sour cream. We also had those wonderful little cookie desserts again! It was all very, very good. I wish that my appetite had been better so I could have eaten more!

Earlier in the day, Tony told us that he bought $100 worth of fireworks for us as a gift. Claudiu bought us all furry, Russian hats in Bucharest. What great gifts they were! We rang in the New Year with rockets, roman candles, and some really, really big fireworks that would have been illegal in the US. At least illegal at a private backyard show! The funny thing is we celebrated our new year at about 5:00 p.m. Orlando time. Right at midnight, all of the church bells in the city started to ring. The bells literally rang in the New Year. It was just amazing. Over all, it ranks as one of, if not the very best and most memorable New Year’s ever!!

I made it to bed by 2:30 a.m., but most of the group stayed up until about 3:30 a.m. We sang and played games and talked. We also watched a little bit of television. Funny shows where teams of people sang songs in a contest against each other. Some traditional and some were American. It surprised us to hear one of the group’s sing Gloria Ganor’s “I Will Survive.”

Overall, I don’t think any of us could have finished 2004 in any better way. We can feel your prayers working. If I could, I would like to ask prayer for me. This cold I have is beating me down. I have been missing out on some of the things we are doing because I can’t physically do it. I need to feel better and I don’t want anyone else to get sick because of me. These close living quarters will make that very difficult. Also, others have been fighting other sickness too. Those of you who have been to other countries know how difficult it can be on your digestive system. ‘Nuff said!

Again, thanks for your prayers.

Amy 😊

P.S. I have been trying to upload pictures, but it is proving to be difficult with Tony’s computer. I will keep trying.

---

Photos

Coat Bundles
These are bundles of coats that are getting ready to be loaded on the bus.

The city of Ip
This is a church and a building in the city of Ip. We stopped here for a few minutes to go to the bathroom.

The wagon
This is the horses and wagon that transported our stuff when we coulden't make it down the muddy hill.

Kids at the village
These are some of the kids at the village of Ghida

Jessica and Demaris
Jess and Demaris translated for us to the kids.

New Coats
This is the new church building with all of the people that got new coats and boots.

My new friends
This is me with Feri and his friend.

Ghida
This is the village of Ghida. These are the poorest people that we met and ministered to.

Nushfalau
This is the church service in Nushfalau. Their praise band was an accordion, violin, and skating rink organ.

Church
More of the church service. They were all packed in.

Comments

[anonymous]

Happy New Year
All I can say is WOW!!! Your report was amazing. I really felt like I was there. I laughed at the tale of the bus being stuck and all of the pushing. I had tears as I read of the sad living conditions and what we take for granted. You are on an amazing journey and have experiences that will change your life forever.:) Amy, I am praying that you will feel better soon. Are you drinking water from the tap?? Be careful and God Bless. Bev Shaw - Bev Shaw