Hello everyone!

I wanted to write a little bit about my apartment. Last year, I had a little, one-bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom without a shower. This year God has blessed me with a palace...or at least it seems like a palace to me.


The main hallway in my apartment...the American flag was there when I moved in :)

I have two rooms which will be great because I am hosting an intern this summer so we will both have separate rooms.


My bedroom which is also the living room.


My bed which is actually the pull-out sofa.


The bedroom where, Sarah, our intern will stay.


The bathroom with the old washing machine there on the left.

I also have a large kitchen and a big bathroom with an old washing machine that works! It is wonderful. When I arrived in Romania, I was praying that God would send a place with two rooms for a reasonable monthly rent but after looking through the weekly buy and sell newspaper, I was getting a little discouraged as the cheapest place I could find was more than I could really afford monthly. Also, the cheaper places were outside of the center of town, a good distance from all of our children's homes. So I continued to pray about this and asked everyone I knew here to pray too. One day, I went to meet with Romica Iuga, the president of the Romanian side of Global Hope. I wanted to talk with him about applying for a visa and also wanted to just check-in. So I went to his office at the Speranta Baptist Church. We briefly chatted about how things were going for me and I mentioned the apartment problem. He then offered me the available apartment in the church! I never even considered the church as a possible living place. They have two apartments in the back. One is used by the church administrator and his family. The other was free. They had been talking about using the apartment. A few different ideas were tossed around. Apparently, another young missionary girl had stayed there for six or seven months. They had also occasionally used the church for guests who visited Arad and needed a place to stay for a night or two. So Romica walked me downstairs and gave me the general tour of the apartment. I told him I was interested in renting it and he asked me to come by the church that evening for the committee meeting. This is a meeting of the leaders of the church. This experience was a little intimidating because all of the committee members are men and it was a very serious meeting. I was familiar with some of the members but not because I knew them personally but because I know their teen-age children. Well, to sum everything up, the church offered me the apartment for a very reasonable monthly rent that includes all utilities and wireless internet. It is a wonderful apartment, quiet and clean. I really feel like I can escape and relax there.


My kitchen: the sink and stove (off to the right).


The refrigerator...the cabinet doors are a little broken and the door on the stove comes off on one side, but otherwise the kitchen is great.

When I told Dorel and Gabi (house parents at Steven's House) about the apartment, Dorel smiled and said, "See, we have a big God!" Yes, our God is very big and more than capable to handle all of our problems. Nothing is too big or too small for him! I hope you see His hand working in your life, too.

I am back in Romania and enjoying the warm spring weather and the wonderful companionship of good friends. My arrival in Romania was, as always, marked by some sort of small "catastrophe". This time, I flew directly into Romania. It seemed I was more irritable than ever upon landing in Timisoara (a large city an hour away from Arad). I had to continually pray for patience as I slowly worked my way through passport control and on to the small baggage claim area. Here, I discovered that only one of my bags had arrived. Many other passengers from my flight also had baggage that was unaccounted for so we all had to wait to give our baggage and contact information to the airport. Finally, an hour after I arrived (and this is a small airport, smaller than the Colorado Springs airport that some of you may be familiar with), I walked through customs without problems (I think the customs officials were afraid to stop any of the passengers from my flight because they could see how upset people were). I was met by Walter (my missionary colleague), Roni (our house dad at Ana's House) and Radu (one of the boys from Ana's House). Roni wanted to run some errands so we drove through town and the traffic at that time of day was unbelievable.

The day I arrived was a Friday and it was the day that the Evangelical Christian community celebrated Good Friday and the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. We saw a theatrical portrayal of Jesus' walk to Golgotha while carrying the cross. Some people from a local church had dressed up as Roman guards and one man was dressed as Jesus. As he walked through the streets carrying the large wooden cross, the men playing the guards beat him with a whip and sticks. I later discovered that my good friend, Adi (the biological son of the house parents of Steven's House) was there in Timisoara for this portrayal. He and some of his friends followed the procession through the busy city streets.

This began a meaningful weekend for me as I celebrated Easter in Romania for the first time. Church services were held at the Speranta Baptist church on Friday night. Then again on Sunday morning and Sunday night. Then again on Monday morning and Monday night. Churches in Romania are not like American churches. They do not have multiple replicas of the same service. I was explaining this to our house parents the other day. Every service is a different program and everyone goes to every service. I went to a worship service at another Baptist church on Tuesday night because Andreea (the biological daughter of the house parents of the House of Hope) was singing with the children's choir. Needless to say, I spent a majority of my time those first few days in church. It's easier for me to go to church here now. In the beginning, it was hard to sit still for two or three hours when you had no idea what was going on. The novelty of a foreign church can wear off quite quickly at a super-conservative Baptist church like Speranta. Now that I understand most of what is said, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to remember what it was like to sit there for the first time, 19 years old and on my first over-seas mission trip.

This Easter season in Romania, I enjoyed learning of the Romanian traditions. They paint and eat hard-boiled eggs as we do but they color them all red. The red is to represent the blood of Christ. The egg represents the new life given us when we are covered by His blood. Dorel, house father at Steven's House, was explaining that the colored eggs are actually a tradition acquired from the Orthodox church. He enjoyed watching my expression as I came to the table on Sunday morning, was told to choose an egg that looked "tare" (strong or hard) and was then told to hold it in my hand with the top of the egg exposed. Flavius then took his egg and slammed it down on top of mine while saying, "Cristos a inviat!" (Christ has risen!) Whoever's egg remained unbroken after repeating this game with everyone at the table, was deemed the winner.

I am still settling in here, looking for an apartment to rent, and praying that God will use me and shape me during this time. Things are much more expensive so I'm not sure how long I will stay but I am now, and always will be, comforted by God's enduring presence and His faithful love and guidance in my life thanks to the sacrifice and victory of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is in His name, I pray blessings upon all of you!

Cristos a inviat!
Sarah