Wow, what a crazy time we've been having since we arrived in Romania! We arrived at PDF last Tuesday and it was an overwhelming week full of fun, new friends, and a ton of new information, learning, and lots of decision-making. Truthfully, we spent the week still feeling a little bit jet lagged so that made the week a little more challenging, although it affected us more than it affected the kids (go figure!).
We started the week re-orienting ourselves to PDF. There were a few things that have changed since we were here in 2013 but it was very much the same. We enjoyed eating meals with the other staff and program participants (the teen camp ended the day after we arrived and the survival wilderness camp ended on Sunday) and since we stayed in a room on the ground floor of the main house we were right in the middle of the action. Our room this time was the room beside the one we stayed in last time, so the bathroom and shower situation was the same (shared), although because the survival camp was taking place in the back-country there were actually a few very quiet days at the centre where we shared the space mainly with the family of Silas, one of the staff members here (from Germany) who works on the construction team. His family has been visiting him here the whole time we've been here and Silas and his father picked us up in Bucharest at our hotel at the beginning of the week, so since they were our first point of contact and because we've been sleeping down the hall from each other, we've spent lots of time together.
Ebbe (PDF's director) was leading the survival wilderness camp so he wasn't actually around for most of the week we were there. His wife Elke spent lots of time with us and we were also invited for meals by a few of the staff here. We had breakfast one day with Cipri and Irina and their kids, which was a very nice time. They speak German at home (they are a Russian/German/Romanian family) and despite the language barrier our kids get along great! We also had lunch with Michaela and Stefan and their 2 children, which was wonderful. Michi and Stefan will be our neighbours when we move into our house here; they live in the other half of the duplex we'll be living in and we hit it off with them right away. They're also from Germany, so we had fun speaking Germlish together (what Jerry affectionately calls a combination of German and English).
We've put together another video update for you, and there's lots of footage this time! We'll walk you through a mini-tour of what will be our home at PDF, and we'll show you the PDF property and a little bit of the land around the centre. We hope you enjoy it - it's a little long, but we wanted to include everything that would be relevant for you to see what our life will be like at PDF.
We actually arrived in Bucharest a few days ago and we're staying with the Ionescu family (our host family) for 2-3 months for a time of cultural and language immersion. They are an awesome family and we are SO blessed to be living in their home. That said, any cultural immersion time is bound to be challenging and these last few days have definitely stretched us in both ways we expected and ways that surprised us. We'll share more in a few days about our first week in Bucharest, but for now please pray for us (prayer requests are below). We look forward to sharing more with you soon!
Prayer Requests:
- Please continue to pray for Jerry's back. His back pain is still bothering him daily and it's adding to the challenges of our immersion time.
- Please pray for our search for a vehicle! We're pretty much stranded without one, except for the days Manu (our host) has allowed us to use his, which we are SO thankful for! Please pray that we would choose wisely and find a vehicle that fits the needs of our family, in our limited budget, and as soon as possible!
- Please pray for our truck to sell! It still hasn't sold and it's not only an added stress for us from far away but it's also an added financial burden.
- Please pray for our financial support situation! We are praising God for several one-time gifts that have made a HUGE difference for us! We are still in need of monthly supporters to help us meet our financial support goal and we're still about $600/month short of our monthly support requirement.
- Please pray for our visa situation. Applying for a visa in Romania is a complicated process with many steps, including obtaining a criminal record check from Canada while we're here.
- Please pray for students to sign up for the bible school at PDF this spring! There are already 3 students who are very interested in attending, and we can't run the bible school with fewer than 10 students so we're trusting God to bring the students He wants to participate in the program.
- Please pray for continued protection and provision for our children as we travel and adjust to a new place, and for how they're coping emotionally with all the change in their lives. We're noticing they're struggling with the change to another language and all the changes that come with living in another culture (daily schedule and food are very different, etc.).
Thanks friends! We love you, and we appreciate your support and prayers so much!
We'll share another update soon!