Ladies Christmas Party

Oops, This is out of order. Monday, December 1st was Romania Day. Since

everyone was off school and work we took the opportunity to have a ladies

Christmas party. This was kind of a last minute plan and was not very well

organized, but never-the-less we had a great time. We revisited our

childhoods a little and cut out snowflakes. We also did other crafts, played

games, ate (of course), sang, and had a white elephant gift exchange. It was

a good time to spend time with our sisters, and get to know one another a

little better.

Lock- in @ Pitesti

Friday, December 5th, six of us took the bus to Pitesti for a lock-in. We were joined also by a group from Bucharest. We had a great time with devotionals, food, and games. We also took a walk at 3 AM in Pitesti's beautiful square. I wish I had some more pictures but the four batteries we bought lasted only long enough to get about 6 pictures. I will have to get some pictures from some others and hope for a better camera for Christmas. Anyway, all who attended were so encouraged that it was decided to have a lock-in here in the spring. The congregation is eager

to start planning for it.

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

Everywhere we look it is begining to look like Christmas. There is a huge Christmas tree in the main square with an ice skating rink and shopping. Over the weekend we attended a Christmas concert in the square and were introduced to Romanian Christmas carols.

Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We were supposed to give a presentation to some military English students about the holiday, but we later found out that we would need military clearance. So we spent a quiet Thanksgiving with the girls doing a play for us and enough food to feed an army. I guess I am too used to fixing Thanksgiving for a large crowd. Even though I scaled back the recipes and didn't fix as many types of dishes we still had tons of food. We had saved pecans that we brought with us to make a delicious pecan pie. It did not last long.

First Snow

November 22 we had our first snow. Hannah and Elizabeth had a great time playing and building a snowman, while the rest of us stayed where it was warmer.

Romania National Conference

In October we took a train to Bucharest for the National Conference. The trip there was filled with breathtaking fall scenery. We arrived a day early to take the opportunity to shop for some much needed winter clothing items that had been too heavy to fit in our luggage when we moved. The metro proved to be a time saving means of travel compared to the traffic clogged roadways. We were all pleased with being able to understand a few more words in Romanian and glad that we had previously gotten acquainted with the metro in DC. We were also pleased to see improved security. The conference was a great opportunity to visit with friends we had made at camp and to meet other christians from around Romania. We had some great lessons by some very talented Romanian bretheren, some awesome meals, and some wonderful fellowship. We even managed to squeeze in a few minutes(literally) of site seeing. On the trip home we learned to be careful of vendors on the train, when I inadvertantly bought an Oct1984 edition of National Geographic. Oh well, live and learn! At least it was in English and I had something to read since it was too dark for scenery. Next time I will plan ahead.

Church Camp

The last week of August we took the train to Cluj for church camp. We arrived in time to walk with some of the group from the previous camp session to Cluj's Botanical Gardens. It was just a short walk from the church building. The gardens were beautiful and very peaceful. We also went to the mall to check out the Pizza Hut and KFC. (It is amazing how you can miss things that you don't even particularly like when you can't have them.) The camp was up in the mountains a few miles outside of town , and the preacher from Oradea drove us out to it that evening. The cabin was very nice, with a brook that ran along behind it. If we opened the window at night you could hear it bubbling. We had a ton of fun, and it was a great opportunity to get to make new friends from all the other congregations in Romania. It will be better when we learn more Romanian and don't have to rely on people to translate for us. I'm not sure what happened to our pictures from this week, but I have some one of the men from camp took and put on a disc for us.

Furlough Schedule

We are begining to plan our furlough time, which will begin December 17th and end some time in February. We hope to get the opportunity to visit with all our friends and family as possible during this time. I will try to post our schedule as we organize it, so that we will be able to connect with you. This is the current schedule:

December 17 Leave for furlough
December 21 Burkburnett
December 23 -26 Christmas with Family
December 28 AM Stratford
December 28 PM Hooker
December 31 Hugoton
January 4 AM Beaver
January 4 PM Western Ave.
January 9-10 Romania/ Albania Conference
January 11 Springfield
January 14 Ardmore
January 18 Paris
January 21-25 2009 Sunset Workshop
January 25 South Plains

Sinaia

After all the hustle and bustle of the summer campains were over, and everyone went back home. We decided to take a break. We took a train to Sinaia, Romania. This beautiful city in the mountains was filled with facinating sites to see and some interesting Romanian history. Some highlights of this trip were a tour of the Peles castle. We were all completely awestruck. I have never seen such fancy furnishings in my life. It made Castle Bran look like a hunting lodge. This was the summer home of the Romanain King. We were able to stay in the servants quarters which is run as a hotel(sort of) by the Romanian government. This was interesting in and of itself. This is not like any hotel I have been in before. It was inexpensive, but there were no bathrooms in the rooms. We stayed on the top floor, where there were two rooms, and a bathroom for both. Each room had two twin beds. There was no maid service. The bathroom had a shower that was just a corner with a shower head. It was a very unique experience. In addition to the opulence of Peles castle, we toured Little Peles which was more like a place where you could acually live. It was still very beautiful, but we did not pay the extra to take pictures inside. We also took a gondola up the mountain, and toured the home of Romania's famous composer George Enescu. It was a relaxing trip and we all enjoyed learning a little more about Romania.

Computer problems

Sorry, for the break in updates. Elizabeth accidently spilled a cup of water on my computer. Then the hard disc went out on the church computer. So we were without for a while. Luckily we were able to find a place that repairs computers and they were even able to retrieve my pictures and other important files. Elizabeth is now banned from the office with liquids.

Castle Bran

July 11th, we went with the VBS teachers to
visit Castle Bran, also known as Dracula's castle.


This wall once separated the
Ottoman and Hapsburg empires.