Let’s Go Cherry Pickin’!
5.28.12
Saturday after our first meeting with the youth at the church is Calarassi, Moldova(Calarash) we ate at our contacts house…shortly after we went to get some nearby cherries! For the first time ever I went cherry picking with my teammates. It was really cool to see tree after tree full of cherries. Moldova is known for their cherries being really yum so it was cool to pick them straight off of the trees.
(see!- This is my new Moldovan look…we have to wear scarves on our heads at church as it is a cultural thing here. I know not my most flattering look haha)
This month so far our team has the blessing of all being able to stay in a house together. We do not have running water so what makes life interesting is that we go fetch our water from a well near by that we walk to and from with red buckets. We have this room for a shower…. It has been a little chilly outside so not sure how many showers I will be having until it warms out outside. Good thing for baby wipes! Please be thankful for your toilet every day! I know I will be in a month when I get home.
This is our lovely outhouse!
and our “shower”
We are working with a Pentecostal church this month & we attended our first service on Sunday. Much of which I did not understand because it was in Romanian. One plus about the language mainly being Romanian is that we were in Romania last month so I already have a head start on basic phrases. By the time I come home I might forget how to speak English! I am trying to learn at least a phrase or word a day. Romanian is very similar to spanish so I am able to get by with a few verbs here or there as I try to attempt romanian..both are romantic languages. Our contacts speak very, very little English so we are paying for a translator to at least communicate the basic things.
(Here is a nearby water well. Not ours but one much like it)
This month our team really has to operate as a family…we are cooking our own meals, shopping for our food, and many other things that I am not sure I have done yet on the world race. Most of the time contacts usually cook and provide food. On the weekends we get to visit our contacts house and they will be cooking for us. When we arrived here Sergio & Yulena arrived to greet us in the evening with a homemade meat dumpling which was really good! Our contacts are really friendly. Their kids are great too. Even though there is a language barrier we have a common thread; Christ.
The local village we stay in about 10 minutes outside of Calarassi has given a very warm welcome. We have a translator named Oxanna and she is also very helpful. We are greatful to have her helping. She teaches English at a local primary school. The local kids have big smiles on their faces and the people we walk by seem like family. I know the Lord has paved the way for us to be here…We will be celebrating International Children’s Day this Friday…A lot of days it sounds like we will be helping with whatever needs done & playing “football(soccer)” with kids in a nearby field which should be fun.
Our team is learning to fight for one another in love; even in the times we disagree or don’t see things eye to eye. We all really are 7 very different people from many different walks of life, faith, experiences, family and backgrounds. This is one of the biggest challenges of the world race…it is realizing that Christ is the common thread. It’s not always about being right or wrong but operating as a family in love. I think this month is going to be a good experience for when we all have families of our own. I know the Lord has been teaching me much about this and preparing me for what is to come in the near future.
In exactly 30 days today I will be on a flight home back to the U.S.! Crazy how time flies…some days this journey does seem to be going on forever…but we really are almost finished. Any last minute encouragement for month 11? 🙂
