Romania has been wonderful, I am currently living in a very large missionary house with two other teams doing lots of random things. Some people are translating books from English to Romanian, thank God that's not me! I am mostly doing gardening, stacking wood and some evangelism.
I am in a small village with lots of gypsies and many people here have horse or mule and cart instead of cars.
Romania was a communist country until 1989, most Romanian people have lived very hard lives. It is not uncommon for children to start fending for themselves at 14 or 15. I am in the poorest area of the country, the south, where there are less than 700 Christians. People either practice witchcraft, are Eastern Orthadox, a combination of the two or atheist.
When we first arrived I thought Eastern Orthadox was a branch of Christianity because they were celebrating Easter, I guess they call themselves Christians but they believe very differently. They don't believe in things like the fall of man or that Jesus was born a virgin birth they practice several ceremonies that they claim leads to salvation. It's very religious and very strange, it's deffinately not the same.
The people here are either very cold with stern faces or super hospitable, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. Every house or church I've visited thus far they shower me with gifts of food and drink insisting that I have another. Not many people speak English but we have a few translators, oddly enough the second language spoken here is Spanish and many people try to ask questions in Spanish, there are several people on my Squad that are fluent, but I am better at Thai than Spanish!
I get to spend three days in Theseloniki, Greece at the end of this month. I get to walk where Paul walked and lay by the mediteranian sea, and visit ancient ruins. It's about 12 hours from where I am and we have to drive through Bulgaria to get there, the trip is $150.00 for transportation and accommodations, can't beat that, I may never get this opportunity again and I'm really excited! By the end of the race I will have been in close to 20 countries, and in eleven weeks I'll be home, crazy!!!
Europe is amazing, there are restaurants here older than America, cobble stone roads, bakeries are everywhere and lots of thrift stores! I'm excited to experience other countries here.
I found out where I am going in Moldova is an area that considers itself a separate country but isn't really, it has it's own currency recognized by no one, I can't use my ATM card there because it's not recognized currency,they speak Russian and are supposedly under Russian rule, but not really because it's technically still a part of Moldova. I am teaching English there, it should be interesting.
I am still in need of $4000.00 in order to continue on this journey, any help financially is much appreciated.
