I feel like I am home. I have said this many times on the race because everywhere we go becomes home. This is different. I look out of the window of our newly rented flat and see an older woman pacing back and forth looking for birds and cats to feed. Another woman pulls down dry laundry off of a line. People hustle by on foot just through an opening that reveals the busy street. If you didn’t hear or see all of the Russian everywhere you would swear it was a bustling city in America. It’s been a good transition from the bush of Africa, back into life in the city. We went from the bush to Swazi, where we had a few more conveniences. Then we went to a farm in JoBurg that we had a glimpse of city life, to small-town Romania. Now we are in a city of about 1 million. We have three more weeks to enjoy home-life in yet another new country. How we got here just shows another way that God is good…
From Brasov we took a bus to a city in Moldova. Once there we found out that the train that would take 4 teams to Odessa was not an option. We scrambled to find another way to get to our locations. The three teams going on past Odessa were able to find another train to there location. Indelible just waited for God to provide his perfect way. In a matter of time, we had packed all of our stuff into a taxi van that was going to take us to the bus station, but when he heard that we were headed to Odessa he wanted to take us all the way there. We figured out a reasonable price and avoided more transitions and unknowns and were on our way. We settled in and made it to the border. We were told that people saw Americans as money and would try to con us any way they could, either by charging us to much (a taxi tried to charge us $100 for a 3 kilometer ride!) or charging for a non-existent visa. Once we got to the border we stopped before entering the area where we checked out of Moldova. The driver seemed stressed as he was pacing back and forth, smoking a cigarette. We knew that this had nothing to do with us…he didn’t have papers to transport us through the border. He made the necessary phone calls and got two taxis that could get us to Odessa. Fortunately he did not try to charge us any extra for the inconvenience. He paid the two taxis out of the money that we had originally agreed upon. Getting through the border was not a big deal. Maybe we just look poor, because they didn’t try anything with us! Anna did get interrogated by one of the officials as to what we were doing in Ukraine. She kept her calm and while everything was being processed he came out to our taxi and flirted with her a little:) It was really funny. Along the way, one of the taxis was stopped for speeding…his car was the party car, flames on the side of the car and music blaring!
Once to Odessa the taxis left us at the bus station. We then waited for a contact that Tonya had gotten in touch with. Her name is Natalie and she has been the biggest help. Praise the Lord, we would not have made it to where we are without her help! Her and another girl, Sasha, helped us get to the flat of a man named Ron. He is a misssionary that is teaching English at the University that we are helping out with. We left our stuff at his place while we went out to get dinner…we hadn’t eaten all day, it was a GOOD meal! We then went back got our stuff and moved into Sasha’s flat for the night. Her mom spent the night somewhere else and we all crammed into the two bedroom flat. Their hospitality is amazing! They made sure that we got showers and were well fed and rested before moving out the next day. Natalie woke before all of us and went out on a search of a flat for us to live in. She called with a flat that sounded good to all of us, so we packed quickly and dragged all of our stuff to see it. Once there the landlord quickly said no to us renting it. Whether it was because we are Americans or the fact that there were more people than he expected, God had better plans for us. We waited on the side of the road while a realator made calls and tried to find us a place to stay on quick notice. She found one and three of us lugged our bags to that location. While we waited for the landlord to show up another call came from Natalie that she had found something better. After looking at a very run down flat, we said no and left for the third location of the day. The landlord had kicked out the tennants who were supposed to be there one more day so that we could move in…earppp! We found the flat and checked it out…there was one room, a living room, bathroom and basement with two rooms. It is very spacious and has a washing machine!!! Despite the messiness of the former tennants, we could see how comfortable we would be in the flat. We took it and then found out that it was $100 less than what we thought it was going to be! God is so good!
The past two days we have been enjoying life in a flat that is our own. We can have others over whenever we want and there is no curfew! I feel an extra bit of freedom here! Our ministry is with college students, so we get to sleep in! We went to English club last night and met our contacts and started to make a schedule of upcoming ministry opportunities. Everything they told us, we had already been invited to by the students that have been helping us! It worked out perfectly! We have plans for a picnic tomorrow night by the Black Sea, laser tag next week, bible studies, English club, conversational English classes, game nights, movie nights and hanging out with amazing new friends!!!
