days in the life

I arrived
in Bucharest, Romania at 7:30 something p.m on Monday. Our train from Lugansk, Ukraine departed at
4:50 p.m. Saturday, and arrived in Kiev, Ukraine close to 8 a.m. Sunday. We spent about seven hours waiting — in the
station, at the supermarket across from one end of the station, at the
McDonald’s across the other end — for our train to Romania.

And here
we are, at Casa Shalom, working with Becky Dan-Walsh, who’s been in Europe as a
missionary for about two decades, many of those years here in Romania. Yesterday, team Lunchbox recovered from
almost 50 hours of travel. Not too much
rest, though, as you saw from my previous post, I wrapped up my amateur
beancounting duties. 

There are
certain blessings that are double-edged swords.  Wireless internet is one of
them. How quickly I remembered what life
pre-Race was like. Crunching numbers on
Excel took longer than “usual� because I was getting in touch with friends from
home and just getting sucked into the social network vacuum known as Facebook. 

Tangent: gosh, does anyone remember when Facebook was
“The Facebook� and you had to use your school email address because it was
limited to students/alumni of a few colleges? Does anyone remember the uproar that came about when this selective social
network went public? Strange, isn’t it?

Anyway. .
. wait, another tangent. â€œThe Perfect
Summer Pant is just $69� is the subject of an email I got from
BananaRepublic.com and having bought clothes in India has just ruined me. Sure, the color runs a bit, and it’s not the best workmanship, but I could’ve
bought two wardrobes for $69. 

So. My first full day in Bucharest was
quasi-productive.

Today, as
I type this, was more eventful. Our
ministry today consisted mostly of manual labor; we worked on building some
trellises, mowing the lawn with a weed-whacker (mostly Brandon), sorting
through a large pile of wood. As I went
through the different tasks involved like I would through a buffet, i.e.,
digging a hole (I made a dent then Dan had to take over) and using a power
circular saw (for the first time, thanks to Tangi for teaching me!), I knew for
certain that construction is not my spiritual gift.

This is
one arena where my spirit is willing but my flesh, alas, is weak. I love that we are going to spend much of our
time using our hands and feet to be His hands and feet. Yet as I spent the day feeling
“underutilized,� a construction n00b, if you will (standing on wooden planks
while others hammered them, holding the tape measure), I reminded myself that I’m
getting a small taste of Jesus’s life — He was a carpenter by trade, per
Christian tradition, no?