a Christmas revelation

     I was walking in downtown Bucuresti tonight, surrounded by vender huts decorated with Christmas lights, listening to Ave Maria being played over loudspeakers, and sipping Romanian hot spiced wine, and I was suddenly struck with appreciation for that moment and for being in this place. I remembered the look of pure, innocent joy on Ionut's face when he saw me arriving for his orphanage's Christmas party, and the way he immediately threw his arms around me, and it made me realize that as much as I miss being home and with my family around the holidays, there is nowhere else I'd rather be this Christmas. The parties we threw were nothing spectacular, and the gifts we gave were nothing too exciting. But for a few hours, I got to see the children I've grown to love in a few short weeks actually enjoy being kids for once.  I got to be a part of giving them some sense of family, of letting them know that there are people in this world who love them and think them worthy of sharing gifts with.  I got to be in a room full of families who are a part of our counseling program and see how appreciative they were of the gifts they were receiving due to the kindness of strangers, but even moreso I realized how grateful they are for the hope that their families will stay intact due to their participation in our program.  I think all those experiences are the best gifts I received this Christmas, and for being here, I have you all to thank. Merry Christmas, everyone... may you and your families be blessed as we celebrate the gift of Christ.

just the latest

Well, first of all let me mention a few things that I forgot in the last update.

    -it seems like we spend just as much time commuting as we do in ministry; we usually spend 1-2 hours at the orphanage/apartment, and it takes about an hour to get to most of the places, if not longer.  Hazards of living in a big city, I guess.  In the rare cases that we drive one CTL's van, it takes less time, but that hardly ever happens; most of the time it's public transport.  All this traipsing around the city during the day is also part of the reason why in the evening and on the weekends all I want to do is stay home! 

    -we've spent a lot of time recently doing curriculum planning for the upcoming year.  I was in charge of deciding on careers to talk about, and finding activities/crafts for each of them (9 total).  The funny part is that when asked to help with this, I immediately starting searching the internet... and they were all amazed at what I found!  They never knew that there were sites dedicated to crafts/lessons/activities.  Florina was  so excited, she keeps asking why I wasn't here before and why no one else ever showed them these things.  So I am now the official "hey we need _____, can you find it online?" girl.  Apparently searching the web is a valuable & rare skill here... who knew?  So at least if nothing else, I know at the very least that I provided them with the knowledge of how much you can find on the internet! :P

This week was a little odd.  We had Monday off as it was a Romanian national holiday; unification day I think, I don't know the official title, but it celebrates when all the different principalities first joined together into what we now know as Romania (and Moldova, but that's a different story).  Then the rest of the week was spent getting ready for Christmas parties... making tags for the presents (quite a task when you have to make like 800 some of them, and each has to be cut out [w/ fancy scissors that take forever], hole punched, tie a ribbon to it, stamp it [Merry Christmas], and write the name), buying presents, and packaging presents.  I wanted to take some pics of the process, but I kept forgetting my camera :( I'll try to next week.

I've posted a few pictures, and want to post more but it takes forever with my internet connection, so I'll add more later :)

Thanks for everything!  

looking off my balcony across the street