Romania Update - January 2010

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of mercies and God of all comfort”

2 Corinthians 1:3

Hello everyone! Happy 2010! I hope you are all doing good. I cannot believe it is already 2010! How time moves so fast! I truly believe that this is going to be such an amazing year! I know that the Lord has great things in store.

Well, what to say about January. I was beginning to wonder if we were ever really going to get any snow in Brasov, as I had been promised we would have a ton of snow! Well it finally came and it has been such a beautiful snow covered month. A first for this So Cal girl. I have experienced some snow in the past, but nothing like this. It has been so gorgeous!

This month is also my last full month in Brasov for a while. I will be leaving for Oradea and Timisoara in a little more than week, and will be staying on that side of the country until I leave for California on February 24^th! So I have spent a good part of this month packing and cleaning and making plans for all the people I need to see before I leave Brasov and all the people in Oradea and Timisoara I need to see while I’m there! It has been very busy just with this stuff.

My time in the hospital was great, I spent a lot of time making a cover for a chair that we have in our play therapy room. The beginning of January we didn’t have a lot of kids so I was able to spend a lot of one on one time with one specific little boy, which was so great. He really thrived with the individual attention. And I enjoyed having so much time to sit and play games and do art projects with him. This little boy has been with us in the past, and normally he is such a handful that we are usually afraid when we see him walk through the doors! But with the one on one attention I was able to give him this time, he did so well! Cami and I were both so blessed by this!

This month has honestly also been a hard month. Emotionally and even a bit physically. I hurt my wrist on the first of January and it is still giving me problems. The doctor I saw here, said that it seems to be my radial nerve and that it will take a while to heal. This has been a little frustrating as I have been packing and it has been difficult with my wrist being how it is. It was also emotional because I will be leaving. Even though I have a round trip ticket to come back to Romania at the end of April, it is still sad to say good bye to friends. And with some other stuff that has gone on I admit it has been a little draining emotionally for me.

Cami and I have had a lot of time to talk this month, and I am really so very thankful for her friendship. I can tell it is not easy for her either that I am leaving. She is so sweet, and has basically just avoided the whole subject as much as she can! She has also been a HUGE help for me with my landlord. I have had some frustrations with my landlord this month, she only speaks Romanian so Cami has done a great job helping me communicate with her. I honestly don’t know where I would have been without Cami to help me!

Last week I took Cami and Andrea, another play therapist friend of mine out to dinner to the Lebanese restaurant. It was sort of a “goodbye for now” dinner. It was nice to spend time talking and laughing with them. They are such great friends, I am always SO incredibly blessed by the Romanians in my life!

I also made brownies (thanks mom for sending the mix) last week for the nurses and doctors on my floor, and for the 2 new friends I made in the hospital.

While working on the chair cover I was introduced to the 2 women who basically sit in the basement of the hospital and do all the sewing. They sew the curtains and sheets for the beds, masks and scrubs for the doctors. So I put together the chair cover as best as I could and they did the sewing for me, and then went above and beyond and made the cover even better than I was making it! They sew on these awesome old sewing machines that they have to pump with their feet. I love antiques, and these things are OLD!

They gave me hot chocolate the first time I met them. Then invited Cami and I down and gave us all kinds of homemade goodness! It was so incredibly sweet of them. Cami and I are going to invite them up to our room this next week (my last week in the hospital for now) to give them chocolate and tea and to say thank you for all the hard work they did for us!! Cami and I keep saying how nice they are and how they must feel so alone down there. Cami had never even met them in her 17 years at the hospital! I think they were really happy to have some friends! God is so cool like this. I keep seeing Him open doors for personal relationships. Even if we don’t all become best friends, relationships like this, allow me and all of us really to be lights and to be kind and share Christ’s love with people. It is so easy to just smile at someone and see how that can change their day. Or to actually say “Thank YOU” and show appreciation for them.

Today I was in a store and had a little conversation with the lady at the counter when I was buying a shirt. I told her it was a present and who I was buying it for, etc. She was all alone in this big store and just seemed so happy to have me there talking to her in my broken Romanian. As we were wrapping up the shirt she noticed a little spot on it and stopped me and pulled out a new shirt which she very carefully checked and then wrapped up for me. I have to be honest with you, she didn’t need to do that, and it was so kind of her that she did! (Especially cause it is a present!) I guess maybe my kindness affected her and I will be honest when I say, her kindness totally blessed me too!

Today was eventful. My neighbor Nuti stopped by and gave me a handmade gift to give to my mama and to tell her it is from my “Romanian mom”. It’s a butterfly obviously, she told me that she made a butterfly to give to my mom, cause like me it flies around, and she made all these grand hand gestures while she was telling me about it, she made it sound much nicer than I am right now. It actually made me cry, which then brought tears to her eyes, she kissed my cheeks a bunch of times and said all these kind things to me. She said to make sure I call her to let her know I made it back ok the second I return to Romania at the end of April. I will miss living next to her, but hope and plan to keep in touch with her when I return.

THEN, I got in a car accident today! Well, it was more like a bus accident. The bus I was on totally ran into the back of like a mini bus kinda thing. I was thankfully in the front so I saw the whole thing as it was about to happen, and could be prepared, unlike the poor people in the back who got totally jolted out of their seats! I always wondered if those big buses got in car accidents! I guess they do! What a nice thing to happen my last week in Brasov!

Well, that is about it for now. Please keep this next month in prayer as I will be doing a lot of traveling, by train and bus and tram and airplane! Pray for all the people I will be seeing and meeting with that things will go well and I will be able to be a blessing to them all. Please keep this last week here in Brasov in your prayers and as I move out of my apartment tomorrow. Please also keep my future in general in your prayers, I have a lot of open doors in front of me right now, and I’m not really sure which direction to go, but I know that the Lord will be faithful to lead me and guide me!

To all my friends and family in Cali, see you in less than a month!

Grace and Peace,

Rachel

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YOU are fearfully and wondefully made!

So living in Romania I watch my church services online every Sunday. It's nice to be fed from the Word of God in English!

This morning I listened to a great study by Louie Giglio. So I thought I would share it!

Enjoy!

Click here for the study.


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Shadow

I’m a bit burdened this evening….thinking about a friend of mine who is going through some hard times. It’s so hard to watch those you care about struggle. I think about my friend who is hurting…she is hurting because someone hurt her. And it appears that she was hurt for no reason of her own….it actually seems like she was hurt for the explicit purpose of hoping that by hurting her….someone else might be hurt through watching her pain….and why is all this hurt inflicting going on??? My guess is because the inflictor of the hurt…is in and of themselves hurting.

UGH.

Yes, there is a lot of hurt in the world…..a lot of sadness. Why is it when people are hurting they lash out and
hurt others? Thereby multiplying the hurt in the world?

Sadness.

Tonight I feel sad, and as I said….burdened. Part of me wants to rush in and save and do everything I can to “fix” the problem. I have been praying a lot about this situation, seeking the Lord’s wisdom. And for now I feel that the Lord is asking me to wait and to pray. To trust HIM to be the One who will in fact come in and save and take care of the problem. It is true, that HE loves her and cares that she is hurting even more than I do. So I wait and I pray. Knowing that God is faithful.

Comfort.

I do find comfort in this knowledge that God is faithful to save. That He is Mighty to save.

“The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

- Zephania 3:17

And so, I will rest.

“Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.”

-Psalm 37:7

Rest, Wait and Trust.

And I will attempt to wait patiently for Him and not fret. I know He is in control.

“How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.”

-Psalm 36:7

Hide us now in the shadow of Your wings Lord. Save us Lord in Your timing. Help me trust You to take care of those I love.

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Revival of Prayer

"The evangelization of the world in this generation depends first of all upon a revival of prayer. Deeper than the need for men; deeper, far, than the need for money; aye, deep down at the bottom of our spiritless life is the need for the forgotten secret of prevailing, world-wide prayer."
– Robert E. Speer



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Quote for the Night

"Not once in the next billion years to come will you regret that which you did not do for yourself because you cared for someone who was in need, someone who needed to grow in the ways of the Lord. What we will regret is that which we did not spend because we weren’t living as though the Samaritan was really coming back.

The Lord has entrusted to you more than enough to take care of the half-dead people who come our way. The question is, will you release what He’s given you?

Will you let it go?

Will you make the time?

Will you expend the energy?"

-Jon Courson

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Astounding

This devotional reminded me of the verses in Psalm 19.

"Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer." (vs.12-14)

It truly is "astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves!"

"HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ALONE WITH GOD?
"When they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples." Mark 4:34 Our Solitude with Him. Jesus does not take us alone and expound things to us all the time; He expounds things to us as we can understand them. Other lives are parables. God is making us spell out our own souls. It is slow work, so slow that it takes God all time and eternity to make a man and woman after His own purpose. The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We do not know envy when we see it, or laziness, or pride. Jesus reveals to us all that this body has been harbouring before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look in with courage? We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves, it is the last conceit to go. The only One Who understands us is God. The greatest curse in spiritual life is conceit. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we shall never say - "Oh, I am so unworthy," because we shall know we are, beyond the possibility of stating it. As long as we are not quite sure that we are unworthy, God will keep narrowing us in until He gets us alone. Wherever there is any element of pride or of conceit, Jesus cannot expound a thing. He will take us through the disappointment of a wounded pride of intellect, through disappointment of heart. He will reveal inordinate affection - things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. We listen to many things in classes, but they are not an exposition to us yet. They will be when God gets us alone over them." -Oswald Chambers

May the words of my mouth....the thoughts of my mind....the meditations of my heart.....the actions that I do....be pleasing in my Lord's sight.


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Loyal in Obedience

"Are we going to remain loyal in our obedience to God and go through the humiliation of refusing to be independent, or are we going to take the other line and say - I will not cost other people suffering? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but we shall be a grief to our Lord. Whereas if we obey God, He will look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and to leave all consequences with Him.

Beware of the inclination to dictate to God as to what you will allow to happen if you obey Him."

-Oswald Chambers

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Flickr Blog and My Space Helmet Bubble

made it to the front of the Flickr blog for today for my bubble photo!
:)


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1 January 2010

"Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him."
Oswald Chambers

I am so looking forward to the future....to all that the Lord has in store for me in 2010....2009 was amazing, such a journey, full of ups and downs and surprises! I began the year in Cali and ended it here in my beloved Romania. Ironically enough, both January in Cali and December in Romania have been pretty warm...not as much snow as I had been promised by everyone, but that's ok, it has been beautiful none the less.

I spent the evening with friends last night just hanging out, eating and playing games, then watching the fireworks over the city from my friend's balcony. It was beautiful and memorable. This year has once again fit perfectly with Proverbs 16:9,

"A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps."

My days have been full of my plans....and the Lord has taken those plans and molded them to His own...when I moved to Brasov in March, I never thought I would be working so much with teen Roma (gyspy) girls, but the Lord opened up that door and it has been great. It was also cool to see how the Lord answered my heart's desire to work with the elderly by giving me an elderly neighbor to spend time with!

Such a big part of being a missionary is relationships. I think people get it all wrong when they try to make the big part about a program....or doing doing doing....the Romanian people are a culture of "being"...they like to hang out, they want a friend, they want to know you are not just some American coming in with your ideas to "fix" the "poor Romanians" but that you are here to love them and be there for them. Being light and salt in the world is just that...being a friend, being there and having a real relationship with people.....something that will make a lasting impression.

Well anyway, it's a new year...2010...I can't believe that....I am not really a "goal" person...so I have no new year's resolutions....other than to continue following my Savior wherever He may lead me, to be obedient to His Word and to grow in my relationship with Him....I think everything else will find it's place in my life if I seek Him first.

Happy 2010 friends.

xo



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