We’re not in the USA anymore….

First day of school for Donna and her students

We are here safe in Moldova.  We left for the airport on Monday with my mother in law Joyce and sister in law Diana coming with us.  We left around 5:45am and arrived in Columbus around 7:45.  
 
We said goodbye to Joyce and Diana and got our confirmed seats and boarded the plane pretty quickly.  From there we flew to JFK and had a five hour layover.    
The eight and a half hour plane ride went by fast.   The meal was nice, I watched two movies while Donna slept, and there was a galley in the back with snacks.  Our flight into Romania arrived an hour early so we had a long wait for our driver to come get us.  We would take turns walking along the “sign row” looking for our driver.  One time I got creative and started commenting on the signs.  I pointed at one sign that was very large and nicely made and was attempting to tell the driver in English how much I liked his sign.  He of course did not speak a word of english and assumed that I was the one for whom he was waiting.  he could not understand why I would not go with him.  It was a funny moment which reminded me I’m no longer in the USA.  
 
Our driver arrived around 1100am and we got in the van and were on our way.  He did speak some english and managed to teach us some phrases in Romanian.  Some important ones that I needed to know were “How much is this”  “That’s too much”  “How much less will you take”   I figure those phrases will be useful at the local markets.   He also taught us our numbers and alpahbet.  He was a nice man with many stories and he enjoyed practicing his english.    We had a brief hickup at security when the soldier opened our bin and found some cans of “powder.”  They are our nutritional supplements which we brought with us.  He was afraid it may be drugs and took it for a little while.   Meanwhile our driver is explaining that it is vitamins that make you strong and help you lose weight.   The boarder guard took one look at the two of us and started motioning about how strong we looked.   After a few more minutes he let us through.  We were blessed by the quick stop there.  Our missionaires told us they have once spent seven hours at that boarder. 
 
We stopped once on our way to Moldova for a break.  It was there that we got our first experience with “squatty potties”  Pretty easy for me, not so easy for Donna.  When we were close to home, the driver stopped at a roadside stand and bought us two Moldovan Melons.  (Very tasty and cost about thirty cents total)  
 
We made our way to our missionaries home and met another missionary couple and we all had a nice Spagetti dinner.  We also got our first taste of Moldovan strawberries, pears, grapes, and watermelon.  We cut up the melons that we bought and ate those too.  Friends… Moldovan fruit is like nothing you have EVER TASTED!  There is so much flavor to it.  And the watermelon… FANTASTIC.   After dinner, we stayed up visiting for a while and then tried to fall asleep. 
 
On Wednesday we went to present our documents to the local government and gave a local lawyer power of attorney.  This is needed so that we can rent an apartment, open a bank account here… stuff like that.   This took most of the morning.  We also got a quick tour of the capitol city.  We met the missionary’s wife in town to look at an apartment.   The apt cost 300 euros, or 450 dollars a month, did not include utilities and was a real dump.  Now, we can live anywhere, but even the missionary’s wife said this would not do.   The only plus to the apartment was that it was right downtown which would make taking the bus easy.  After this we went to a couple of supermarkets and got a lesson in what brands of things taste good and what things not to buy.  Then we came back to the mission house and Donna started to set up the school classroom.   She seemed a bit overwhelmed and apprehensive about the first day of school, but it went fine.   That night we had some sausages and grilled eggplant and a nice salad for diner with the imssionary family.    We were all pooped and went to bed after staying up for as long as we could to get to know each other better. 
 
Thursday morning Donna woke up early to finish classroom preparations.  Today was also the birthday of one of our missionary children.  We got her a present in the US before we left (Diana did this for us…  We had a special breakfast all together of cinnamon rolls, eggs and toast.   They also had some exotic juices here which were very yummy.  After Breakfast the girls had “first day of school pics” and then went off to school with Donna.   I spent the day with a man named George, who is an employee of the mission.  We picked up the cook from the Home of Hope for trafficked women, and we headed out to “METRO” Moldova’s version of a Sam’s club.  This was very very cool.  They had everything from food to office supplies to clothing.  They had a wide variety of American food as well and believe it or not, the prices were very reasonable.  A king size snicker bar was around seventy cents!   They have a whole aisle for Mayo with different flavors and textures.  They also had a ton of cheeses and produce.    When we finished shopping there, we drove to a meat market that sold the best sausages in the city.  We purchased a bunch of them which we will eat Friday night at a BBQ in honor of the birthday girl.   Then we went on to the farmer’s market in town.  This was a wonderful experience.  It reminded me of Pike’s market in Seattle.  You could buy any fruit or vegetable you wanted.   Two highlights were the small cucumbers.  Very tasty.  Moldovans feel that if you let a cucumber grow to more than an inch in diamerter you have overgrown it.  They had a sweet flavor to them, as did the carrots.  The best thing was the HUMONGOUS eggplants which you could buy for about fifty cents each. 

After the market we ran some more errants and headed back to the mission home.  When I got there, Donna was gone.  She had taken the girls to buy presents for their sister.  She was also able to stop in and see an amazing apartment.  It won’t be ready for two weeks, but apparantly it was three times as large as the one we saw yesterday, and is BRAND NEW.  It has two large bedrooms, an open kitchen, lots of windows, and everything is brand new, completely remodeled.   Our missionary floated a price at them and we don’t know yet if they will take it.  They have to check with the owner I guess.   But, pray this one works out for us.  Donna has fallen in love with the apartment.  It is less than a mile from the missioanry’s home where she teaches everyday so that is a plus as well.
 
Tonight we ate chicken pot pie at the request of the birthday girl and we had a traditional Moldavian salad complete with goat cheese and bread.  It was a great meal!  We followed it up with Birthday cake and watched Lauren open up her presents.  Later that evening we visited more with our missionary hosts and played some music on the piano.  Donna is all prepped for her teaching tomorrow and I get the morning off tomorrow which is why I have the chance to write this update to everybody.
 
We’re having a lot of fun and so far we are enjoying our new surroundings.  Tomorrow afternoon I will begin cataloging what “stuff” already exists for children’s ministry and I will begin compiling a lsit of what things we need.  Part of our budget which we raised includes some money to purchase supplies for the children’s area at the mission.
  
Oh, Donna wanted me to mention that the highlight so far of her experience was when the Nancy Raatz drove us by the “Home of Hope” and we got to meet the girl “Victoria” from the story we have shared in our support raising.  Victoria is the woman who watched her mom die, has the three year old with issues, etc.  It was a blessing to see her happy, her little girl happy and both are very healthy.  PTL!