Life Changing

Wow, it's been a while. Quite a bit has happened--is still happening. Let's start with the more mundane.

The girls started school since I last posted. Liz is a junior this year and will be getting her driver's license very soon. She's a pretty good driver, but it still scares me for her to be out there because there is no shortage of idiots and retards driving about with complete disregard for the public safety. Becca started middle school this year--a sixth grader. Man, my wife must be getting old if Becca's in middle school :).

I got a promotion at work about 3 weeks ago--I KNOW...I've only been there for 3 months! It's kind of a convoluted story, but it's basically the job they originally contacted me about in March. Some of the circumstances changed--mostly they removed the requirement to move to Seattle--which allowed me to accept it. So now I'm the Safety and Training Manager. A couple of the guys who now work for me are a little stunned by it, but they are good guys and I don't think it will be a problem. And now I have plenty of work to sink my teeth into, plus I got a very nice raise. SWEET.

Now to the more serious stuff.

Back in the Spring we found out that a friend of ours has kidney cancer--stage 4 (and, apparently, there is no stage 5). She is 60. Her life to this point has been no picnic. I guess it was 20+ years ago that her husband committed suicide leaving her to raise their son. She's been selling real estate for 16 years, which is volatile enough when the market's up. And we all know that it has not been up as of late. This means that her financial situation, which is always in some state of flux (and typically not a good flux) is in the crapper. The real down turn started a few years ago when her son's drinking problem became a drinking and driving problem. His fourth DUI was issued shortly after he drove a friends borrowed car (he had neither car nor driver's license) into the back of a parked police car. Our friend spent everything she had trying to keep him out of jail and he still ended up in prison for a couple of years. There are a lot (and I mean a LOT) of details that I'm leaving out, but I want you to have some idea of what she has faced. And on top of all the other things, she is basically estranged from her family. I think she sees some of them on occasion, but they are not a resource for her now that she's sick and broke. She had to sell her condo a while back and lived with a friend for a while. She finally got back on her feet enough to move into an apartment a few months ago, but that's beyond her resources now as well. It's been a tough go for her, to say the least. None of this is to say that she has no culpability in her situation. Even though she's had some rotten luck, she's also made some bad choices, but most of us have. She's never been able to say no to her son, even when she should have. And now that she's in trouble and he's working, he's still no help. It's very sad and frustrating.

To keep a long story from getting even longer, I'll try to cut to the chase. We were able to help her get some financial help from the church so she at least was able to pay her way out of her lease and pay her health insurance through the end of the year--which is obviously a big deal right now. And we are moving her in with us until, hopefully, she recovers and gets back on her feet. I don't say that to try and glorify what we're doing, but because it provides the context for the rest of what I'm about to write.

Sandi's had a tough time with it all from an emotional standpoint. How can a person whose been through so much now have to face this potential death sentence? Why would God do that to her? Is he so ruthless that he just picks people to punish? Valid questions under the circumstances, I suppose. Our friend thinks she is being punished for something she's done wrong. And it's been overwhelming for her (Sandi) as we've tried to make the adjustments and get everything ready for our friend to move in. There was a good bit of work to do moving stuff around and out of the basement. Plus we've been moving our friend's stuff into a storage unit--at least what of it she won't be bringing here. It's also sad to see your life reduced to a 150 square foot pile of furniture and cloths.

We started the moving process last Saturday and will finish tomorrow. As the day approached I found myself getting angry about having to deal with it. I didn't realize what it was at first. I could obviously tell I was getting crabby and short tempered, but I really had to stop and think about why before I figured it out. Then I had to deal with how I felt about that. It seemed very selfish and that made me feel pretty crappy. But it's really about the disruption, isn't it? We don't want to have our lives disrupted by anything. We have plans and visions of how things are supposed to go--and they're typically very short-sighted--and when something interrupts that we get all pissed off; often not even realizing why. The more I thought about it the more I realized, thankfully, that I wasn't mad at our friend. I just didn't want to be bothered with all the things we had to do to get ready. I don't like that I felt that way, but I had to deal with the fact that I did. It made me sad about me and I hate that too. Once things were finally under way I was glad to be started and actually started to finally feel good about what we were doing. Working has a way of doing that.

Tomorrow's the big day; the final move--then she'll be in and staying with us and we can settle into the time of helping her become part of our family and working to get her on the road to recovery. It's sad and hard an dreadful, but also uplifting and good. We have a ministry to her, whatever the outcome, that's as important as any we've done. If she recovers, we thank God for the miracle of life and help her get on her feet again. If she doesn't (and we have to prepare for that as well) then we thank God for the miracle of life and we figure out how to grieve and continue on.

Pray for her and for us during this emotional time.
Mike

Sigh.

Flying High

I had one of those days today that do not come that often. One of those days where you can look back at it and say, 'Wow. I don't think I would have changed anything about that.' Such days are rare and need to be cherished.

First, today was the big preaching day. Three weeks ago, Bruce asked me to speak during the 2 Sunday morning services at our church today. I was very excited about it for a couple of reasons. First, I love to preach anytime God provides the opportunity; and this was a big one. Coming right on the heels of our return from the mission trip, it felt like the culmination of something that had been gaining momentum for a while. And I think that turned out to be the case. Even the disappointment from finding out that I'm not really in the running any more to be our interim preaching pastor didn't tarnish it. (As I noted in previous posts, our church is currently without a head pastor. In the interim, they are going to hire a pastor who will fill in every Sunday for the 2 services until a new pastor is called. I had hoped that I might fill that interim role, but that is apparently not to be. And that's alright. God has plenty of other things for me to do.) I felt empowered by the Holy Spirit in a way that I haven't felt very often in the last couple of years. I felt very much like God was using me to accomplish something bigger than myself. And that is an amazing thing. When I was finished, I was drained but confident that I had delivered the message I was supposed to. And that is a feeling that inspires awe in me every time it happens.

After church we had lunch with friends and that was a great joy. It was one of those times when I could pull back from what was going on and truly appreciate the pureness of life in the simplest things. Smiles and conversations take on a surrealistic quality that make them somehow special, even though they are in essence no different than a thousand other smiles or a thousand other conversations. But it's as if a heightened awareness of God's presence in the world allows us to experience people as he does, if only for a few moments in time. Those moments become untainted by rancor, selfishness, worry, busyness. It passes; but the memory of it is like a drug.

After lunch and a brief repose, I went flying. My friend, Scott, has his pilots license and a plane (how jealous am I) and had invited me to fly with him. We probably spent an hour and a half aloft and I got to fly the plane for about 30 minutes. And I mean I actually was doing the flying. How cool is that? I mean it's not like I was doing loops and barrel rolls, but I made the turns, changed altitude, picked landmarks. It was amazing. And seeing God's incredible creation from that vantage point, while doing something I always dreamed of was a most excellent exclamation point on a most excellent day.

And then I got to go to Sno Biz (awesome shave ice) with 2 of my 3 favorite girls--Sandi and Becca.

God is good--all the time.
Mike

Final Romania Post

We've been back in the U.S. for almost a week now and I wanted to add a closing chapter to the story. When I last posted, we were packing for the trip home. We obviously made it, but not completely uneventfully. First, I slept virtually none at all the night before leaving--maybe an hour and a half. Then the first 2 legs of the journey went off without a hitch: Bucharest to Munich and Munich to Chicago. And, of course, as soon as we got back into the states the whole thing went into the crapper. All the flights, including the one we were booked on, from Chicago to STL were cancelled. I still don't know why. The weather was perfect in St. Louis and just a light sprinkle in Chicago. Plenty of other flights were taking off. We ended up renting vans and driving the final leg of the trip. None of us had any intention of spending the night in Chicago after being gone for 11 days and spending the previous 20 hours either on planes or in airports. We finally made it home about 8 PM--roughly 3 hours later than expected, but home nonetheless. Hooray. I make this pledge to you today: Unless I have absolutely no other option, I will never fly to, through or out of Chicago O'Hare Airport again so long as I live. For the second time in less than a month I was nearly stranded there for no apparent reason. Heck with that.

A few quick final observations about Romania:

• We couldn't flush toilet paper through their system (no one can; it wasn't just because we were American), so after you wiped the TP had to be deposited into a waste can positioned next to the toilet.
• There are blueberries in Romania that are smaller and sweeter than the ones we have here and they are FREAKING DELICIOUS!
• Romanian roads are, generally, very rough.
• I got to drive a car while I was in Romania.
• I have 3 Romanian friends on Facebook now.
• I desperately hope to return to Romania next year.

Pray for peace.

Mike

Day 11--The Final Hours

It is the end of our 11th and final day in Romania. As I write this it's 11:45 PM local time and we leave for the airport in Bucharest in 4 1/2 hours. Our flight to Munich leaves at 7:15 and the odyssey ends in St. Louis at 5:15 CST (GMT -6). That's 21 hours from get up to touch down--a long day by any standards.

Today in Romania was full as well. We all had church services to attend in various villages that started at 0930. Each group provided a speaker, a song or two and had a story and craft time at the village churches. I had the privilege of speaking at Maranata, which is Pastor Vasile's church here in Campina. Bruce, Josh and Chris spoke at the others.

By 1:00 we were all back at the Vasile home and having lunch, which was, yet again, amazingly good. The aftermath of that was naps all around. I think that today was the day when everyone started to feel some of the exhaustion that has been creeping up on us each day. We have been so busy and so fully engaged in the ministry work that we didn't notice it. But now that we have begun to wind down and look forward to returning home, the adrenaline has ebbed and we're running on fumes. Thank goodness we don't have to drive the plane.

The evening service saw us all gathered at Maranata in Campina for a celebration service. All the pastors and their families from the village churches as well as the people who had served as volunteers during our Bible clubs were there. There was much singing in Romanian; each team gave a report on how their week went and then did a song; then all of the Americans and the Romanian volunteers sang a song together in English and Romanian. Once all of that was finished Bruce preached about what it means to be devoted to the gospel of Christ and to the fellowship of believers, using the last 15 verses or so of Acts Chapter 2. How do we stack up when we compare ourselves to the first century church?

We spent a lot of time after the service hanging around at the church and talking with the friends we made during the past 10 days. It's hard to believe we can feel so close to people we've only known for such a short time, but we've shared a lot during these few days, and we share a common love for our Savior; and we labor together for the cause of Christ. It's funny, but we shared a lot of email addresses with the younger friends we made. I don't know why, but I didn't expect that. I also made a couple of new Facebook friends. Weird, huh?

After church we had a late supper (around 9 PM) and took some photos. Emi Vasile had taken the photos from the past week and made a slide show for us with full written commentary. It was quite hilarious; especially the parts where he was picking on Dan. This is a very special family, the Vasiles, and I know that in the days and weeks to come, after returning to America, I will miss them a great deal. And I hope to begin making plans right away to return next summer. Maybe Sandi and I can come together. I hope so.

It's after midnight now and we are all packed. The kids are still running around outside. Some of the adults are sleeping and some (like yours truly) are not. I hope to catch a couple of hours before we have to leave for the airport, but we'll have to see how that plays out. This should be the last post from Romania. Maybe I can provide a wrap-up tomorrow night if I can stay awake long enough. I know I speak for all of us when I say that we are very anxious and excited to see all of our loved ones again.

Until tomorrow.
Mike

More Day 10 Stuff

Well, it turns out that I am a prophet. If you read the earlier post from this morning, you will note that I signed off by saying that we would have fun and pie today--we did both.

We started the day by sleeping in (those of us who wanted to), which was fine by me. Breakfast at 9:00 was followed by a quick trip into the city to grab a couple more souviners and, thank the Lord, a Diet Coke. They have been difficult to come by on this trip and I was jonesin' a little bit. The call it Coke Light in Europe. I also picked up a football jersey--Romanian national team; very cool.

After we returned from the market, we went straight to the picnic, only it wasn't in the forest as I mentioned in the earlier post. Apparently the forest is quite popular and has limited space, as we were ejected from our spot by a group that got there ahead of us. We are nothing if not flexible, though, so we moved the entire operation to a field very near the Vasile's home that offered limited shade, but a very fine football venue; and the Romanians do love their football. However, it turned out that someone knew of a better spot near Mislea which is were our Bible club was yesterday. It really was a great spot for the barbecue with plenty of shade and a nice breeze. It did not lend itself to great football. The grass was rather tall and there are these ankle and shin eating plants that are interspersed throughout the area. They have these razor sharp thorns that ravage the flesh of clumsy Americans and adroit Romanians alike.

(As a quick aside, I am assuming that everyone knows that when I say 'football' or even 'futbol' I am referring to soccer. But, as you probably also know, everyone in Europe calls it football so while I'm here I call it that too because I want to be really cool. Don't hate the playa, hate the game.)

Anyway, after the football game (and yes, I did play) it was a short wait until lunch was served. And it was, indeed, all meat plus baskets full of grilled bread. It was barbecue heaven and very tasty. I didn't count everyone who came, but I'd guess we had at least 50 people attend; all either pastors and their families or volunteers who helped us throughout the week. The groups often overlap.

By mid-afternoon, the party was winding down so Chris and I went with Timi and Dan Vasile back to Campina to set up goals for a real football game at the field where we had begun the day. Part of doing that was to go by Dan's work and pick up wood frames that would serve as the goals and load them on a work truck that was there and haul them to the field. Dan had to drive the truck and his brother, Timi, is not old enough to drive so I ended up driving Dan's car from the work place to the soccer field. How about that? I got to drive in Romania. And then I drove the car back to the house after the game.

I discovered that Dan Morris, in addition to being a pie maker extraordinaire, is a good footballer. I am not, although it turns out that I'm not half bad as the keeper (that's soccer talk for goalie). We played for at least a couple of hours then made our way back to the house for showers and supper.

Then was the highlight of the day: Dan's pies. He had made a very large apple one, but the real killer was the 2 blueberry pies. I don't even like blueberries and these pies were incredible. A lot of it had to do with the local berries they picked up from a vendor along the highway a couple of days ago. These berries are smaller that the ones in the States and firmer and sweeter. I can eat many of them and they make a spectacular pie. I thought we were going to have to sedate Lucy before we could even get the pieces passed around. That girl likes her some pie. And she eats faster than any human being I've ever known.

We have church in the morning so we'll be scattering out to go to the various places. Chris, Josh, Ken and I will be speaking again. Pray for us as we prepare to deliver God's Word. Tomorrow night everyone meets at Pastor Vasile's church, Maranata, here in Campina for a celebration service and Bruce will preach there. After that, it's only a few hours until we head for the airport and begin the long journey home. I know I speak for everyone when I say that we miss our families and are very grateful for being allowed to come on this trip and be blessed by this service. We are excited to be coming home.

Maybe one or two more posts before I pack it away for the trip. Pray for peace.
Mike

Day 10 in Romania

We are going to 'the forest' (not sure what that means yet, but Lucy says it's OK) for a barbecue today. It will include the pastors of the Baptist churches we have been working with as well as their families; and also the people who assisted us as translators and other things throughout the past week. Apparently a Romanian barbecue is meat--and just meat. That's my kind of barbecue. Don't mess up the flow with a bunch of silly vegetables and fiber. It should be fun.

I guess the photo seen here needs a little explanation. It seems that Dan made quick friends with a brick maker who also had a pet chicken (Dan's the one on the left). All the details are a bit fuzzy, which, under the circumstances, is probably for the best. My most reliable info says that Dan wandered onto the operation by accident and, being the engineer that he is, had to see how it worked. Then he asked for a brick as a souviner and was offered a wheel barrow full of them. They settled on 2 bricks of different sizes so that Dan could have a variety. As far as I know, the chicken pics were free as well. Pastor Vasile suggested that there might be sinister designs involving the bricks and Dan's mother-in-law, but he (Dan) insists that nothing could be farther from the truth. He intends to paint pastoral scenes from the Romanian countryside on all 6 surfaces of the larger brick to present to his lovely bride. Laurie, you are a lucky woman.

We will have fun today and homemade pie tonight.

God bless.
Mike

Day 9 Update

This was the final day with the kids, which was tough. We were at our third village for the week and this one for only one day. But it's still easy to get attached to the kids. We had only 12 today, but they were great with the stories and games and the crafts. Pastor Sylviu the Brother Daniel from the local church stayed with us all day, which hadn't happened any of our other days. They hung out with the kids some, played the games some and even did some of the crafts. The kids responded well and several prayed to accept Christ at the end of the day.

Lucy's team had a smaller group than we did, with only 11 kids, but they also talked about how much more attention you can give to the kids that way. I think we would all like to have larger numbers, but there are pros and cons to each. The best bet is to be excited about what the Lord provides and work within those parameters.

Bruce's team had about 30 plus kids and had an adventure at a brick-making operation (or at least Dan considered it an adventure; but he's an engineer). Ask Dan about it sometime. He'll be glad to share.

It's very late and I'm very tired. I'll share more tomorrow and Sunday as we finish up our trip.

Pray for peace.
Mike