Sunday Augutst 31

Hey everyone, It's Karen! Moldova is beautiful. It's my turn to blog and I'm excited to get to share with all my friends and family and all of those following alongside of us through the blogspot as we experience the way God works through us while we are here. Today went very quickly. The day began with a wonderful breakfast by our cook Lilia. She's an amazing cook and it's a fact none of us will be losing any weight on this mission trip. I only mention this because I know my previous trips I've been on, it's often quite the opposite- you come back much lighter then you left. So, thank you Lord for such a wonderful cook and food you have provided while we are here. We are definitely blessed!

After breakfast we headed to church. We were able to experience a Romanian wedding. It is tradition to have the wedding as part of the church service, so the church service begins normally with the wedding party entry. The church service begins with worship and a sermon and then the wedding service follows. I think we were there for 3 hr. It was neat! However, I would have loved to know what they were saying:)

We ate lunch today at Andy's Pizza. Yes, they have pizza here. It was good. We decided to dine outside and unfortunately were attacked by bees the whole lunch. This proved to be quite entertaining since many of us are afraid of bees. One of the translators was stung too!

We went to the market today which was another neat experience- today in Moldova it is Language Day. It is their celebration of the Romanian language- which is a very big deal here because there is a small split between the Russian and Romanian language and who speaks what. There is a lot of pride with the language and their independence as well. There were lots of vendors, a concert, and many people gathering downtown today. We were able to do some shopping at the market and some other stores in the middle of this celebration.

We visited the orphanage today and prepared the beds for tomorrow. We were able to glue the wooden nickels on the base boards of the beds. Sweet Sleep has made these really neat nickels to glue on the beds for the kids. They are done in Romanian so it's a neat reminder for the kids when they go to bed to be reminded of Sweet Sleep, but more importantly of God's love for them. This actually went very quickly even though we have about 180 beds to make over the week. There were a few kids around, but most of them don't come until tomorrow when school begins. It has been explained to me, because I didn't know - but orphans here are not necessarily without family, but come from families with a variety of problems such as drugs, poverty, prostitution, etc. But since the government shuts the orphanages down over the summer these kids are put into homes by the government with families that are paid to house them for the summer. And there are some kids who are put with family members that they do have.

The rest of the night was spent putting activities, crafts, and other things together for the week. We are all excited about the things we are planning to do with the kids.

Isaiah 55:9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

As we go into the week I pray that we all remember that the Lord has brought us here with a great purpose- he has prepared us with the skills we need and has hand picked each of us to do what we're doing here. I pray that we go in confidence before these kids to pronounce Him. I pray that we remember God is above any of us- his ways are above our ways and He can accomplish anything through us. I pray that the children will see Him through us and that they will experience His love and come to accept him and know him as Savior.