On January 17th the Lord allowed us to be transplanted from the United States to Romania. It's a little hard to believe it has only been four and a half months! As expected, we have been going through the stages related to moving to a new place, starting with excitement to struggles to beginning to settle. The thrill of everything new was predictably replaced with the frustrations of limitation and ignorance which have also been predictably followed by the feeling of growing new roots in a new place.
The weather has been warm and gorgeous lately, with a few rainstorms here and there. It’s been a joy to get outside and work in our yard, go for walks as a family, and be able to have at least an idea of some of the things people say to us. We still have a long way to go, but it has been nice to see a distant pinprick of light at the end of the spoken language tunnel.
It’s also been nice to have some semblance of a routine, although with the little ones growing and changing, they certainly keep us on our toes! Serenity just turned two, and we were able to invite the two young ladies that help us with childcare throughout the week over to celebrate Serenity’s birthday! It was an enjoyable evening! The twins, William and Penny are about to turn one and they are crawling around and enjoying “walking” with a lot of help. As a family, we got to go see one of the many castles in the country on May 26th called Castelul Pelișor (see picture). We are getting much better at a decent weekly routine of errands, language school, family time, language study, practice, and rest.
The Lord certainly has loaded us with benefits, among which are a great landlord and growing relationships with a few Romanians, a Spanish-speaking friend for Marie, meeting a Romanian Deaf man at the mall and having a brief conversation with him, and a healthy family and great childcare help so we can focus on learning Romanian!
We certainly can’t say we are settled, but the Lord is allowing us to settle little by little, build relationships, hand out Gospel tracts,
and grow as individuals, as a married couple, and as parents!
Thank you for your prayers for us! We know it’s because of your prayers that the Lord has blessed in so many ways!