So I know I’ve already been slacking on the blogging. It’s been a week and a half, which means this will probably be longer than my usually ridiculously long posts...
I’ll start at last Wednesday the 19th, the day I got to add another stamp to my passport! Jess and I are working on getting our visas, so we set the day aside to run around the city and try to get some of the steps done. Tom, Andrew, Jess and I went back down to the police station at around 8:30 in the morning. It was actually open this time and there were no lines which was a miracle. Andrew talked to the very helpful lady at the desk who gave us the paperwork we needed, told us what we needed to turn in, and also informed us that Jess’ tourist visa expired in 2 days. She advised us that we take her out of the country before Friday so she could get another stamp and an extra 90 days to work get the visa. When we asked if they would actually let her back in, she said it depended on the mood that the guard was in… so encouraging. So we called up Soterius, the pastor at Alfa Omega, Jess packed a bag just in case they deported her and she had to go to Hungary to start school, and we started driving to Bulgaria. It was only like an hour and a half drive to the southern border, and it was very foggy so I couldn’t see much along the way. When we crossed the bridge over the Danube River into Bulgaria, we had to drive on mud roads because of a lot of construction. After a few minutes we got into more of a city, and in the midst of a city of run-down buildings was a brand new huge mall. We went inside to check it out and to stock up on cherry Coke at the Carrefour grocery story. We were only in Bulgaria for about an hour, and then we headed back over the bridge, praying that we got a good guard and that he wasn’t having a bad day. The reason we brought Soterius was to have a Romanian speaker with us if we needed to explain the situation, but we ended up not having to explain anything! We waited a little bit while he took our passports into his guard shack to type them in the computer, but they have to do that with all American passports. But he stamped them and we were on our way back praising God for answering our prayers and allowing Jess to stay! I don’t know what I would’ve done if they deported my roomie, translator, and navigator!
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| Check out the Bulgarian on the sign |
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| Stocked up on Cherry Coke and Lime Coke |
On Thursday, Leah showed me the ropes with art class and I got to meet all my students. She gave me a couple helpful books and showed me how to make a mini lesson plan and gave me a tour of the awesome art closet. She taught the first 2 classes, and then let me take over for the last 2. It really isn’t as difficult as I was expecting and I think it’s going to be really fun! We learned about Jan Van Eyck and painted Bible stories on triptychs with watercolors.
Friday is Bible study day, and Jess and I just hung out at the apartment until we went to the Graef’s for dinner beforehand. Tom does a great job with the Bible study and really helps us to dig deeper into the life of Christ as we go through Luke. Everyone always just hangs out at their house for a while afterwards, and I love that I’m not just the strange new girl anymore, and that I’m to the point where we can all joke around together. Aileen and David have an interesting nickname for me… and David only hates 2 things: racists and Hungarians. Stefi is still trying to get me to change my mind and lower my height requirement again so I will date him (and he’s totally just joking guys so don’t get those thoughts!)
` Kristie and I finally had a free day on Saturday to hang out and get to know each other. We braved the blizzard and went to one of the huge amazing malls, where I got Starbucks, she got a shoarma, and we sat and chatted for a long time. It’s great having another American friend here! Later that night, me and Tom joined a group from Deo Gloria for their 1st gym night. We played pretty competitive volleyball for about 3 hours and were worn out and sore afterwards. On Sunday, I went to Cer Deschis Church for the 1st time. It meets in the same building as Alfa Omega, so we just ran to McDonalds in the blizzard and came back for the next church service. Then I came home and took a long and much needed nap before I headed to gym night with Alfa Omega, where I played volleyball and soccer.
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| The snow sticks to the trees here & they are gorgeous! |
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| Got about a foot of snow this weekend! |
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| My "backyard" |
Monday afternoon I had my 1st Romanian language tutoring session with Delia at the Graef’s house. We just went over the very basics, and she’s letting me borrow her book for my homework and studying. She’s such a sweet lady and a great teacher and I’m excited to work with her! I had nothing planned and nothing to do on Tuesday, and the sun was shining so I decided to go exploring. I am at Obor usually a couple times a day, but besides my street and the metro station, I hadn’t really ever seen what else was right there. I walked down the 3 other main roads that come out of the Obor intersection and checked out the interesting shops along the way. I went in about 6 second hand stores and it made my day to know that I can still get my Goodwill fix here and that they’re so close! I bought 2 cheap but nice lamps and 2 down pillows for my body pillow at Bucur Obor, which is like a huge indoor flea market/mall right on the corner of my street. Then I met up with Jess and went to Kaufland for groceries. As we were walking back, I spotted Viva on the shelf in the little Mic.ro convenience store that’s literally a 2 minute walk from my bedroom! We freaked out and that made our day, because they don’t sell it at Kaufland and we usually have to go to a store farther away to get it. We made pizzas, ate viva and brownies, and had a movie night with our sweet projector.
Yesterday, I had a meeting at school with the director of BCA, Jen Cox, just to talk and make sure I was ready to start teaching today. I then had to go to the Bucharest Mall to meet Delia for my 2nd lesson. I may have gotten Jess’s directions of the bus stops confused, but thankfully she’s only a phone call away and she got me there on the tram instead. I met Delia in the food court and we had a 2 hour lesson. She says I’m learning pretty quickly and that my background in Latin and Spanish are helping me a lot. The thing I’m going to struggle with a lot for now is training my brain how to pronounce words that I read, and know when to not pronounce things like the “I” at the end of a word after a consonant. I then went to dinner at the Graef’s, which is always excellent and Gela always goes above and beyond because she has to make everything homemade. She made pirogues, which you can pick up in the handy freezer section in America, but she made the dough, rolled it out, put mashed potatoes inside them, sealed them up, and then fried them. After dinner, me and Jess headed back to the mall and took advantage of Wednesday half-price movies and saw Life as we Know It, which is such a good chick flick.
Today was my 1st official day as an elementary school art teacher. I know, who would have ever thought I would be saying that? I draw stick figures and my art skills are at about a 4th grade level. But thankfully I don’t really have to draw for the kids; I just give them the materials, tell them the general idea, and let their creative minds take off. We’re going to be going through a book that each lesson gives you a couple paragraphs about an artist, and then gives you step by step directions for projects. I have all the materials set out for them when they get to class, and then write about 3 interesting facts on the board about the artist before I let them start their artwork. Today, we finished our triptych’s from last week and I had them paint their names on a piece of paper. I stuck them up on the wall by class period and grades so I can know when I have each student and what time the class is, and it just adds color to the room. I’m going to keep all of their artwork from this semester and probably at the end of April we’re going to have an art show where their parents can come and see what they’ve been creating. I know they’ll be as impressed as I am because some of those kids have real talent and really go above and beyond the rest of the kids! So yeah, I’m definitely not an artist myself, but I’m enjoying this role and I hope that the kids will have fun and learn some new things!
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| Welcome to Art Class! |
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| The art supply closet with anything you can think of! |
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| Some of my adorable little artists |
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| My 21 students. Yeah I'm a little organized... |
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| The elementary school building of BCA |
So my schedule is starting to become more regular and full beginning this week! I also am hopefully going to be filling the time during the week between language tutoring and teaching at BCA with volunteering at some of the orphanages. I have a couple people that want me to help out, including a lady from church who works with Heart to Heart Ministries and would want me helping in a baby hospital, and also Delia’s husband whose team visits an orphanage daily. I am going to set up times that I can go and check both of these out early next week! Jess and I are also working on planning a time that we can invite the older girls from BCA over for a girls’ night and talk to them about starting a girls’ prayer group.
So that’s what I’ve been up to lately! There have been a lot of new and exciting things this past week or so! Please continue praying that God would continue to show me just how He wants to use me here! And thank you for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers! :]
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