we no speak americano.

Saint Pierre

Looking down on Saint Pierre

I went to Italy last weekend to visit Lisa and her family.. Saint Pierre is a small village nestled in Valle D'Aoste in the Alps. The weekend was, in one word, a whirlwind. I wish that I had had more time to.. adjust. I felt like I was consistently faced with the question of, "Are you okay?" I must have looked pretty wide eyed the entire time I was visiting, which I'm not sure translated into gratefulness.

I was in awe the entire four days. As the plane flew over the Alps on my way in to Turin I found myself reading one of my favorite verses in the bible and tearing up over how blessed I am to have been able to travel as much as I have in the passed few years.

Italian Alps

I was lucky enough to spend my first afternoon zooming around on Lisa's new moped with her - She's still deciding on a name for the silver beauty. After landing midday Lisa and I took to the streets and I got to see the local color. A couple hours on the moped and I was feeling a bit loopy so we stopped by La Chateau for an aperitif with Ciccio (Lisa's dad).

Friday we spent most of the afternoon on a white water rafting trip down a river that goes through the entire valley. No pictures yet, but there is a disc of rather unflattering moments captured during our journey. We went to Rhemes Notre-Dame for the evening and made a delicious meal of mushroom ravioli and cheese!

Toma cheese is my new favorite.

Halfway up.

Saturday was by far the best day I spent in Italy. Lisa insisted we hike to Rifugio Benevolo which is a summit in the Alps. We headed out from their chalet in Rhemes to climb to the top and despite a woozy head from the lack of oxygen I'm proud to say I made it all the way up! Rifugio houses hiking enthusiasts during their excursions in the Italian part of the Alps - my treat was easily the best lasagna I have ever consumed for lunch.

The Rockies don't compare to the tiny hamlets stuffed in every nook and cranny in the Alps. Even though I loved Colorado and would gladly go back, there was something magical about walking around villages that have been around since before the United States became a union. I was lucky enough to have Ciccio there telling me all sorts of interesting historical facts about the area too.

At the summit

My last day was kind of a blur. We spent most of the day at a family reunion for Ciccio's aunt and all his cousins, but my mind was focused on making it back to Timisoara safely. I did get to try some new cheese and grappa before we left for the airport which was cool though. I think a good time was had by all. Ming told me it was nice to have a fresh face around for a bit, and while Morphin frightened me in his stupor and I probably didn't say thank you enough, it was a necessary break and a blessing to be able to visit a place that has been so near to Lisa's heart her entire life. I'm really glad she was able to share a little bit of that with me.

Ianova

This is the barn at Caleb where Cerbu and Nadine are building the boys home. I spent yesterday with Andrea, Cerbu and Zoli doing work inside the partially finished house. It was really the first day that I felt a sense of accomplishment by the end of the day.

I spent the majority of my time in one hallway spackling and sanding door frames, but the time to myself was a welcome blessing. Every so often Cerbu would come to check up on me and see how I was doing but other than that the day was spent jamming to his tunes while getting work done.

The land is absolutely gorgeous and the tour I got helped me to visualize what this place will someday be for a group of young men and their host parents. Cerbu and Nadine have created an incredible place for some very lucky young people here in Romania.

I'm coming to see how different it is to spend an extended amount of time here on missions. The focus isn't primarily on children for all the missionaries here because there are so many people who need help - but what I've discovered is how much I would rather be spending my time with children. Even though I'm thrilled to help in any way that I can, at the end of it all, I feel my efforts are best spent with kids.

I'm praying that the upcoming weeks will bring with them new experiences and be as full of learning as these first two have been. Tomorrow it's off to Italy for me and then when I get back we're going camping with the Day Center on a lake in an unknown [to us] location.

stone soup.

I got my first taste of the Day Center today. Pretty tough to describe, except to say that I didn't bring my camera for fear it might be stolen and when the state came through to inspect they said someone painted the inside to look like a funny house. Lime green and neon lavender stucco walls.

Carolyn and I spent the day making what I like to call "stone soup"...

the Bieb just came on Romanian television - please excuse the momentary lapse in my train of thought.

Eenieway, Carolyn and I looked like two babushkas wandering around the tiny kitchen today adding anything we could find in the cupboard to this giant vat of boiling water that had been placed on the stove for us. When we first got inside we were immediately pointed towards the kitchen and told that we would cook, so cook we did.. we even added some seasoning to what would otherwise have been a very bland lunch. There were no complaints about our soup or fried zucchini made of giant fresh zucchini from the gardenso I think it was a pretty successful day..

even though Carolyn caught one of the homeless people having a little too much fun with himself in one of the rooms outside the office.

I'm also happy to report that everyone seems to be back in good health although not necessarily in good spirits. It was one of those little blessings today when I finally saw the bathroom today that I miraculously didn't once have to use the potty while we were there. Hooray!

Tomorrow it's off to Ianova to do some hard work helping get the house in order for people to move in to. I'm really looking forward to getting out of the city.

week one

I haven't updated in the passed week because I came down with some sort of bug on Thursday and have been flu-like ever since.. but thank God because I'm on the upswing now!

Monday we headed out of Timisoara to another city, Arad, and stopped at a friend of the Pouncey's. Adina and her brother Danny graciously invited us into their home for the afternoon. I was immediately struck by the stone work in the apartment - so typically Eastern European, the apartment is one delightfully welcoming room after another. Alannah and I spent some time photographing the place. As is customary, Adina and Danny's mother, Maria, made lunch for us and we spent the afternoon stuffing ourselves with homemade sausages, coffee and pastries. Weight watchers immediately fell by the wayside.

After our stop in Arad, we headed on to the village of Safronia where another missionary the Pouncey's know has been living. Jackie moved around 12 years ago to Romania and has been working in missions ever since.

Jackie's mission is different from anything else I've ever seen - she calls it "touching the untouched". We went with her to deliver food to elderly people she's built relationships with, attended a bible study with another missions team from the UK and visited a mental instituion.

More than any of the things we helped Jackie do over the week though, I was really touched by the family that's staying with her. The Toon's are missionaries in Slovakia, and recently came to Romania while they wait for their visa to be approved. I have never met a kinder, more down to earth family. Their two children are an absolute blessing to everyone around them. I felt like I was spending a week with the kind of family I'd never been allowed to be apart of. (below is Dave with the Toon's son being tickled by Jackie's two granddaughters.)

We spent a wonderful week in Safronia, and despite all of us getting sick I feel blessed for having learned as much as we did while we were there. We were able to visit a Gypsy church and hear Andreea's (our translator) testimony, I learned more about forgiveness than I ever have and Alannah and I got baptized.


So I guess for all the complaining we've done this week over being sick, it really was a wonderful week. God has already touched us in ways I could have never imagined.


30 days left.

Landed.

This is business Dave. He's a tool... or a model, you pick. He got to fly business class while Alannah and I suffered through the flight back in steerage with a family literally in our laps. He'll never live it down.

This is "Business" riding in the back of the van last night when we finally made it to Romania. Thank God we did.

I'm still wrapping my brain around being here, the time change and mostly recovering from all the traveling we just finished doing. Nothing profound yet to record, except to say that I think this trip will have an incredible impact on myself and my fellow mini-missionaries.

I'm also happy to say that I think we'll be doing a bit of traveling while we're here - most likely making it to Budapest in Hungary.

This is the girls-home in Timisoara where we'll be spending a lot of our time here. The five girls living there have already taken to Alannah and I which is wonderful.

We went to church this morning and ended up getting called out by the lead singer of the church band to sing because Alannah and I were the only one's dancing in the sanctuary. Becky (who introduced herself later) started singing the lyrics in English for us - HELLO I'M AN AMERICAN is written on our foreheads. I see a friendship in our future.

Dear Boston

I'm usually a big fan of Beantown (only my grandfather calls it that, I know), but in the past few years most of my experiences with Boston have been a traveler's worst nightmare. Let's take last night for example...

We sat in Boston Logan for over three hours, ate two meals, wandered around the international terminal and waited to board the plane, only to find out that they were having "technique" difficulties and did not know when we would be leaving. When we finally did board, we spent a total of two and a half hours squished between three loud American women and a German family (the wife was yelling DON'T SMASH MY LAPTOP for a good ten minutes) before they told us that the plane could not be flown and our flight was canceled..

then we waited in line to reclaim our bags and get a hotel voucher.

All of this, the chaos, the Lufthansa people telling me that I was required to rebook my own flights, the angry foreigners and the very SAME hotel they put me up in last time bring me to one conclusion - as much as I love Boston and it's people (mainly it's men), this city sucks to travel through. We're spending the rest of the day hanging around Quincey Market until the good people at Lufthansa show up at the airport and are able to recheck and check again all of our luggage and get us new boarding passes.

Wish us luck. If this is any indication of what's to come, I'm sure we'll all be pulling our hair out by next week.

I'm a little late on this.

I realize everyone hates Chris Brown these days, but there's no denying the man is one incredibly talented dancer. The video gets a little strange in the last 30 seconds while he tries to sing "Man In the Mirror" and cries instead, but the first 6 minutes of his performance are a wonderful throwback to what I remember of Chris Brown before he turned into Ike Turner 2.0