The First Week

At the time I am writing this, Carolyn and I are in the middle of our 5th week here in Oradea, Romania, our new host city and culture.  We are very slowly starting to become more and more comfortable with the basic functions of life here in our new home, but I feel that I must share with you both the high and low of my primary daily goal in our first week: eating.

During the first few days here our friends in the city invited us over for breakfast, took us out for lunch, etc. and really helped us out with the major meals of the day.  We could order food with their help by just ordering the same thing they got and hand them our money.  It worked fine, but in the back of my mind I knew that eventually I would need to learn how to obtain food on my own. 

Fears: A Reflection

While at the church here, a missionary friend of ours was sharing about her time in South America working in Bible Translation. The response of the people in the church was, “Why would you leave the comforts of Romania to go to a place like South America where it’s so dangerous?!” The reason it was significant is that was the exact same question that we received before we left (except about leaving America).

I would like to talk about fear and the way it limits us. When I was little I had a huge fear of fire. We had many lessons on fire safety and what to do in case of a fire. But in my young mind, that meant we WOULD have a fire and I needed to be prepared for WHEN that would happen. So for that reason I constantly lived on edge around anything that was hot. I remember panicking one time when my mom dropped a dried spaghetti noodle on the burner on the stove and it caught fire. She assured me it was fine, and now I know that was hardly a danger, but the moment I saw that, I immediately thought the house was going up in flames. Partly, this was because of my lack of understanding, another part was that I had dwelt on that fear for so long I was easily triggered by the sight of smoke or flame.