How sweet it is...

...to walk down to the end of the road and see a whole huge vineyard stretched out before me with vines laden with clusters of purple grapes! What a beautiful country this is! When I was praying one day, the Lord reminded me of the passage in John 15 where Jesus says, 'I am the vine you are the branches... abide in me. For if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will bear much fruit.' Oh that my life would be as fruitful as these Moldovan vines!!
I will see a bit more of the beautiful countryside on Sunday when I go to Orhu with Matthew and Vlad to a service at the Baptist Church there. Then in the afternoon we will go to a Pentecostal church service. I have been instructed that head coverings are required for married women, and probably for any older women such as myself. (Just remember most of the girls here are 21-25) The director of the Central Europe division of OM - Paul Stilli - has been with us for the last couple of days and will be till Monday. He is a very kind, very gentle, loving and encouraging man. He sat with us through the annual reports and discussions about the ministry and all that is going on. It has been a very informative few days for me and I have a much broader overview now of the work of OM Moldova.
Next week I will be going to stay in a Moldovan home. I have no more details yet except that Rafael hopes to find me a place with indoor plumbing!
Please pray for me tomorrow as I am going on one of the minibuses by myself to town to meet Sarah. The mini-buses are really something: jolting up and down over Moldovan roads/streets that have no lanes clearly marked, driving fairly quickly. You wave down the mini-bus outside your house, get on, sit down, pass your money forward and wait for the change to be passed back from the driver through all the other passengers to you. When you want to get off, you tell the driver where to stop! It costs 2 lei to take this bus, which is about 10 cents!
Anyway, I will probably write more after my adventure tomorrow. Sarah and I are going to meet, shop, eat, and go to the opera. Would you expect I could see Puccinni in Moldova???
Happy Thanksgiving to all! We won't be having turkey but Sarah and I are going to make apple crisp, since we can't make pumpkin pie. (no pumpkins, fresh or canned - and no Crisco!!)
I send my blessings and love to all of you.
Barb