happenings

This photo was taken at our banquet on the last night of our Leadership course. The girl receiving her certificate is from Uganda and works there with Wycliffe Bible Translators. I hope to go to Africa someday...

So a few days after I arrived back from Hungary it was my friend Corina's birthday. I and some others went out to her house and I brought a cake I had made for her. It was a great meal and a fun time.

You may remember that my friend Kathy came to visit in August (that was awesome!) and we had a good time together.
During her time here one of the places she saw was the 'pitichka' which is like a Moldovan version of the Canadian Tire store. She wanted me to take some pictures of it as she was not able to. Here's me buying an extension cord and power bar.

It's been a busy time since I arrived back from Hungary. I've had a Bible study to lead for one of our courses and for the next few days I will be leading the Bible study at a conference we are hosting for the people who work in our day centres. All day today we had our leadership team meeting and tomorrow I will be doing my annual evaluation with my field leader. On Monday my roommate moved out and I am alone in my apartment again, which is fine. But not here for long as my landlady has decided to sell the apartment. Hopefully I can stay here until I leave for Canada in December, then save 3 months rent. On my return from Canada in March, I will have the joy of looking for another apartment! Well, at least it helps to keep me from accumulating too much 'stuff' ! Like Abraham, you know, wandering and not knowing where I am going..

What else did I do this last busy week? Oh yeah, on Thursday, I had all the new foreigners over for supper. This group of young people have come - all except one - soleley for our Challenge into Missions 10-week training program. Two from the US, one from Australia, one from Canada and one from Switzerland have come to be part of our team for this time. It was fun getting to know these enthusiastic young men and women. I fed them dinner and then invited them to make their own dessert as one had indicated that he liked to make food. So Nate and Bethany went to work in the kitchen and whipped up some delicious apple crisp, while the others took turns checking e-mail on my high-speed internet. This week and next they are with outreach teams staying in the villages - not likely to be internet there!

So, that's what's happening with me, just in case you are wondering. Thanks to all my loyal readers for your faithfulness. And praise to God for His great faithfulness!!

New Friends

Tomorrow will be the last day of this Leadership Matters course and it will be a bit sad to say goodbye to the wonderful people I have met here. On the very first day we did a thing where we learned how to remember people's names. And it was amazing how quickly we all learned each other's names by doing that! Now all those names have become not just faces, but individual personalities and many of those have become friends. Because the course has been very interactive we have gotten to know each other very well.

In small coaching groups we have worked together on the skills we were learning, listening to each other's talks and discussing together our plan of action for this or that assignment. We have shared our job descriptions and we have played games in the coffee shop. That's been one of the real perks here - a place to go for a latte at the end of the day! We don't have coffee shops in Moldova. Each of us also took turns leading the daily devotions and that included our new skill of story telling with a message. All the devotions were really touching.

The weeks have been fairly intensive as classes were from 8.30 am to 6 pm and then in the evening there was usually homework. After I got back to my room I would then try to get caught up on any e-mails I had received from work, dealing with things that had to be kept current back in Moldova.

The place we are staying is beautiful and the manor house is also used as a Bible college. Most of the students here seem to be American as it is an American-based ministry, Calvary Chapel, that runs the facility. As part of their program, a service component of 8 hours per week, the students staff the place in most instances and they are all really really friendly and helpful. The food has been great - and lots of it!

Our training team has consisted of people from Holland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the USA.

One of the highlights for me has been a piece of networking that I have been able to do. There is a guy on our team in Moldova who wants to serve the Lord cross-culturally. He believes that God is specifically calling him to a largely unreached people group called the Tuareg in West Africa. OM does not work in the country where he wants to go, or among those people, so we have been looking for someone who does so that we can develop a partnership that will facilitate his going to that country. How interesting it was to me when one of the participants here stood up and said that he worked among the Tuareg in the desert of West Africa!! I have been able to get lots of information from him and establish a connection that could possibly be the answer to helping our friend serve in the country to which he feels called. Sometimes I stand in awe of how the Lord orchestrates our lives and our relationships. The Lord's purposes stand firm!

still learning...

So there I was in Hungary, learning some leadership and management skills at a two week training course... Well, actually, here I am. Once again I find myself blessed to be at a beautiful venue, which is actually a Bible college and there are students here from all over the place. The college is run in English.

So they use this place as a conference centre as well and it really is quite wonderful, including not one, but two coffee shops! It really is too bad I'm off coffee - but they have decaf...

One of the fun things about the course is that there are people here from so many different countries and also from different mission agencies. There's Dutch, British, American, Irish, Moldovan, German, Hungarian, Kiwi, Ugandan, Philippino, Chinese, Korean, Romanian, and Canadians (4 of us Canuks here in one place - imagine!) It's such a relief to finally be able to speak in Canadianese, eh.