Farewell to Sally

Our northern Irish granny - Sally - went home today. It wasn't easy to say goodbye as she has really brightened up our lives with her cheerful words of encouragement and songs of praise and her fervent prayers 'in the lovely name of Jesus'. Sally came to help Jill - who manages the building and cooks our main meal each day and does our laundry plus numerous other responsibilities with OM Hungary. With Sally here, instead of a free-for-all in the evenings and on weekends for meals, we had everything laid out for us and special things prepared that we might not have otherwise had. With Sally here, I woke up in the morning to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and went into the kitchen to the pleasant greeting 'Good mornin', Babs' in her Irish accent. She won a place in each of our hearts and now has returned to her own family and grandchildren to continue blessing their lives. Thank you, Sally - for everything. Sally and Victoria and I had a great time last Saturday in Budapest at the market and drinking tea in Hungarian cafes. Wasn't I blessed?

This has been a fairly intense week of lessons and assignments, especially as we prepare to do an open-air presentation in Budapest tomorrow. We will be working together with Youth With a Mission and presenting a drama, songs and a testimony as well as a brief gospel message in one of the main squares of Budapest. Guess who gets to do the gospel message? Right - me! Imagine! Me - a street preacher! Not exactly what I expected to be doing but I am always open to new experiences - ask me tomorrow whether I ever expect to do such a thing again. But when I look at the New Testament, the greatest saints (e.g. Paul, Peter) did open air street evangelism, preaching to whatever crowd happened to gather. So I'm in good company - just not anywhere near the same calibre of preaching. Please, please pray for me!!
Other than preparing for that and enjoying our daily classes, we have been working on this week's assignment - a religious background paper on the country to which we are going. Since Moldova is primarily an Orthodox country, I was especially interested in this afternoon's class when we learned about the history and beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox church. It was an excellent lesson and a real eye opener for me. Up till now I really knew nothing about Orthodoxy. Now I know about the first seven councils of the church and about the Great Schism of 1054 when the eastern and western churches excommunicated each other, and about the difference between Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox. It's all very interesting! Orthodox have another calendar, too (the Julian calendar) which means that I will be celebrating Christmas on January 7!
So, in case you think I'm doing nothing but play the tourist and socialize with all my new friends, remember that I am learning stuff and doing assignments too!

Saturday adventures & misadventures

Well, actually, to hear about the misadventure, check out James' website at www.jamesinczechrepublic.blogspot.com. ... oh my goodness - as I was making that entry Alma ran down and said we almost had a fire... and sure enough one of our number had fallen asleep and the book that person was reading fell against the lamp and was half-burned when it was discovered, thankfully before the sheet, the book or anything else actually burst into flame. We are feeling somewhat shaken, recognizing that God has been protecting us this day from serious injury or danger but these have been extremely close calls. And so, dear praying friends, please pray with us for God's protection constantly.
Now, one of the people I haven't introduced to you yet is our dear brother James. James is the only single guy in this group of two married couples, eight single women and himself. He does very well contending with some of the joys and challenges that face him simply being among us. He helps us with computer woes, takes care of details others miss, and truly loves children. Parnesh and Heather's son Reuben is a great fan of James. James is from Australia/NewZealand/England (see his blog for more details about that!) and is on his way to the Czech Republic. Not only is he very helpful in practical ways but is also quick to turn us all to the One who promises to be a Helper to those who cry out to Him. Tomorrow, James, Kim, Su'En and myself will be preparing our special Sunday evening dinner which is hosted by a different national group each week. So we will be the Dutch-Canadian-British contingent, preparing not only the evening meal but also the evening entertainment.
In spite of the challenges of this day, it was a tremendous sense of community as we all returned from our various outings and expeditions of the day. I had gone with our northern Irish friends, Victoria and Sally to spend the day in Budapest visiting the market and enjoying a more leisurely experience of the city than last week. (Also, last night most of us went on a wee boat cruise on the Danube to see Budapest by night - och, that was lovely!) Erika went to visit her Hungarian family members, Claudia spent the day with her uncle, and Micah took the train to Vienna to visit friends there. Some of us had some challenges finding our way on public transport but in each case, God graciously sent help in one form or another. In our case, it was an elderly gentleman who spoke enough English to help us find the bus we needed to transfer to because the trolley we were on was detoured due to road construction. As each of us arrived home this evening and shared the day's events, there was a real sense of family and gratitude to be back together again. And after the near-fire incident a few moments ago the five of us that were still awake all sat down and prayed together immediately.
Tomorrow morning in church our group will be singing a song and sharing a testimony. Probably the testimony we will share will be different than what we originally expected! But we will share that God is good and God is loving and we have experienced His faithfulness and His protection today.

Hemmed in prayer

Hello, my dear friends. Today is Thursday and at OM, Thursday is usually prayer meeting night. That is our practice at MTS, where each Thursday evening prayer requests are shared and a short presentation is made by one of the groups going to a particular country. This evening the five people who are going to Albania shared some information and prayer requests about that country.
(Su'en and Micah are two of the five people who will be going to Albania.) It was very interesting, as Albania was a completely closed country until about 15 years ago and since that time, many new churches have been established, and there are many new believers. Parnesh & son Reuben The couple who are directing our training - Heather and Parnesh - were part of the first OM
team that went into Albania those years ago and so they have had some interesting stories to share about those first days in Albania. For example, as they were driving into the city,
Heather on right, baby Elona in carriage
Parnesh became very annoyed that all the silly
people were walking in the middle of the road. He said they were likely to get hit by a car, but then the host informed him that there were only
8 cars in the whole city, so people weren't too worried about getting hit!!

Anyway, as well as prayer meeting tonight, we have been learning about language acquisition all this week. I now know that the first Heather on right, baby Elona in carriage three months of my time in Moldova will be spent with a host family in Chisenau and my main responsibility will be to learn the language. I will have a language helper with whom I will meet most days and spend other parts of the day getting out in the community and practising what I am learning. Then at the end of the three months I will stay for a week in a Moldovan village before then being assigned to my specific area of responsibility.
One of the assignments we have each week is to work on memorizing a portion - and eventually all- of Psalm 139. Last week one of the verses said, "You hem me in - behind and before". Micah said it reminded her of being zipped up cozily in a sleeping bag. I was thinking about my prayer supporters - those at home praying for me and those ahead, in Moldova, praying for me. I am so grateful for your prayers and I do have two requests to share:

1. Please pray for me in the process of language learning. It will be hard work but I know I can do it if I maintain the discipline I need. We are being given lots of guidelines this week, but once I get to Moldova I will be largely responsible for directing what form the learning takes.
http://www.eliznik.org.uk/RomaniaHistory/language.htm

2. Please pray for Airton, a member of the Moldovan team, who was sent out of the country the other day and will not be able to get back into Moldova. He is staying here at the OM Centre and trying to figure out what comes next in his life. This is a huge disappointment to him and a loss for the team.

3. Praise God that He is sovereign over all things and that we can trust Him day by day if we put our hope in His word, and in the living Word, Jesus Christ.

The Beauty of Budapest

Some of the sights

So...on Saturday we piled into the vans and headed off for Budapest. Joska (OM Hungary staff person/crazy guy) was driving our van and kept us all in stitches the whole time. But we arrived safely and took lots of pictures at the various places we stopped. We spent a fair bit of time near Heroes' Square and I found a quiet place in the park behind it to sit and drink a cappuccino and write some postcards.





One of the American girls, Erika,is from a Hungarian family and she was able to go and visit her grandmother during this time.








Later we went up the hill to the castle district and Sally and I did a bit of shopping. We watched a woman completing a tablecloth she had been working on in the traditional Hungarian style - it was quite a piece of handiwork. I also bought a mug to add to my collection (I know my kids won't be surprised to hear that).





How to get around in Moldova...?

As many of you know I recently obtained my motorcycle license - but I have never had the opportunity to own a bike of my own. So in Budapest I did some shopping around to consider what form of transportation I might use in Moldova ...










...and after much consideration,this is what I decided on:More friends to meet

There are some people you haven't met yet, such as Eun Ha and her husband Eun Chuul, a really sweet couple from South Korea. Eun Chuul has been serving as a youth pastor and now they are heading to Albania to serve the Lord there.








You also haven't met Victoria,
who - as well as Granny Sally - is from northern Ireland. Victoria has come to help take care of the children during the training school. Sally helps with the cooking and kitchen work and she is an absolute delight and full of life and humour. They attend the home church of Heather,
who leads the training course along with her husband Parnesh.
I'll have to put in a photo of them next time.

Blessings to you all from Budapest!

Worship with Hungarian Baptists

This morning we all piled in the vans again to go to church at the little local Hungarian Baptist church. We went there last week and already yesterday when we drove by it group members pointed and said, "There's our church!" It doesn't take long to grab hold of something familiar. The service itself is not unfamiliar - quite similar to many Baptist churches in Canada (well, not similar to Yorkminster Park, but it is unique).
One of the differences is that people don't stand to sing. They have a worship team that leads the music, which this morning included a flute and a piano as well as singers. Aside from them, nobody else stands. Lyrics were projected on the wall but unlike last week, none of the songs today were familiar tunes that we could at least sing along to with our English words. Hungarian is not too hard to follow phonetically, if you remember that J sounds like Y, so some did try to follow along. One of our group members is Hungarian so she translated for us and some American visitors who were also there. So we all sat in the back rows with headsets for the translations. Each week time is given for prayer and the focus this morning was on praying for the Americans who are commemorating the 4th anniversary of 9/11. One of the members just came back from New York City and she encouraged people to pray for America to know comfort and hope, and not to be living in fear. Time was given for various members of the congregation to pray out loud and many people did so. Later there was a time given for testimony, with a young man prepared to share his testimony (related to the message) and then an opening for anyone else who wanted to share. After each testimony the pastor would ask someone to pray for that person. The pastor is a fairly young man and preached an encouraging sermon this morning based on 1 Corinthians 15:58 -
Be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
It was a good message about the importance of persevering, even when it seems there is no fruit to your labours. God calls us to be faithful and in our faithfulness we will experience the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit in our lives. At this point I don't feel overburdened with a great deal of work at all - in fact I am feeling very relaxed and thankful for a stress-free September - but I know that the time will soon come when I will need to be reminded of the need to keep on keeping on and to be steadfast in whatever God calls me to do as I begin in Moldova. I suppose the first thing will be my language learning - I will need to be steadfast and diligent in that.
Meanwhile, I am conscious that many of my Canadian friends and family are well into the harriedness of the fall season: beginning classes, starting fall programs, preparing for various events that are upcoming. Please know that I am thinking of you often and holding you in prayer as I bring your name and your needs to the Heavenly Father who loves us so much.
Tomorrow morning - Monday- I will be sharing the story of God's grace in my life in our morning devotion time. Please keep me in your prayers for this.
And - thank you to everyone who responded to my request to know if you are out there! Karen, I've taken care of the junkmail problem with help from James, our local techno guru and the only single male in this household of females. Erin, not to worry, I am keeping an eye on my dear Dana and look forward to being in Moldova with her. She is truly a gem. Thanks for writing! Kevin, I don't remember if I ever met you or not, but glad to know that you are following my blog and I took a look at yours too. Ron, thank you so much for copying my blog for Kate and Winnie. It's great to know that you are all there and I value your prayers so much. I suppose the choir is back in full swing for the fall and I can just picture you there on Thursdays getting the chairs all set up for them. I believe I have one of the choir CD's copied on my MP3 so I will have to get that out when I am homesick for the church. God bless you all! Barb

PS - Watch for my next post when I will report - with photos- on our visit to Budapest yesterday.

One week completed at MTS

Hello, loyal readers!
Actually, I'm not so sure if I have loyal readers or not as I have no Comments!!! Please, dear friends, when you come to visit stop and say hello or send me an e-mail. I need to know if this blog is serving any purpose in terms of informing you of my adventures. I am going to attempt to put a few prayer requests on from time to time, and will continue to add photos when I have appropriate ones. This photo is just a pretty one I took on my train trip from Holland to Belgium last week. I can hardly believe we have now been at Missionary Training School for a whole week! It has been a great week and I think gradually all of us are feeling more comfortable with one another and adjusting to the challenges of community living. We have had some really good teaching this week on Calling, the Biblical Basis of Missions, Law and Grace, Apects of the Cross, and Living a Life of Service, and Cooking in a Foreign Context. As well as good teachers, we have had some interesting discussions about some of the issues that may face us as we go to our various countries. Last night we watched a video called 'A Candle in the Dark', about the life of William Carey, father of modern missions. We had a good discussion about it this morning, especially from the perspective of a missionary's responsibility to their family. We have two couples in the group, whose photos I will have to take so I can introduce them properly to you.

Tomorrow we finally get to go to Budapest! I am so excited and I will take some great photos and hopefully find some souvenirs to send to my sons. I already mailed a parcel to Marah, but finding things for the boys is always more difficult. We're all going to be going in two vans, and now that we know each other better, it should be a really fun time.
I'll check out now but hope to get some comments from a few of you! Blessings, Barb

More introductions!

Last night we went for a walk and this neighbourhood certainly is interesting. The people who went on the walk together were me and Claudia (who you met yesterday) and Micah and Kim and Su En. But before I introduce them individually, I have a picture of the whole group, except for Matt and Melinda. This photo was taken on Sunday morning when we arrived home from church:Left to right: (standing) Kim, Micah, Erika, Dana, Su En, Un Ha, Alma; (in front) Claudia, James, Un Chau

So, here is Micah, a Quaker from the state of Idaho. Micah is a very enthusiastic and interesting woman. She taught at a school in Austria for 3 years and is eager to go to Albania with OM. She is a hard worker and an enthusiastic encourager, as well as a good listener. Also, to her benefit, she is a sound sleeper and never complains about my snoring at all!

So here is Su En. Born in Singapore, but she lives in Holland. She and Kim love to speak dutch together. Su En is a little bit off-the-wall and you never quite know what she will say next. But she's a lot of fun and very funny. She is trained in early childhood education and is really looking forward to working with children in Albania when she gets there. Speaking of children, today was Oliver's second
birthday and we had a 'wee bit' of a party for him, sure! We even had cake!



Kim also came on our walk with us. Kim is a lovely young woman from the Netherlands as well. She is also going to Albania. Unlike Micah, Kim is a light sleeper adn she quickly switched out of our room to sleep - but she left her suitcase and stuff so she has an excuse to visit us during the day!

Speaking of walks one of the characteristics of any walk in this area of Hungary is that you get to deal with the various personalities of every dog from here to wherever you are going. ALL the dogs bark (day and night) and ALL the dogs love to run out and bark at you very loudly when you walk by. Some of the dogs are pretty big and some of them are ferocious - take a look a this:

The people with whom I live...

Well, first of all there are the 2 women with whom I will be going to Moldova: Claudia and Dana.
Dana is originally from Romania and she is about 21 years old - a young woman with a heart for mission. She was in Moldova earlier this year for the Challenge into Missions program - a 3-month training program. She loved it there so much that she signed on with OM to return on a 2-year Global Action program. That's where I fit in as I am also on Global Action. Dana is teaching me Romanian during this time of preparation at OM Hungary Missionary Training School. Tonight we conjugated the verb 'to be' and I learned to count to zece (ten, 10) in Romanian. Thanks, Dana!

Claudia is also going to Moldova with us. She is older than Dana but not as old as I am. She is from Switzerland and speaks Swiss German, so when she and Alma speak German I try to follow the conversation. Claudia is one of my roommates and she may also become my walking buddy.




Alma is the OM staff person from Germany who has come to live with us and help us out with any of the details of living, phoning, mailing and generally getting along in an unfamiliar place. This morning she shared her story of God's grace in her life and it was interesting to hear of the 10 years she spent working in Albania right after it opened up. She currently works in the OM home office in Germany and occasionally helps with other events such as this. Alma plays the saxophone and in the evenings it is nice to hear familiar songs and hymns played on the smooth tones of the sax.

Such smooth tones are a welcome relief from some of the more strident sounds around here. Specifically, the sound of dogs barking is a continual annoyance, night and day. It seems everyone in the neighbourhood has at least one dog and the Hungarian dogs have set up some sort of communication system in this hilly neighbourhood. If one dog barks, his voice invites all the other dogs to respond and at any given time you can hear endless barking - sometimes harmonized (not) by the wailing of a cat or the crowing of a rooster. This goes on into the night every single night. That and the mosquitoes makes it difficult to leave our window open when we sleep. The weather has been so beautiful that it is nice to enjoy the fresh air, barking dogs or not. The photo is a view from the balcony of our bedroom.

Today we had a couple of very good teaching sessions from a guy named Terry who has been working with OM Hungary for many years. He was teaching about Law and Grace, and about legalism in the church. It was very a very good teaching and I really enjoyed it. God is teaching me things on a very personal level as well and I am glad they chose the focus of the first week to be spiritual formation.

I'll introduce the rest of the group as I go along. We are all looking forward to our group trip into Budapest on Saturday to see the sights.

Contact info in Hungary

Greetings all!
By tomorrow we may have photos. Stay tuned and hold your breath...
wrong! Tonight we have photos!! Hurrah! YEah for teams! Thank you to James for helping me get photos onto my laptop. Here is a picture of the group that left DeBron yesterday, headed for eastern Europe.
We were commissioned in the morning service and then in the afternoon loaded into the vans headed for the airport in Amsterdam. By 11pm we had arrived in Budapest and now there are 11 of us about to spend a month living and learning together in the OM Training Centre in Erd, just outside Budapest.
For now, I will give you my address here in Hungary in case you decide to write me.

OM Hungary Training Centre
Bajuszfu u.15
2030 Erd
Hungary

I will be here until October 1.

Joy and peace in Christ,
Barb

Brussels today, Budapest tomorrow

Hello everyone!
Today I had a great adventure and was successful in my endeavour. I got up early (5 a.m.!!!) to catch a train to Brussels, Belgium. It was a 4 hour trip and I had to change trains three times - and did so without getting totally muddled. Arrived in Bruxelles, took a cab to the Moldovan Embassy and within 3 hours I had applied for, paid for, and received my visa. Truly the Lord was with me and blessed me. We hoped I would be able to get a one-year visa but coming away, I wasn't sure from the form whether I had a 90-day one or a one-year. But now I know that it is, indeed, a one-year visa - Praise God! And it cost less than was expected.
So I took a sightseeing tour of Brussels (who knows when/if I'll ever be there again?!) and then jumped on a train back to Holland. Arrived back here at the conference at 9 pm. Tomorrow we leave here at 2 pm to fly to Budapest. Keep praying! I'll write more when there's nobody waiting in line for computers. Blessings to you all. Barb

Heading off on an adventure...alone...or not

Hello all!
This is just a brief update as I am asking for special prayer for tomorrow. It seems I have to go to Brussels, Belgium in order to obtain my visa to Moldova. So I will be leaving at 5.30 am to catch a 6 am train - making 3 changes along the way - and arriving in Brussels at about 10 am. Then I make my way to the Moldovan Embassy and pray that it will be as easy as they anticipate for me to receive my visa. Please pray that I can get a one-year visa with little problem. Then I have to get back to the train station and back to the conference here at deBron. Won't this be fun! In Belgium I am told they speak Dutch (don't know it), French (can get by) and Flemish (don't know it). Many people in Europe do speak English though. In the MOldovan Embassy though - if it's anything like the Polish Embassy in Toronto was - they might only speak Romanian, Moldovan and Russian... we will see. God is good and God is faithful and as tomorrow is our prayer day anyway, the train ride will give me plenty of opportunity to pray. I will be thinking of and praying for many of you specifically. We have also been aware of the horrendous situations in the news and praying for the victims in New Orleans and in Iraq. It is wonderful to be in a place where so many people are choosing to devote themselves to bringing hope to the people of the world. One of the many wonderful songs we have been singing here is 'Jesus, Hope of the Nations'. Amen. May each of you be filled with the hope and joy that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Life in Holland...

...has been incredibly busy so far but very pleasant. I have had trouble accessing computer hook-ups and have yet to accomplish the photo thing as I discovered I forgot the appropriate software. At any rate, not spending time on computers means spending more time with people and what is better than that? As a matter of fact yesterday afternoon I had a great visit with Susan and Anders Carlen when they stopped by on their way back from Sweden to Canada! That was pretty great! I sent hugs with them to deliver to anyone at home that needs one from me, so be sure to collect!
Last night we had an amazing program of acts from representatives from many of the countries. It was wonderful and truly a celebration of our diversity. Not to mention hilarious!!

Then today we spent the day doing a very realistic simulation of a mission trip! It was a wonderful team experience and with 3 Koreans, 2 Italians, 1 Spaniard, 1 Trinidadian, 1 German and myself on our team, we had an interesting time together trying to communicate with the family we 'visited' in the fictional country we went to. As a result of this experience and the debriefing we have had and will be doing, we will really have a better sense of what preparation is needed, both emotionally, and logistically for heading to the mission field. I was elected the group leader and I must say that our mission trip to Poland in 2003 was a helpful thing for me in going through this exercise today.
Anyway, I just dashed into the computer room on my way to supper, so I must sign off. Hope to hear from some of you soon. May the Lord bless and keep each one of you. You can be sure that He has me in His care, thanks to your prayers, and I am still excited about following Jesus to Moldova!

the deBron experience

Well, I thought tonight I would have photos but the day was non-stop and I never got that far. Wow! first off, I slept in - and I didn't even go to bed late!!! (i.e. I was in bed by midnight) I thought that would give me lots of rest to get up for my 9 a.m. meeting with group leaders. I was asked to facilitate a small fellowship group during the course of the conference and felt this would not be too onerous. I must have been jet-lagged, because when I woke up and looked at my watch, it was 10.30 am!!! I managed to get up and over to the 10.45 am morning meeting, and there wasn't a break since then and now (10.30 pm)
My small group, it turned out was responsible for helping with clean-up after lunch, so as soon as we finished that it was time for the next activity: the De Bron experience. And what an experience it was! Basically, it was one of those team-building group get-to-know you events with multiple stations and activities that might appeal to a variety of people. The activities ranged from the mildly pleasant - eating a Dutch cookie hung from a string while blindfolded - to the simple - pin the tail on the donkey - to the absolutely horrendous - putting your face in a pan of flour and pulling out a wrapped candy with your teeth! Remember, people, most of the new recruits here are between 18-25.
Anyway, my group was pretty good but not as competetive as the German men's team that won. In fact, we didn't even finish all the activities but it provided some good chances to chat. My small group consists of 2 of the Canadian girls I came with - SuJan and Jenilea, a girl from Kazakhstan who is going to work on the ships, and another girl, Dana, from Romania who is going to - guess where! - MOLDOVA!! Iryna is from Ukraine and didn't arrive until later in the week.
In fact, later in the day, at our target field meeting I also met the other girl going to Moldova; Claudia from Switzerland, with whom I have been exchanging e-mail. So it was exciting to meet both of them and they have both been to Moldova before and cannot wait to return on a long-term basis as their previous experience was short-term. So that is encouraging. And - Dana, being Romanian, will also be at the training seminar in Hungary and so she will help me to begin learning Romanian. She is a real sweetheart and very enthusiastic.
"My girls" -from left to right: Iryna - from Ukraine, going to work on the boats; me; SuJan- Canadian, going to mideast Asia; Masha -first OMer from Kazakhstan, going to the boats; Dana -from Romania, going with me to Moldova; Jenilea - from Canada, going to Israel

The other really good news and answer to prayer today was that there are arrangements made to take our extra luggage that is over the prescribed weight of Sky Europe. That was the one thing that I was really concerned and a bit anxious about. So - praise the Lord! We will be flying from here to Budapest on the Friday evening of next week. At our target field meeting we met the others who will be at that seminar - a group of about 20.
So, it has been a busy day but a good one. The message this evening was about the nature of God, from Isaiah 40. He is great - and He is gracious and loves us. His arm is strong to crush his enemies, but tender to hold the lambs close to his heart. We need to know this God and to trust Him to give strength to us to face whatever comes. I wish for all of you to trust our great God in whatever He is calling you. His grace is sufficient and He will complete what He has begun in your life. He loves you - and I do too.
Thank you for your prayers. Elaine, my address is Barbtherev@yahoo.ca. And anyone else who needs it, please feel free to send e-mail. Thanks so much for thinking of me - and I will keep you all in my prayers. Did I mention that deBron is beautiful? Oh... some of the guys this afternoon thought it was so beautiful (and probably had so much flour up their noses) that they jumped in the canal and went swimming. I'm sure the cows in the field on the other side must have wondered what was going on. At the evening meeting the announcement was made that there is to be no swimming in the canal, which is quite polluted. That got a laugh - the staff couldn't believe that they would ever have to make that announcement.
OK - hopefully tomorrow I will figure out the picture thing. Pray for me to find time to do that.

I'm here!!

1. Yesterday I had a 'waving committee' to see me off at the airport: Kathy Johnson and her daughter Emma drove me out. Ben came along and his girlfriend Xiomara also joined us out there. We also met up with Kathleen Wilson arriving back from Ireland,and her parents who had come to pick her up. So it was a great send-off and I managed to hold back the tears till just when we got to the security gate. Tomorrow I will hopefully gain the techno know-how to send pics from that send -off.

So here I am in Holland - a beautiful, clean, lush green neat country, just as I expected. I travelled with 5 other girls coming to the conference and everything went pretty well without a hitch. It was great having others to be with as we travelled and changed planes, etc. - and of course, I was the mom of the group as I am old enough to be any of these girls' mother. We arrived in Amsterdam very tired (all we saw of the city was the airport) and were ushered fairly promptly, along with many other OM'ers coming from different countries, onto a waiting bus.

It was a two-hour drive from there to this beautiful Christian conference centre at DeBron. What a lovely place!
It was raining a bit when we arrived, but that was ok. They fed us a hot meal, registered us, gave us some time to rest before dinner and a brief evening meeting. It was especially warming to be greeted enthusiastically by Junia and by Sue, my friends from the OM Canada office. There are 270 new recruits here from 41 different countries all over the world (e.g. Australia, Malaysia, Ukraine, South America, South Africa, etc.). We had an inspiring time of worship and a brief word of encouragement from John 15 - our need to be pruned so that we may produce fruit. Some things in our lives that are fruitless need to be put to death and things that can produce fruit need to be nurtured. Then we prayed for each other in small groups. Already I have met people from Korea, Malaysia, USA, New Zealand and people who are goint to Kazakhstane, Tajikstan, Sudan, South Africa, and many other countries. This really is amazing as you can walk around the lovely conference grounds in a very pastoral setting (with a pastoral country smell!) and hear languages from all over the world. Every person you meet the questions are 'Where are you from?' and Where are you going?' A lot of the young people are going to work on the OM ships.
My roommate is a woman from California who is working with Turning Point, a ministry to Muslims in London, England. She, like me, has come into overseas missions at a mature age. :-)

What else do I need to tell you? Oh yeah - they have set up a great internet cafe here in the conference centre and a guy named Greg helps us get set up and going. He is going to help me get my puter set up and working with wireless and I'm sure I can ask him to help me figure out how to download photos from my camera to the computer. If so, there will be pictures here tomorrow. But right now I am going to bed. More from deBron later this week...
Thank you to everyone who is praying for me and sending me notes of encouragement. There have been a few moments in the last 24 hours when the immensity of what I have done has hit with intense emotion. Pray that I will have the time with the Lord to keep everything in focus. God bless you all!

Homeless - with Wealth beyond compare

Yesterday I took the final loads of 'stuff' from my house: a load to the dump, a load to the storage unit, and a load to my son's apartment. With each load delivered I felt like a weight was lifted and I was preparing to soar. I vacuumed the empty house, put out the recycling, gave the refrigerator remains to the neighbour across the street and took one last walk-through.

I thanked the Lord for the good years we have had there and as I stood in each empty room I envisioned in my mind's eye some of the memories we made in that room. I gave thanks for my children - Josh, Ben and Marah. I prayed for the family who will come to live there.
In the evening I had dinner with my son Ben and shared a wonderful time with him all to myself. I am so thankful for my children.
Today I went into the church to say goodbye to my colleagues, particularly Peter Holmes, with whom I have worked closely for the last 8 years and who has been a wonderful mentor and a caring friend. I thank God for all that He has taught me through Peter and the people at Yorkminster Park. Whoever fills my position will be blessed to be part of such a church family.
I turned in my keys to the church and my office and walked away from the building, thankful for my years there, but certain that God is leading me forward.
And so, this week, the last farewells will be said and I will be on my way. Thank you all for your prayers. The most recent answer is this computer. I went and ordered it just last Monday and they said it might take 2 weeks. I asked the rep to put a rush on it, and I prayed for it to come in time - and here it is! So now I have my laptop and will be able to keep in touch with you all. God is good!!
Please also pray for my mother, who is having cataract surgery tomorrow. I am so glad I can be with her to see her through this time and to share some special time together.
In a worldy sense, i have nothing but in the spiritual dimension I have riches beyond compare: a Saviour who loves me, a wonderful family, and many many special friends - true wealth. Thanks be to God.

Contact information

I do hope people will stay in touch with me. You are welcome to comment on any of my posts here on the blog, or you can write me personally. My new e-mail address is barbtherev@yahoo.ca. For those of you who still enjoy putting pen to paper, my initial snail-mail address will be:
Barb Fuller
c/o Operation Mobilisation
Casuta Postala 2366
2012 Chisinau
Republic of Moldova

A place that doesn't exist

My brother drew my attention to a series being done by CBC on 'Places that don't exist'. One episode featured the Transnistria district of Moldova. Did anyone see it? It was really insightful. Here's a website that may give you more information about this Russian district of Moldova that considers itself independent but isn't recognized internationally at all. http://www.inyourpocket.com/moldova/en/

A new language...but which one?

Speaking of food, last Friday I took my daughter and her boyfriend, and my son Ben and his girlfriend to the 'Moldova Restaurant' on Dufferin St. near Steeles. It was an interesting experience and I deliberately tried a few unknown dishes - my kids did not like them and of course I don't remember what they were called. One was an eggplant with tomatoes and a dill sauce; the other was a cornmeal dumpling kind of thing (it was HUGE) served with feta cheese and sour cream. Not everything was eaten but the kids enjoyed more substantial things like cornish hen and lamb chops. Ben's girlfriend had cabbage rolls. Marah had chicken Kiev - great big portions.




That's one thing - all the portions were very generous. Somehow I'm not sure that will be the case in Moldova, poor as it is. The most interesting and puzzling thing to me was a brief conversation I had with the waitress. I wanted to know if she spoke Russian or Romanian. She spoke Russian, and she insisted that Russian is the language spoken by everyone in Moldova. That seems to be a common fallacy among people who used to live there, as I have another friend from Romania who also told me that everyone in Moldova speaks Russian. Not so - according to all the literature, and my team-mates to be. So I will continue working away with my Romanian phrase book and hope it will do me some good.
Yes, James, I started the book today - 'Playing the Moldovans' (at tennis). I haven't enjoyed a book so much for a long time - it is hilarious and informative and so much of what he says jives with what I am learning about Moldova - including the language confusion!
Thanks for the comments, my friends! Hope to hear more from lots of people.
I am now working on getting everything out of the office at the church. I said my goodbyes last Sunday - not without some tears. Yorkminster Park (www.yorkminsterpark.com) has been a wonderful church home over the last 8 years and I have been blessed with many wonderful friends there.
Some of the ladies threw a surprise farewell luncheon for me on Thursday - thought I was eating with 2 people and instead there were over a dozen who joined us and blessed me with their company and their love and laughter. Thanks, Elaine and Diane for organizing that!
I am also working on emptying my house - Marah will help me with that this weekend. And - I need to get a laptop to take with me. On this I need some wisdom and hope to call upon some of my computer savvy friends to help me know which way to go. So... things are moving along. Time with family and time with the Lord are the most precious things in these last two weeks. Thanks for your prayers.