Romance Capital of the World...

... too bad the romance wasn't mine! Well, never mind - it was the next best thing: I was invited to co-officiate at the wedding of my dear friend Emma. She and Alan had decided that they wanted to get married in the most romantic city in the world. I was so privileged to be a part of their special day! Not only did I get to be with them but I also met some more of Emma's family members, as well as Alan's parents. Emma comes from a large Italian family and it was fun seeing these wonderful people together - so vibrant and full of life and love and laughter.

On the day before the wedding, after we met with the pastor at the American Church in Paris, where the wedding was held, I spent the afternoon with Emma's brother Paul, and his wife Barb. We did one of those hop-off/hop-on bus tours and had a great time together. It was so nice to be able to see the sights with someone else to share them. Driving past the Place de Concorde we noticed that Emma was not the only bride getting married that weekend!! Can you count the brides in this photo?? We got off at the Champs-Elysees and had some lunch at one of the many cafe/restaurants. Later we ended up at the Eiffel Tower and went all the way to the top - what a view! One of the things that for some reason surprised me about Paris was how flat it is. I never really had thought about it before but somehow didn't expect that. The only real hill is Montmartre and I didn't have time to go there... oh well, next time!

The wedding was on Saturday at noontime (very approximately!!!) and the reception wasn't until the evening so in the in between time I went and saw a few more things, including the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. What a huge museum!!!

In the evening I was back with the family for the celebration together and we had such a nice time. It was fun to get to know the sister who lives in Ireland with her Danish husband, and the other sister and the aunt who came from Italy and the friend who came from England. Alan's parents had come from Toronto and Emma's brother and wife came from Manitoba. Paris is a beautiful city for an international gathering like this!

Now, I must mention somewhere in here that there was also a certain amount of frustration in my otherwise beautiful weekend. You may know that I studied French for a total of 9 years in school and university. I used to be able to speak it passably. I know the grammar. I have a reasonable amount of vocabulary. But in many ways French is similar to its Romance language cousin, Romanian. So I spent the weekend totally tongue-tied, twisting the tip of my tongue in circles trying to untangle the sentences that came readily in Romanian but one excruciating word at a time in French. Travelling on the Metro and the bus I found myself painfully putting together the correct French-only sentences and questions in my mind that I might possibly need, stumbling to find a pronoun or a verb that jumped headlong in Romanian into my mind but refused to show itself in French! Tongue -tied, I was - and so relieved to return to Moldova where I can actually put sentences together all in one language at a time!!

On Sunday I spent most of the day on my own visiting the Notre Dame Cathedral and the bookstalls nearby. I found an English used-book store there called Shakespeare & Co. (?) and went in to buy a copy of Victor Hugo's novel about the Hunchback, of course. It was an awesome store and I also found a very special book for my grandchildren but I won't say here what that is. (Marah, you and yours will just have to wait!) Anyway, the store put me in mind of John Doull's used bookstore in Halifax. The woman at the cash was obviously a native English speaker so I asked where she was from. I was expecting the usual answer - the United States but she totally took me aback. "Nova Scotia", she said. I was dumbfounded. Can you believe it? Turns out she knows my friend John Doull and she worked also in the Box of Delights bookstore in Wolfville, which of course I am familiar with. How cool is that?

Before meeting up with all the wedding people again I went on a boat cruise on the River Seine. It was lovely seeing all the sights of Paris from the water - so many beautiful buildings and so much history and lovely music to go with it. One of the most delightful things I saw en route was the people dancing on the quay, apparently a common past-time in Paris at this particular spot. Paris is definitely a romantic city. (Mr. Right, if you're out there, just put yourself in this picture and let me know - I'd be willing to go to Paris again!!) After the cruise I met up with the wedding crowd, including the new bride and groom, and we all went to an Italian restaurant to have supper together. It was a nice way to finish up a lovely weekend in Paris.

Love Moldova

From the time I returned from Canada, I have been visiting teams who came to participate in our summer outreaches. In the course of the summer over 120 individuals came from many different countries. There were a lot of Dutch folk, as well as British, German, Swiss, American and even a few Canadians! Before each outreach we would conduct an orientation day and at the end of their two week outreach we would hold a debriefing day. These were part of my responsibility, as well as visiting the teams in between time.

In the villages, the teams had many different kinds of experiences as they worked with the churches there and stayed in the homes of the local believers. One team arrived in a village late one evening, hoping for supper, only to be informed that the first order of business would be for them to build themselves an outhouse! Such is the life of a missionary! (So glad I have never yet been required to do that.) Here is a photo of the outdoor shower that same team had the privilege to use that week.

But in spite of the challenges of basic living, the teams all came back with stories of how God had worked and of what they had learned during their time. It is always heartening to have at least 2-3 young people who are seeking God's direction in their lives and who come back from the outreach saying, "I believe God is calling me into missions." This is one of our goals in conducting these outreaches, as well as the primary goal of bringing God's love and mercy and hope to the people of Moldova.

In one village where I visited, the team was doing practical work as well as running a children's program for 140 children!! The women of the local church were feeding all these children each day. We were there for one of their closing programs and the children absolutely packed their current building. The church has already almost completed a new building that will have space to hold the children and also their parents and families!! We were very impressed by the vision of the pastor in this small community, who also preaches at 2-3 nearby mission points.

There was another group that was very large, consisting of a youth group from Holland. Along with our OM team members, they worked with a local church to run a children's program in the local park, and to build a playground near the church. When you see the state of the park where they were meeting with the children, you will appreciate that a new brightly-painted playground will be greatly appreciated. One of the highlights for this group of young people was that two of the group members committed their lives to Christ in the course of their time here. There was great rejoicing and these two young men were eager to testify to their new faith in Jesus.

Unfortunately on my way back from visiting one of the teams, Rosie, my car who had just returned to me from the repair shop, decided that she hadn't had enough attention. She wanted some more new parts and she wasn't going anywhere until she got them!! Sigh... we did eventually get home that night - Albina and I - but we left Rosie in Causeni to eventually be towed back to her own personal mechanic in Chisinau who apparently is the only one who can keep her on the road, as long as I keep paying for the parts!

This week I am going with my team to our annual team retreat so I won't be around for a few days. Thanks for stopping by to visit - please do feel free to leave a comment!

Summer Scenes

In Moldova

Summer is a lovely season, with fields of sunflowers everywhere.












This is the time of year when we host many foreigners who come on short term mission trips to help with outreaches in the villages.

As part of my role in member care, I am responsible to visit the teams while they are on outreach so I do more travelling around Moldova in this season.
In this photo you can see Katie washing dishes while Snejana helps and Dana supervises. Good work, Katie! Notice the bucket next to Dana, which someone used to bring the water from the well in order to wash the dishes. Also, notice this is a typical church in Moldova, with a mural on the front wall.










The children are always enthusiastic as these foreign visitors who speak English come and do all kinds of activities with them, teaching them new games, telling them Bible stories, and showing them the reality of God's love.




Our team members lead the outreach teams and do the translating for the various aspects of the program. The teams go to a village for a week, staying either in the church or with a family, and work together with the local pastor and church to meet the needs of the community.


One morning in Milesti Micii, I watched as the outreach team led the children in warm-up exercises. Everyone seemed to be having a great time!

In Canada...

While in Canada on vacation I was able to spend a bit of time with my mother, who has made a good recovery from her surgeries and is doing quite well. Some of you have asked about her, so I wanted to share this with you. Thank you for praying for her! She is certainly in the Lord's hands, and continues to be an encouragement to me.

After a few days in Toronto, I was off to British Columbia with my son Ben. Arriving in Vancouver, we picked up my daughter and her children at the bus station and headed off to beautiful Vancouver Island. The ferry ride was lovely after the long hot wait in the van!

We had a lovely few days on the island, visiting some beaches, doing some swimming and playing and enjoying the summer weather.

The children really enjoyed Uncle Ben's presence and he was always playing and laughing with them. Alejandro taught Ben how to do Spiderman 'webs', and Ben taught Ali all kinds of fun and boy-type stuff.

After our island vacation, we picked up Josh in Vancover and headed back up to Kamloops, where we celebrated Eliana's first birthday!

Chillin' with the Children

Sorry you may not see me here for a couple of weeks. God has blessed me with an opportunity to spend time with all three of my children AND my grandchildren somewhere on Vancouver Island near a beach. When I get back, there will be pictures! I hope you are all having some precious family time as well. God bless you!

Short Term Mission Teams

One of the weekly highlights in our team, all year round, is our Tuesday prayer evenings. This is something we take very seriously, praying not only for our own ministries and country where we work, but also interceding for other countries and world needs and issues. We take turns preparing the program for our prayer evenings and each group tries to be creative in how we spend our four hours of prayer together. Last week Michaela and Kate hosted the 'World Report' and brought news and information and even an interview with Austin, one of our short-term participants. After each 'news segment' we prayed for the needs that had been identified.

One of the main things that we have been praying for over the past few weeks has been our Global Challenge program. Short term missioners have come to be with us for usually 2 weeks at a time and we are sending out teams to the many villages of Moldova where they will run children's programs, bring food parcels and visit the elderly, participate in sports outreach events, and worship together with the local church. This summer we are excited to have several families participate and on Friday I went to visit a team where a Dutch family is involved. These friends drove from Holland with their three daughters to be involved in our summer outreaches. They want their children to know that they have something to offer the Lord and that many people do not live such easy lives as those in the west. On Friday I went to visit the team that was working in a nearby village and it was great to see this enthusiastic family teaching a Dutch song to the Moldovan children who were attending.

On Sunday I had the joy of visiting another church where a group doing sports ministry are visiting and preparing to reach the village with sports activities. The team had a small presentation to make in front of the church. Then there was a presentation by Viorica, on furlough from Angola, about her work in Africa. Then Justin, one of our team members, brought the message. This also happened to be at the church where our team member Eugen is from. And it also happened to be on the day when Eugen and Dana were having their engagement officially announced in the church. I was really delighted to be able to be there for all this involvement on the part of our team but more than anything for the celebration of this dear couple' commitment to one another. Dana is a very good friend so I am just thrilled for her. She and Eugen have both made a very good choice here.

After the service in that church, and sharing lunch with the team, Viorica and I went on to another church not far away. This was the first time I had been at either of these churches and we also have team members from the other church. It seems that the Lord has really been at work in this church and despite their not having a pastor, the number of believers is growing rapidly. Our team member, Andrei, came back from visiting home last week to tell us that his mother had accepted Christ. When I arrived at the church I was really surprised to see how full it was on a Sunday evening. One of the women greeted me especially warmly and it turned out that she had attended one of our conferences for day centre workers, where I had been the Bible study leader. The young people filled the first few rows - and did a music program to begin with and then Viorica made her Angola presentation. The church listened attentively and again I was surprised by the fact that the men's side of the church was as full as the women's side! I love this photo of the men listening with so much interest to what Viorica was telling them about Angola and her ministry there. She will benefit greatly from the prayers of this church, I am sure.

After the worship service, my friend from the day centre conference invited me across the street to see their new day centre. Here several women from the church feed 20 children every day of the school year and provide them with care and Bible teaching as well. These same women also fed us that evening and we were blessed by their hospitality. The church is waiting in anticipation for one of our summer teams to come in a few weeks' time as the team will be building a playground for the day centre. It was exciting to see how our mission's partnership with this church over the years is bearing fruit. Not only is there meaningful care and ministry for children but the church is growing in number and spiritually as well.

What a special day I had seeing the things the Lord is doing in Moldova!

Goodbyes & Hellos

Life on our team is always full of comings and goings. The only constant is change, and sometimes it is harder than other times. One of the most difficult recent changes was to say goodbye to the Christovam family. Vitor, Ivanir, Marina, and Joao have been with us for the last 5 years - since before I arrived - and I have worked closely especially with Ivanir. These Brazilians are precious friends who are full of life and love and a desire to serve the Lord. They have a been a huge blessing to our team and their absence is deeply felt. Before they left, we had a team day of prayer and saying farewell to them. We went to an awesome place called Orhei Vechi (Old Orhei) which has an old monastery as well as fascinating geological formations. It was a very hot day and the only shade was under the single tree on the hill. So we set up there for the morning and in the shade of the tree we prayed for this family as they return to Brazil, that they would continue to remain under the shadow of the Almighty. A few days later a whole group of us gathered at the airport at 3 a.m. to say goodbye to them.

Just a few days befor our team day at Orhei Vechi we said hello to our sister Viorica, who is on furlough from Angola. It's wonderful to reconnect with her, to hear her stories and to help her to prepare to return for ongoing ministry with children and young girls. One prayer evening Viorica made a presentation of her work, and here is a photo of her modelling a traditional African outfit.

For a while now we have been waiting to say hello to a new member of the team. Slavic and Snejana, who were married last summer, have been expecting their first child. Little Samuel was born on June 13 and I went with Jessie and Justin to visit Snejana and the new little darling in the hospital. What a beautiful child! Of course, this just makes me miss my own grandchildren even more! But it isn't hard to rejoice together with this young couple in the new joy they are experiencing.

Not long after saying goodbye to the Christovams we have bade our farewells to yet another family, Silas & Michaela Mullis and their little daughter Carmen. They had actually planned to leave at the end of the summer but their departure date was moved ahead for reasons related to visas and the new challenges created by strained relations with Moldova and Romania. Moldova now requires Romanians to have a visa to enter the country (and vice versa) and Michaela is Romanian. She had gone out of the country to visit her family and was planning to return but obtaining an invitation and a visa became increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, Silas was in Moldova finishing up his work and Michaela was in Romania and it was very difficult for them as a family to be separated. Finally, they decided to not continue trying but to just go directly back to the USA. So Michaela was not able to be here in Moldova for us to say goodbye to her and Carmen. We did the next best thing - had her join us on Skype, projecting the webcam image on the wall and giving the whole team an opportunity to say goodbye to the family all together.

And so goes life here in Moldova. People coming and going, going and coming. Today we are looking forward to the return of Dana, another Romanian who has been stuck without a visa longer than she wished. Today our first group of short term missionaries are leaving after two weeks in Moldovan villages. Tomorrow about 30 new short-termers will arrive. This week I said farewell to the four girls heading out to Central Asia for 3 weeks. Summer is a busy time here, and with the departure of Silas and Vitor, members of our leadership team, it means more responsibility for those of us who remain. Thankfully, we have a God who promises never to leave us, and who provides strength equal to the tasks He calls us to.

The Church at Prayer

One of the girls on our team is from Transnistria, the breakaway region of Moldova. Olea came to our team speaking only Russian but in a short time has become much more fluent in Romanian than I am after 4 years here! This young woman feels a call in her heart to missions and this summer is travelling with three other girls to Central Asia for a short term mission. I had the privilege of going with her and our Field Leader to her church on the Sunday when she reported to them and they prayed for her as she headed out on this mission. When Moldovans pray, there is nothing half-hearted about it.

Visiting Villages

Olea & Viorica One of the things I really enjoy doing is going with team members to visit their home church in a village of Moldova. One never knows quite what to expect. The churches are various sizes and locations and styles and atmospheres. Today I went with Matthew and a translator to visit a Russian-speaking church in Transnistria, the Russian enclave of Moldova that declares itself autonomous. So to get there you have to cross their border, even though it's not a "real" country that is recognized by anyone else. Anyway, one of our team members is from a church in that area.

She is one of 4 girls we are preparing to go on a short-term mission this summer to Central Asia. She shared her testimony and about the mission trip she is going on. Matthew preached in English and was translated into Russian. It was quite a large church and the service lasted for at least 2 1/2 hours, full of everything including prayer, testimonies, poetry, an accordion solo, a couple sermons, and a baby dedication! I was glad that Olea was sitting with me translating into Romanian from Russian for me so I could understand what was happening. On the way home she mentioned that her purse was full of money that people kept handing her to help provide for her mission trip. Interesting side note: much of the money is Transnistrian currency which is only useful in this tiny self-declared nation. She'll have to get it changed within Transnistria I believe.

A few weeks ago I travelled with Lilian and Olea and Viorica to visit Viorica's tiny church. Let me share with you the typical visit to a village church. We usually leave from Chisinau anywhere from 7 - 8.30 a.m., depending on how far we will have to travel and what time the worship service begins. Most services begin at 10 but some start at 9 a.m. We were going in my car, which technically is registered in Lilian's name so he did the driving. That was good, because he knew the way! As we were travelling I asked Viorica about her church, wondering how large it is and how many members. She told me there were about 7 or 8 members so I knew it would be a small church. But when we arrived it was so small that I didn't even recognize it as a church! But from this tiny building the Christians in the community host a daily feeding program for poor children of the village. The pastor and some other members do outreaches and programs to help children in nearby villages as well. I'm telling you - the churches here are committed to care, no matter how large or small they are. And sometimes it is the tiny ones that seem to care the most.

Once we arrived, we made our visits to the little building in back of the church (no indoor plumbing in most villages, you understand). We checked out the playground that had been built by one of our summer teams for the benefit of the community. Eventually the church members arrived and between us and them, we filled all the seats in the tiny church. In fact, we took up almost half the chairs!! After a time of singing, Viorica shared a testimony of how God is working in her life and how she feels called to go on this short-term mission to Central Asia. She showed some photos of the work she has been doing as a member of our team. For a while she had worked in another village in one of our local ministry teams. More recently she has been serving our team in Chisinau by coordinating the meals at our mission base. The church prayed for her. Then Lilian was invited to preach, one of the women recited a poem, and the pastor also preached. I was given an opportunity to say something about Viorica and the work of our team and the mission she will be going on. (In most churches in Moldova women are permitted to recite poetry, share a testimony, or sing, but not to preach. The fact that I am a pastor is not widely known among our ministry partners here.) The service ended by around noon - a typical 2-hour service.

(Viorica & the pastor's little daughter)

Typically after a worship service in a village guests are either invited to someone's home for a meal or are served lunch at the church by the women of the church. In this case they just moved the chairs back, set up the table and a feast appeared before us. The food is always good and always plentiful and it gives a great opportunity to get to know the pastor, his family and whoever else is staying for the table fellowship. Usually at some point, often after the meal is over, we as leaders would meet more privately with the pastor to have a conversation about our partnership and any questions they may have; and to share information about the work and future plans of their church member who is serving with us.

After our meal at the church, as sometimes happens, we made a stop at Viorica's home. This gave us a chance to meet her family and to see her home. Only one of her sisters is a Christian believer so we hadn't met her mother or other family members at church. They offered us tea and sweets and we had a chance to visit a bit, to see what animals they had in their yard and Viorica had time to obtain the home-made food that Moldovans generally take back from a visit to the homestead: brinza (cheese), compote (a fruit drink), preserves and whatever fresh fruits and vegetables are in season.

At this time it was cherry season and on the way home we stopped so I could buy cherries just because I wanted to see how they put them together as they do to sell them by the roadside. And because I wanted to eat them!!

I always come home from these visits feeling blessed, full, and more aware of the way of life in Moldova. Always we have been so welcomed and so well treated. Moldovans are some of the most hospitable people I know.