Our first full week...pigs and all!

It's been a week and a half since we arrived in Romania, and there's so much to tell!  First of all, we are so thankful for those who have been praying for us during our time of transition.  We are also very thankful to our boss, Attila, as he has given us time to get adjusted and to work on our home here before the bulk of the work starts.  That's not to say that we haven't already been working in the ministry, but more to come on that later. 

On our first Sunday here, we were able to be in four different churches.  I was able to share about our summer and what God had taught us...in Hungarian!  Boy, was my brain tired by the end of the day!  Katie also mentioned that my message got shorter as the day went on: a sure sign that I was tired!  It was great, however, to see so many of our friends and to celebrate returning to our ministry home. 

On Monday, I got to meet with Attila and talk about our plans for this year.  He had been telling me how much he wanted to organize and plan for different ministry teams in our area.  We talked about his expectations for my work this year.  Along with heading up the after-school program, I am going to be working with all of the music teams in our area to train them in music and to help them really think about what we are doing when we lead in worship.  This is another big job (we have seven churches), but I am excited about the potential growth and for the opportunity to use the musical gifts that God has given me.   School starts on September 15th, so I will focus most of my time this week on preparing for the after-school year.  However, soon I will begin working with the music teams to think of a time when we can practice and pray together about that ministry. 

Monday was also my first trip to look for a pig!  One of our church members from Apalina recently returned from summer work in Germany.  As is custom here, she is looking to buy a pig that will be used to feed her family of nine during the difficult winter months.  We drove out to a small village to see three pigs, the largest of which was over 650 pounds!  While she liked the larger pigs, she didn't like the price, so we left.  She called the man twice on the way home to see if he had changed his mind and would accept her lower offer.  I got to go look for a pig again on Tuesday.  As of today (Sunday) there's still no pig!

The rest of our week was filled with a mixture of planning for this year and working on our home.  We printed pictures to display around the house, checked several furniture stores in the area for coffee tables, and even took cookies to some of our neighbors.  We also began working on goals for our ministries here.  Katie will be working with the children's ministry leaders and with an English outreach here in our city.  We will both work with music and be on the ministry team in our "home" church here in Reghin.  God has given us a lot of opportunities to serve in our community.  We ask Him to continue to strengthen and equip us for this work.

Here are a couple of photos of our apartment... many more to come!

This is what the inside of our apartment building looks like!  We are all the way up on the fourth floor!

Katie spent some time getting the kitchen organized and straightened up this week.  We also bought these new kitchen chairs!

Thank you for continuing to pray for us!

-Paul