Visa... it is illusive

Considering we moved here by choice (depending how you look at it) I told myself I would not complain about living in Romania. The following story is not a complaint rather a funny story that you may enjoy.  Of course if enjoyment comes from hearing torment inflected to people then you should seek help.  Honestly, in hindsight we could see God's hand in the whole thing.

This is the story of obtaining our visas... well at least 66.6% of our visas.  In case it is not blatantly obvious after reading this blog the Romanian Government is big and loves control.  The government changes laws more often than most of us change our underwear.

This story takes place in Bucharest, Romania from Sept. 20 to Sept. 28.

Before we left for Bucharest I told my Romanian friend (I have blogged about him).  He was our neighbor and moved to Bucharest to look for a job.  He told me about a place to stay in Bucharest.  As he was describing the lodging I realized that is the same place where Sheena and I spent our first week and a half in Romania.  The place is a dorm for a baptist college.  We are able to stay there for about ten dollars a night.  My friend had been staying there for a week or two.  How cool is that?  I only know a hand full of Romanian people and one of them is staying at the same place we are in a city of 5 million people.  What a great start to our visa experience.

 First day.

Jeremy FGCI's first missionary helped us obtain our visas.  He hired a lawyer to do much of the paper work because he knows it can be a difficult process.  We picked up the papers and made plans to meet the next morning at go to the visa office.

The office has four stations with four windows where the government employees sits.  There is some information pinned up on the walls but it is not exhaustive or up to date. The system is incredibly inefficient.  There is one line for the visa we need and there is no help desk. People that have a simple question must stand in line or cut ahead.  It is a little frustrating to the people in line and to the employee to have people barge up in front of people.

Jeremy is so good at helping us out.  He kept our papers in perfect order and tried to guess on what the government would ask for.  For example pictures and copies of passport etc.. We were in good hands.  Everything looks professional and Jeremy has everything in order.  This will be easy....

It quickly became our turn to speak with the lady behind the window.  The first visit to the visa office ended because the law had been changed August 1st.  We needed additional documents.  All of the information in the office was outdated by over a month including the information on the window above the employee.  Jeremy explained to the lady about the information but with no results.  We lacked a few documents the papers for the foundation we work for and health insurance.  Evidently the global health care insurance we have is not good enough for Romania.  

Most of the other people in line had the same trouble we did. One man must of been a foreign business owner he was rejected because he needed paperwork on ten native Romanian employees before we could get his visa.

We spent hours walking around Bucharest looking of the right insurance. We were told that any travel agent company would have what we needed.  The proved not to be true.  We were able to find the insurance.  We made plans to try again at the visa office.

We paid our taxes for living in Romania that totaled to around 800 dollars and went to the office again.  This time we were told that the insurance was not good enough and we needed the government healthcare insurance. In addition the foundation papers where not the original papers and therefore not good enough.  Mind you none of this information was given to us in exact detail.  I guess we were supposed to be born with the knowledge.

The next time we visited we presented our government healthcare insurance and we had the original papers of the foundation.  Now we have our American global insurance, travel health insurance and Romania social health insurance.  I think we are covered.  It was a great feeling to hear the words go sit on that chair for your picture.  We made it.  We got all the unknown puzzle pieces together.  Now it was time for Kale's visa.

The process for Kale was much like ours.  Outdated and incomplete information was the only thing available.  It is a guessing game.  The first time we turned in our paperwork for Kale we lacked a notarized document that said we will take care of Kale and cover any of his expenses and the doctor's note saying Kale was clinically healthy was worded wrong.  It need to say Kale was healthy and not a danger to Romania.

We found a notary and for just under $100 we got at document that said we will take care of Kale and saw the doctor to write the correct statement.  We returned the next day to find that Kale's birth certificate, the original, and a notarized copy was not good enough.  We need an apostile letter from the State of Nebraska.

We are now waiting for an apostosied copy to arrive in the mail for Kale's visa.  Thank you Dennis and Erna.

Now something for comic relief.  The first few days we were in Buchrest I found this little gem in the road.  

 This is not a picture of a tree growing in the road it is a tree indicating that road work is being done to a man hole cover.

The tree was not enough of a indicator.  Here is a picture of the tree destroyed.

Plan b is three tires and a tree. 

Finally the work is complete.  

I hope you enjoyed. I know it was God's plan and timing because of the doctor we met.  He is an American that belongs to a church that is trying to figure out a way to bring Christ to people in the sex industry.  Jeremy and I recently met a different man that has a mission to reach out to people in the sex industry.  We were able to give out his contact information.  Who knows if all of the run around was meant for us to end up exchanging information with the doctor.

Scripture only

What is wrong with living scripture only?  Really I would like to know.

I was given the opportunity to preach yesterday at a very small Pentecostal church.  The choice of text was Acts chapter 1.  What an exciting time for the disciples.  Jesus is alive and spending time with his close friends.  The Holy Spirit was the final piece for the disciples' ministry in this world.  These men spent three years with the Son of God doing INTENSE ministry and learning. You would think that would be enough but Jesus told them to wait until the Holy Spirit came.  There must be something to that Holy Spirit.

After the message a man told me that he was not pentecostal he was a baptist.  I told him I was simply a Christian (that really perplexes people here) and followed up that up with I believe in scripture only.  His reply is we need tradition to learn how to be saved.  Is scripture not enough?  I would really like your thoughts. Maybe I am wrong in thinking that the Bible contains sufficient material for salvation.

I don't want people to think like me rather I want to encourage people to read the Bible.  I thought I would include some pictures for your enjoyment.

Hike in the wood behind our house

Construction of a new home.

Kale and his kittens.  Thy have since disappeared 

We are looking for prayers for our community Babadag. Pray for the Holy Spirit to work in this town. Please pray that I will not grow weary and my heart will be soft and not combative.  

The one I was in is white.

I hate starting a note with 'it's been a while'.  As if the recipient of the message didn't know. So I wont start out that way.  The truth is it has been awhile because seemly not much is going on.  Then it hit me like a communist made Dacia.  In Romania the everyday ordinary details of life are so unusual to me.  I don't know maybe it is the beginning of cultural shock or the 'honeymoon'  is wearing off.  I really don't know if you are interested in spending the five minutes to read about our ordinary life that is so very unusual.

What will God do with our ordinary life here?  For example it was not unusual for Sheena and I to visit our neighbor in Auburn.   This morning I went to the neighbors house and ended up going to several stores in town looking for olives.  Okay that sounds ordinary.  I have taken many of youth group kids on excursions through Auburn.  Here are the unusual details.  The car is a communists era Dacia.  Anyone that owns a Dacia quickly becomes a great mechanic.  It is a lot of fun to ride around town speaking in broken Romanian.  The markets are made up of several shops that basically all sell the same thing.  We arrived at one to market to see several Gypsies running around with 1leu (money about .30 cents) in there hand trying to buy a snack. These kids are filthy, with wild hair.  It is like watching a movie play out in real life.  In the middle of the market is a shop that sells fresh milk.  The milk is in old bottles that have been repurposed.  Don't ask me where they get the bottles from.  I bought some fresh milk. I heard that the cream is delicious.  To my utter disappointment the milk I bought had no cream in it.  I think they had already removed the cream.  I was so excited to have cream that I tried my hand at cream puffs.  The puffs did not puff that is fine anyway because I didn't have cream.  Two disappointments in one day. The unpuffed puffs made a nice cookie.

We started attending a very small church downtown.  It looks like we will be getting involved with working with the students.  I think the pastor Paul is somewhat burned out and is looking forward to our help.  I am looking forward to helping out.  We met an older lady of the congregation. She is a very sweet lady.  She invited us into her home after church.  It reminds me of several people in Auburn that were always quick to invite a visitor to pizza hut after church.  Sounds ordinary well it is a bit unusual. Her home is very modest the front door is padlocked.  The front room has several doors and a quick search for a key opens the second padlock to her living/dining/bedroom.  I started to feel really uncomfortable when the lady hand my son a 8 inch knife to give to us.  He walked across the room in perfect form no one was killed or injured.  Our new friend went to her backyard to collect some grapes and tomatoes for us to eat add some bread and that is a great afternoon meal.  She was very insistent that Kale eat a mixture of milk and crackers.  The pot the milk resided in was not clean and the milk had probably been in there since it was cleaned last.  We didn't force Kale to partake of the meal.  Our friend lives in a very small mud brick house with many cracks in the walls.  We plan on getting her house shored up for winter.

Our new friend.  

I feel a little evil about it but last Sunday we told her that we could not make it to her house after church. It is a true statement.  I was hoping to be back in time to speak with my parents on Skype.  She insisted we come to her house again she would make us a Romanian treat to eat.  We convinced her that we had to go home.  An hour or two later a knock at our door.  There stood our friend with the plate full of treats.  She walked a long way up hill while carrying the treats in one hand and her cane in the other hand.  She kept telling us it from God.  She also informed us to eat the treats and do not feed them to the dogs.  We are starting to understand a little Romanian but she talks to us like we know it all.  It is a little frustrating.

There are some boys that hangout at the end of our block.  They speak english pretty well. One day I see them looking on the ground like they lost something.  I investigated and found they lost a plastic bb for their gun.  It must have been the only one. We try to speak with them often. When I find a bottle of bb's I am going to buy and give it too them.  

I could go on. Like just right now, no kidding, I saw a car towing a pickup with a very small rope up our hill. One of my favorites is working outside then hearing the Islam mosque give the call to prayer.  It is a bit surreal.

I don't know what God is going to do with our early relationship here in Babadag. I do know that our energy is not wasted on meeting and investing in people.   Please continue to pray for the relationships that are forming.  I will have more updates on our ordinary life in an unusual way.  I believe God uses our ordinary lives in extraordinary ways.  Trouble is we may never know how.

Chicken in a bag

I’d like to tell you about our friend Catalina.  Catalina knows the ministry we work for and used to help take care of the house that we are now living in when no one was living here.  Our first encounter was the first weekend we were here with two translators and our fridge stopped working.  We called our friend and somehow the word got to Cathy and she came over to look since she lives in town and I believe her husband works on fridges.  Well, she took one look at it and said it was old and not worth fixing.  Now, being the thrifty person I am I knew that it could probably be fixed, but that is the Romanian thinking.  I’ve heard stories of people throwing out their old, hand-made, solid-wood furniture for new particleboard stuff because it was new.  (that house had two other smaller fridges, so we are using them.)  She did not stay long that time, but as she left I told Eli I wished I could talk to her because she had a nice spunk and seemed like she would be fun.  Ever since that day she stops by a couple times and week and she invites us to her house from time to time as well.  She does not speak English and we speak few Romanian words, but it is fun to try to talk and figure things out…we have also learned to use online translators a lot.

We are blown away by Catalina’s generosity.  She is always bringing us vegetables from her garden.  One day she brought us some chicken legs from the chickens she raises.   Another time at her house she asked me if I wanted a chicken.  Of course being an American I think to myself, “No I do not want a chicken,” but how do I tell her no.  She told me it was a gift and she would kill it and pluck the feathers for me.  Well, I told her maybe because I happen to know the words in Romanian, “not now, but later.”  She said to let her know when and I actually hoped it never came up again, but when we left it turns out that later meant the next morning.  I figured she would come with it already dead and I thought she said something about soup so maybe we were going to make the chicken into a soup.  When she arrived with a live chicken in a bag the next morning I was a little scared.  I grew up on a farm, but we never had chickens and I had never gone through the process of killing one.   My chicken always came from a store and to tell the truth I like it that way.  Well, she went around back and killed it and then pulled off the feathers.  I think she was a bit surprised when she asked if we did that in America and I told her no I get my chicken from the store.  I’m pretty sure she knew I never had though by my reactions and face through the whole thing.  Next we went inside and she got the chicken all cut up for cooking.  Turns out though she was just leaving the chicken for me to do what I wanted with it.  I did make soup though after all because this was not a big chicken and did not have a lot of meat on it.  That really was the first time I’m a little ashamed to say that I have cooked a whole chicken.  I am the pathetic person that only buys boneless, skinless breasts so I do not have to deal with the bones and skin.   I know pathetic.  This whole ordeal made me feel like a spoiled American. 

Last week we went to the Pentecostal church that she attends because he husband was getting baptized.  The service was, well, I really do not know because it was all in Romania, but the people were real nice.  We walked to church and afterward she said they would take us home.  The local bread store is about a block from the church so Eli got some bread before we went home.  Later that evening she brought us over some homemade bread.  Then two days later she brought us another loaf and said not to buy bread from the store.  Now, I am a bit of a baker, but when the bread from the bread store is $0.30 you do not even think of baking your own.  It is cheaper to buy it in my eyes.  We told her if she wanted to bring us bread we were going to pay for it, but she will not let us pay her for it. 

We owe her so much as she keeps giving and giving to us.   If anyone has some good ideas of ways to repay her please give suggestions.