God is totally, and completely at work!!!

So today is day four in Romania, and these past four days have been full of some of the best experiences that I have ever had in my life!! Romania is gorgeous as well. All of the buildings and architecture are incredible, and the atmosphere almost feels like you've stepped back in time, but it is the most amazing feeling.  There is absolutely no doubt about it, God definately has a lot of special plans for this trip, because no one could have put together anything like what I have been able to experience anywhere near as perfect as this.  There have been so may firsts, the first time I have been out of North America, been overseas, flown on a plane, been in a host family, and drank coffee!!! :)  Each thing has been such and exciting new adventure, I've learned to just go with the flow, and let God take care of the rest... and after these few days, I definately belive that God has a very BIG sense of humor!!! 

I'm pretty sure I've never laughed so much in my life as I have over here, and a lot of that is due in part to our host family.  I am staying with Beth and Becca, and our host family is two wonderful women, Ramona, who is 16, and her mother, Carmen.  They are both so incredibly sweet, and Carmen is probably one of the funniest people I have ever met.  She is just so incredibly full of life and love and joy, that is so rare to see.  She loves taking pictures with us and even brought out Romanian cloths for us to dress up in and pose for the camera; It was so much fun and I can't remember the last time I have laughed so hard!!  God definately put the three of us (me, Beth and Becca) in the perfect host family for us, we have just connected so well with them.  Ramona is so sweet and she speaks English extreamly well, so she interprets a lot for us and her mom. Carmen speaks almost no English, but her spirit is just so incredibly vibrant, that we really don't need to speak the same language to understand each other.  I think I can speak for all three of us in saying that we are so incredibly blessed with the family we have been put in, we've played dress up with them, taken pictures, walked around the citadel and up into this incredibly gorgeous clock tower, swam at the pool, and just hung out building a relationship with these to beautiful people.

Today has been such a cool day as well. It was the first day of camp with the Romanian kids and I was pretty excited.  I was also pretty tired, and we had to walk from our host family in Beregon to the House on The Rock in Sigisoara, about a 45 minute walk, in the rain. So by the time we reached The House on The Rock, I don't know about the others, but I was pretty wiped out!! The kids got there and we started with karate, which I just floated around taking tons of pictures, which was a lot of fun. However, that was soon over and I realized that it was my turn to lead a group of the kids in taking pictures... and I wasn't given much instruction other than, give them the camera's take them somwhere around the area, and have fun!!  Well I work with kids all summer at Kindercamp, but the activities are always already planned out, so all I have to do is direct the kids in the way that I'm told (plus, those kids are American, not Romanian). It was a bit different here though because it was my job to come up with something to lead these kids in, right on the spot... and I'm not too good being on the spot, so I was a little nervous, I had absolutely NO clue what I was going to say!! But just like everyone had told me, God gave me the words, and I showed them all how to zoom in and out, and they ran around taking tons of pictures (1200 plus total), and they had such a good time, and a lot of the pictures came out extreamly nice!! These kids for how young they are, have totally impressed me with how well they can all speak English, every single one that I have talked to, have all understood me!  Watching them laugh, smile, play and just have so much fun has been such an incredible God sighting and such a blessing, and the pictures I have taken capture a lot, but they can never capture the extent of absolute joy and life that I see in these kids; God is so, incredibly, amazing!!

Even though it has only been four days... and the fourth day isn't even over yet, God has been so incredibly evident everywhere I have been.  I saw Him when I was watching the team massage the elderly on Friday when I was playing my flute with Beth on her harp. I saw Him in the way our team all gets along. I saw Him in the view from our host family's balcony. I saw Him at church on Sunday when Beth played the keyboard and Maurice preached, and Nolan got baptized, and I will never forget how much of a presence I felt of Him when I closed my eyes and just listen and let my heart soak in the voices of the Romanian people singing to God in their own language... that was awsome! I see him in our host family, the missions team, the prayers Beth, Becca and I have late at night, the people in the streets, the kids in the camp, the smiles and the laughter. I just love seeing all these people over here in Romania, a completely different culture than what I have at home, and recognizing that half way across the world, there are people just like me, going about their everyday lives, just like I do, and knowing that we are all children of the same beautiful, incredible, wonderful, God.

Well, now that I have written an epistle, I should probably save some things for others to write about... even though I could write 10x more than what I already have (my journal already has at least 40 some odd pages filled, and I haven't even journaled today yet)!!  I apologize for boring anyone or rambling... but already I just have so much that is going through my mind, Mike decided that he was going to call me Gabby from now on... I guess I talked a bit yesterday during our group debrief!! :) God is just so amazing and I just can feel and see Him all around me. Already this trip is incerdible, and I'm loving every second of it!! :)- Abby