Grocery Shopping

Today we went grocery shopping. We went to the Bizarr first, then two different stores. Something as simple as shopping to us, is difficult here. The Bizarr had tiny booths all over a large area. You look around and try and find the best price. There is fruit and vegetables, meats, cheeses, hardward, kitchen supplies, etc. You just have to look around. Not everyone sells things for the same price. One lady was sitting selling domestic chicken eggs. Stephanie bought 20 eggs from her. The lady had one cracked open so you could see the inside. You don't buy things here in dozens, but 10's. The stores were much different than we are used to. There were things we had on the list that we couldn't buy because they were not available. The Metro is like a Sams Club. One of the ladies there watched me like a hawk and followed me because I looked out of place. Eric was watching her too to see if she would talk to me or bother me. She didn't. I stuck close to Eric and Stephanie, but I did look around. It was an interesting experience.BTW, the house that was purchased for the church for $2,000.00 dollars was purchased about 9-10 years ago. Now it would cost $30,000.00 dollars. There is no bathroom at the church, just an outhouse. When things settle down I may get some pictures down loaded.The camp where we are staying is just beautiful. It is green and lush. Not like the brown Arizona dessert. We are liking it here. Skip is busy working on the bathrooms in the administration building. They all need different types of work performed. Walls and tile, etc. I made more cookies today for the 29 Americans that will come in a couple of weeks. Cooking food here is more difficult. EVERYTHING is made from scratch. Some ingredients are not available, so you improvise. Building is the same way. If Skip doesn't have a tool he needs, he makes it or improvises. Getting things done takes so much more time. I am not complaining. I am explaining. That is the way life is here. It is different for us, but we are flexible, no problem. Skip is great at improvising. It is one of his greatest strengths. So, we are busy doing various things to serve the Lord here. Having 29 Americans to feed for 10 days is a huge job. I am helping Stephanie prepare for that task. Measurements, groceries, desserts, etc. I am enjoying myself. Stephanie and I get along well and work well together. It is fun. The Lord is blessing us and we are enjoying serving the Lord.TTFN,Sheryl

Church

Today we went to church in the local village. It is one of the churchs that Eric started. They meet in a house purchased for $2,000.00. The attendance was lower today due to a holiday. Eric preached in English and Keith, another missionary, translated into Romanian. Keith and his wife Marla have 5 children. The children were excited to speak to someone in English. So, while there was singing for a 1/2 hour I took their 3 youngest children, ages 8, 6, and 4 out for an impromtu Sunday School lesson in English. We all had fun. We sang in English too. They were sweet kids and it was a blessing to be with them. Then we joined the adults for the preaching. It was nice. We had a good service. One of their boys picked a flower and gave it to me after church. I think I want to bring him home. :-)This afternoon Edward, the camp director is going to give Skip and I on a tour. We are looking forward to that. Edward and his wife have a 4 year old daughter and are expecting another child in just over a month. They are sweet servants of the Lord.TTFN,Sheryl

Hi from Moldova

Hi,Everything is going well. My asthma is doing fine, Praise the Lord. Skip is busy working on some bathrooms in the administration building. The camp we are at is green, beautiful and peaceful. It looks somewhat like Washington State. Although the trees are not as big. There are rolling green hillls. The weather is in the 60's in the daytime and 30's at night. We have been very comfortable. It is on 25 acres with 10 buildings. The buildings are sub-standard by American standards. They are just over 20 years old but look like they are 50 years old to Skip. Yesterday Skip went shopping in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. They went for toilets, sinks and sheetrock. Skip said it was quite an experience. There isn't one store to go to. They had to go to many different stores to get what they needed. He said the whole city was like a 29 mile Home Depot. It was challenging telling a Romanian/Russian speaking translator what he needed with nails, and supplies, etc. They had lunch at McDonalds in Chisinau. Skip liked the frys better here and in Frankfurt than in the United States. It took 2/3 of a day just to pick up supplies.Meanwhile I took pictures of the camp, made another applesauce cake and assisted Stephanie with other small jobs. Today we planted some plants, checked out supplies and cooking ware etc. It is a big job to have 28 American's coming in three weeks. They have to be housed and fed. Skip is working on the bathrooms where they will be housed. Stephanie and I are working on the food and tea for while they are here. The American group comes in the day before we leave. They will be here to do more construction on the buildings in prepartion for the Bible school to start in September. There is so much that needs to be done. The Americans will be staying in the administration building. The bathrooms have to be finished, Skip is working on those. New windows will be put in next week. Also, radiators, for heat are being installed. Indoor/Outdoor carpet will be laid down too. Then Stephanie and I will do caulking and stuff and painting needs to be done. It will be very nice when it is complete.Tomorrow we are going to the local village church. It will be all in Romanian. So, Skip and I will not be able to understand it.Tuesday we are going to the bazaar to do some shopping.So, there is an update from Moldova.Love,Sheryl

For more pics and stories

Thought I would give you Drea's blogspot for more pics and stories of our journey. I case you didn't know about it here it is:

http://thielestidbits.blogspot.com/

Back to the Sea Side

We have made it back to BK successfully. Thank you for your prayers. The journey back took about 5 1/2 hours by taxi, (Mercedes Benz). Our taxi driver was a good man. It seemed that he and I made a connection. For some reason when we reached our destination and said our goodbye's, he embraced my hand with passion and gave me a different smile than the norm. One that said so much to me. I enjoyed him and our time together. Lord, I pray for this man, that he saw You and because of that, seeks to see You again. Pray with me that the Lord will continue to use this man to bring His people to and fro. That he will continue to see Jesus' image displayed to him and that he will long to know Him as a result.

We will finish up our last few days here on the sea side and then head home. We thank you for taking this journey with us. We pray that your heart burns for the nations. Continue to pray for these people and continue to pray that God will raise up harvesters to harvest these people He longs for. We love you, my brothers and sisters. May, "The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."

Heading back

The place we stayed on the Silk Road

Looking out from our room to the center courtyard

Local housing on our journey back

Here we go!

Today we are on our way back down to the sea side. We will break up our journey back by stopping in a bigger tourist town on the Silk Road. This is exciting for me. It reminds me of God's amazing love for all peoples. Malachi 1:11 says, "My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty." and in Ezekial 5 He says, "Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her." Jerusalem sat right in the middle of the Silk Road, right in the middle of where many came for many nations to trade. How wise our God is. He set His people right in the path of the lost people of this world. May we always be aware of the people that cross our path. Maybe the Lord has you in a place for His strategic purposess. So that you can be His ambassador. How awesome! Yet how usless if we don't live ready and aware. Let's live for Him. Always prepared to give an answer for the hope that we have. Pray for our journey back and continue to pray that the incense of praise and the pure offerings of peoples lives will happen right here in this land, Amen!

He Guides My Path!

Our new friends

Our new friends house in the village

Drea with the ladies during the celebration

Bryan is honored when asked to dance in their celebration

Their national soup. It was delicious!

Yesterday (Monday) was the best day ever!! We hit the gold mine of the people we came here to get to know. By Gods grace, I wrote you and told you that we met some Americans. They told us about a village about 25 min. from where we were that is an “A” village (A is the people we hoped to find.) Yesterday they were holding a big celebration, so we ventured out by taxi in hopes of …???Once we were there we came in contact with another Peac* Corp. lady Amy. She and another volunteer had lunch with us and were kind enough to answer all of our questions the best she knew how. She has only been in this village for 3 months, but knows enough of the language to get around. While up in the mountains we have not had a translator, but again with Gods grace, we have been able to communicate one way or another. To hear someone speak English was a strange sound. We have also learned several phrases and key words to communicate.In the village the people speak two languages, most only speak their heart language, but some learned people speak their heart language and the trade language. So, it would be important to learn the heart language if one were to live here, although you would have to start with the trade language, for when you left the village, because it is not remotely close with the other, ( just a side note).Amy asked us if we would like to come with her to the town celebration where they were eating and getting ready for some native dancing. YES!! This was truly a village, like none I have ever seen. The houses were made from stone, there is a stream running down the center of town, which is used for washing. They have gates on either side of the main street to keep the cows out, not the chickens. They grow lots of fruits and Hazel nuts. They would like to be able to sell their cows, but only do maybe once a year. The cows, have no meat on them, they are just skin and bones.We were introduced to a 16 year old girl, named Manah who was sort of the MC for the festivities. She invited us back for the “National Soup”, which they make often. So off we go to eat again, we certainly don’t lack food here. The people here are community people (my type) and love to eat, drink cay, and talk. The soup (which is pictured) is YUM!! It is made of homeny and some other type of grain, and lamb, and I don’t know what else. You garnish it with some coarse salt and sumac, mixed with other spices.We drew a lot of attention of course, but also from an unexpected place; the Government Officials of this village! This man sat down next to Bry and poured out his heart to him in his language of course, and Amy roughly translated. He basically said “We hear have all heard of America, but you ask an American and they have never heard of us”. True. “We had other non profit workers here and with out a word they left, they didn’t finish their project and they didn’t say good-bye.” “How are you going to get to know us if you don’t come and stay”. “We want to know you; you are welcome in our town”.He was right, what he said was true. We don’t know this place, not even when we look on the map, does the name sound familiar. (Ro. 10:14 ?) The real sad thing is, is that the workers there with the Peac* Corp. are not followers of Isa. Most of them are agnostic!! But Muslims don’t understand this word. So the workers, to avoid explanation, call them selves Christ*ans!!!! This is from their own mouths. We asked them, and then witnessed it with our own two eyes!! Now, these are nice people and they are doing great things, but they have NO Light. They are falsely representing the Light, stating that they come in the name of Isa!!! Not only is this blasphemous, but it is wrong. They have the right motives, but nothing to back them up. And WE, THE ONES WITH THE LIGHT, DO NOT GO!!! I am not accusing, I am just astonished that this happens. They are motivated by what?? World Peace?? We are motivated by Isa, and STILL REMAIN in our comfort zones.We are all not called to GO, but we are all called to GO in one way shape or form. There are 5 ways we can participate that are vital: GO, SEND, MOBIZE, PRAY, WELCOME! I thought that this was a perfect demonic plan of the evil one, send someone who does good, but has NO Light, then the body will think that there is already something happening there and will divert their attention some place else!After we ate, the dancing began. The people crowded around in big circle. We were way at the back where we could not see, but were ushered right to the front. A couple of older ladies offered that we share the rug they were sitting on, it was so sweet, so we all squished in. There was a young man on key boards playing native music, and the Mayor of the village started the dancing, the rest of the government officials joined him. Then the official dancers in costumes danced, there were 3 total. Then a few young men were invited to dance and they had a sort of manly dance off, with other men their age. The whole time the older ladies were egging me on, but I needed to be the professional photographer. HOWEVER, Bry popped up and gave the Native dance a try!! That was awesome. If you look closely in the pictures I took of him you can see others are taking pictures too!! The ladies I was sitting with were so excited to see him up there, he is so…brave.Of course I made friends with the little old ladies and the kids. But we ended up being invited to the house of The History Teacher. He spoke great broken English, far better than we could speak his tongue. He was quite shy, but wanted to talk and learn and ask questions. NOW, just a reminder that this is a completely unengaged people (the people we set out to meet) we are talking about, that are Muslim. He invited us to his home!! His house was deep in the village and we sat over Cay (Chai). The even greater thing was that this was not orchestrated by us!!We talked and talked, about political things, prop*ganda and beliefs. We talked about difference in cultures and how things work in America vs. this village. We talked about school and what this particular people needs, or where they would like to grow. They would love people like us to teach English in their village. Or just to work along side of and learn about the culture. In this culture, they don’t let you leave easily, so we stayed for dinner and desert. We were way out in the country and our host didn’t have a car, so we almost stayed the night too! He really wanted us too, but he found a friend with a car that was willing to drive us into town and back to our hotel.One of the highlights for me was when the father introduced all of his family. He was a strong religious man. His sons were named Islam, Ramadan, and Miriam (another name for Mary, mother of Jesus). Once our new friend, asked if we had any questions for him, and Emily said yes, “I really love the name you named your children, especially your daughter. You named her after Jesus’ mother, and I love Jesus very much”. He agreed with her comment. However, Bry said once to him that we had a lot in common and his response was that we were still very different. Many strongholds were broken this night. Many questions answered just by us being there. It was a great honor to be in their home and make contact. We plan on writing Amy so that she can keep in contact with them for us.I get so excited to see God at work in His nations. He doesn’t need us to accomplish his purpose. He will use whom ever he chooses to accomplish His will. A donkey, us, you, and non-believing P*eace Corp. volunteers. We would not have been invited had it not been for Amy and her friends. I will pray that she and her friends will find the Light while there, so that they can shine!Is. 6:8 is a great vs. for this. May it be our prayer.