Scenes of Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful time with friends and family celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ! Christmas was a very busy time for me, with lots to do at church, caroling, dressing up as Santa Claus for kids at a local hospital, and of course, eating wonderful food. I was blessed to spend Christmas with my very near and dear Romanian family. Here are some pictures "out and about" during Christmas time in Romania. Every Romanian Christmas meal includes the traditional bread called cozonac
In the villages, people dress in traditional costumes, and go caroling on Christmas Eve

The piaţa is where most people go to buy their Christmas tree, and then transport it on public transportation like the trams or subway

On Christmas Day, the children of my church led the service--my Romanian mom made their costumes

The entire stage was transformed into the manger scene

The music team

Our sleeping baby Jesus

Santa and his reindeer outside of the national theater in the city-center of Bucureşti

Romanian Kids-Choir =)

Came across this video of kids singing Away in a Manger in Romanian. It's refreshing to hear children singing about the birth of Christ, rather than a red-nosed reindeer.

Corul Biserici Bunavestire - Dormi copile

One of the Songs we sang at our concert last weekend. Enjoy!

An Evening of Carols

We had more than a packed house for our Christmas concert. It was a blessed evening of carols, various ensembles, poems, trumpets, Scripture, and prayer. One of my favorite things about Christmas is the music and tonight we sang my favorite Christmas piece (O Holy Night) featuring a baritone soloist from the Romanian Opera. And let me tell you, this song in Romanian is just gorgeous! Also, while waiting for several hours to send a package at the post office this week, I invited everyone in line to the concert--and praise the Lord-- some of them came! It's amazing what doors God will open when you just strike up a conversation. Thank you to those who prayed for our Christmas preparations. It was a special night where the true meaning of Christmas--Christ, the Saviour of the world's birth--was declared! Now it's time to go out caroling around the city...fun times!

Our Choir: Biserica Buna vestire (Chuch of the Good News)

Silent Night: O Noapte preasfinţitã

Investing in the Lives of Youth

Thank you to those of you who have been praying for our youth meetings; they have been going pretty well. We have been able to discuss topics such as discipleship, grace, forgiveness, pride, the wrath of God, etc., in open, lively, and truly profound Biblical discussions. We sing, we laugh, we pray together, and throughout the week, we share life together. We have a saying at our youth meetings Vorbim mult, dar trăim prea puţin (We talk a lot, but don't share life together much). Thus, one of our goals this year is to invest in one another's lives through encouragement, prayer, and simply sharing life together. Last Saturday we had a gift exchange with some pretty hilarious gifts. We had fun, but also made sure to discuss and look at the true meaning of Christmas. One of the highlights was seeing Alex receive a new guitar. Alex is a student in Bucureşti from the city of Oneşti, Romania (birthplace of Nadia Comăneci) and has been very involved in service to both the church and the community. We know he is going to use his new guitar for the Lord's glory! That's one of the purposes of our work in Romania--to invest in the lives of Romanians to be a blessing for others and to further carry the message of the Gospel to the very ends of the earth. Thanks for your continued prayers!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We will be having a large evangelism, Christmas concert at my church this month, so that means a lot of choir practices, rehearsals with children for dramas, etc. I love this time of the year! Caroling is, I would say, much more part of the Romanian cultural tradition than in America. Traditionally, Romanians will go caroling the night of Christmas Eve. At choir rehearsal, we have been singing some familiar pieces (O Holy Night, Silent Night, O Come all Ye Faithful) in Romanian, in addition to many authentic Romanian compositions. Our director says we need to have all of the pieces memorized this week, so please pray for me! Please also pray that our singing would be a blessing to those who will attend and that the true meaning of Christ's birth would be more than evident: that through God's amazing grace, He sent His one and only Son into the world, so that through believing in Him, we would be saved. What an amazing gift!

We have more rehearsals ahead and will be singing in several villages leading up to Christmas. Also note in this picture that Anca (in white) is handing out chocolate for her birthday. In Romania it is customary for the birthday boy/girl to bring treats to celebrate his/her birthday. And the Romanian happy birthday song is much more lively :)

Please pray for us as we all have a busy month ahead!

Biggest Christmas Tree in Europe

The National Day of Romania was celebrated, besides the traditional way, with the inauguration of the biggest Christmas tree in Europe on the evening of December 1. The tree is decorated with some 2,300,000 lights in Unirii’s Square. The evening was market by music shows and fireworks by the tree.

The lighting of the tree was preceded by a series of manifestations dedicated to the National Day. Hundreds of citizens gathered in Universitatii Square starting with 6 pm to enjoy the Romanian folklore music show organized by the City Hall. Later in the evening, Christmas decorations were lighted throughout the capital city streets.

Decorations this year are more modest than the ones in previous years. Bucharest’s deputy mayor Razvan Murgeanu said that the electricity poles are too old and are not able to support more decorations

The Still Shots

The over-hanging street lightsThe lights in the University Square

It's Romanian National Day: La Mulţi Ani Romania!

We took some of our youth from church out to see the parade today. I hope you too wore red, yello and blue

More Randomness

Public Transport
Apparently the price of a ticket must have been a little pricey...
or the balcony is just a better view :)

This sign says that horses and wagons are not permitted in the city

A modern-day lift I guess

I can't explain this one--maybe to make more room to park cars

Catching up with friends in Târgu Mureş

I hope all of you had a blessed Thanksgiving holiday. I enjoyed spending time with colleagues, eating a wonderful meal together (we had chicken, because turkey is a lot more expensive and harder to find in Romania). But the highlight for me was taking a trip to the city of Târgu Mureş in the Transylvanian region of Romania to visit friends and attend a youth conference. Just as I got through the Bucureşti traffic on my way up, I realized I forgot my camera :(( But, I was able to find some photos of the city and of some attractions I was able to see along the way. The mayor's office in Târgu Mureş
The Palace of Culture (where I have sang before)
The main orthodox cathedral in the city-center with a catholic church to the side
On the way back to Bucureşti, I was able to see the Piatra Craiului mountain pass full of snow: beautiful!
With some friends from Târgu Mureş, we drove out to Salina Praidului to visit a salt mine. It was pretty neat. This is the entrance to the cave, where a bus drove us down some 15 minutes inside the caveAnd after climbing down 344 stairs, (after the bus went down into the mine....I don't know how far underground we were, but pretty far) this is what awaited us: long, winding, carved salt caves.

Complete with an Orthodox chapel

Top of the Class

I live directly across the street from the National Stadium Lia Manoliu in Bucureşti. Thus, if there is a footbal (soccer) match going on, it sounds like a rock concert outside--people gathering 4 hours before the match, waving flags, chanting, etc. Tonight the Romanian National Football Team defeated Albania 6-1 and qualified top of their class for the European Championships in 2008--which are a HUGE deal in Europe. Think of how people follow the NFL in America, and multiply that exponentially and well, you get the idea of the craziness. The best Romanian player is Adrian Mutu (pictured above, standing to the right). I enjoy opening up my windows and watching the fireworks go off, but don't get too excited about the police sirens and violence. Here's hoping we can whoop-up on everyone in the championships next year. Go Romania!

Flooding

In many areas of Romania, it has been raining "cats and dogs" continuously for several days, thus several counties in Romania are suffering from severe floods and the snow on the way isn't going to help anything. Please pray for the many people who are losing homes and life savings with each raindrop.

One-on-One Conversations

For the past several weeks the youth leaders at my church in Bucharest have been making a concerted effort to sit down and talk with every youth one-on-one. I have enjoyed the one-on-one conversations and there really is something to the adage that some people just can't talk in large groups, but sure open-up in smaller/more intimate settings. I have learned a lot by just sitting down and listening to each child/teen explain what is going on in his life, what he's excited about, and what he's worried about. It's amazing what is on the hearts of Romania's youth! We are just trying to share life together and invest in their lives. It's all about establishing that relationship, making the effort, and listening.

Bridging the Generation Gap

I am in the process of developing a mentorship program for my church, where each child, adolescent, and youth would be paired with an adult in order to build better communication and understanding between the different generations. Often I hear from youth that adults just don't understand them, or I hear from adults that today's youth generation is disrespectful and out of control. Thus, it is time to feed better communication. A mentorship program is my attempt. The idea is that each youth/mentor would spend time together one-on-one talking, working together on a project, studying, attending a soccer match together (football here in Europe), etc. There will never be good communication or understanding if we don't spend time together. I personally benefited greatly by having a mentor growing up and I hope it will have a positive impact as well on the Church in Romania. Hopefully this is something I can present to other youth programs in our leadership network.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

The main piaţa in Braşov Romania

For some of you, I know that snow is a dirty word, but I love snow. And it has been coming in droves in some areas of Romania, especially up in the mountains. The youth I work with can hardly wait for us to take the train up to Predeal to go sledding, skiing, etc.

Our Amazing Coke Bottle

I've tried many times to get this pic taken as I whiz by the spot in the car...but here it is. This is a famous Coca-Cola bottle (it now even has straws in the glass) ...at night, the lighting makes it look like the drink is pouring into the glass and it fills, then empties and starts over. It's actually pretty cool! This stands on the edge of an apartment building at Piaţa Romana near downtown Bucureşti.

It's My Name Day!

In addition to celebrating birthdays in Romania, we also celebrate name days, which is influenced by the Orthodox Church. Today in Romania is Saint Mihai (me-hi/the Romanian form of Michael) day. On your name day, you often receive chocolate, cards etc. The name Mihai means "who is like God" (Elohim). But at the same time, the answer to this question is affirmatively: NO ONE is like the Lord our God! Anyway, it's a fun Romanian tradition!

Evangelism in the Bucureşti Metrou

On Sunday evenings, a group of youth from a baptist church in Bucureşti has been going to sing and talk to people in the subway station at Piaţa Unirii in the center of the city. They do this after the Sunday evening service for around 1-2 hours in the evening. Last Sunday, youth from my church joined them in singing praise songs and talking one-on-one to people, sharing the Gospel. It was incredible to me to see the amount of people who came up to sing with us (we had song-sheets) and the amount of personal conversations that were had. It was not rare for someone to let 5-6 subway trains go by before they got on, because they were having personal conversations with people about the Gospel. If nothing else, we provided some nice music in the metrou for a change of pace. I have really been amazed by how open Romanians are to people talking with them one-on-one about the Gospel--they are certainly more open than the many people in the West who just put up their hands and walk away. Many of the youth on Sunday were able to sit down on a bench, share the Gospel, swap phone numbers/online messaging ID's, and even share hugs with people in the subway---pretty cool! I'm looking forward to singing again and can't wait for caroling this Christmas!

The Transfăgărăşan Highway

Here is a sample of the difference elevation makes when driving in Romania. These are pictures taken by a friend of mine through the Transfagaraşan pass in central Romania in September.

The beginning of his journey on a beautiful fall afternoon

Entering the TransFagaraşan Pass

The cascading waterfalls
Beginning the climb
Looking down across the highway pass
The cars beginning the climb
Just beautiful
The snow peaks
The waterfalls
Still climbing
And the snow begins

And the ice

White Out!