Salut!

It's cold, very windy, and we still do not have a van repaired.  We had hoped that it would be repaired by Friday, but it is still not fixed on Sunday afternoon. The snow and the cold have prevented us from hitchhiking the distance that we went last Saturday. We cancelled the activity. Yesterday was an enjoyable day here.

We were able to catch up and slow down if that makes sense. It seems there are those things that we would like to have time to do if we only had time.  Yesterday and today have given us that time and we need to learn to accept these respites when they arrive.

It is comforting to read, watch TV, think, pray, and reflect upon life without it overwhelming you and demanding your attention. I keep recalling Thoreau's words, who was not necessarily a great man of God, but was His creation, "Simplify, simplify." We often tend to make things way more difficult and complicated than they are intended to be.  Jesus was pretty plain when he told us that we ought to be making disciples and loving one another while being in a relationship with Him.  It seems to have become greatly complicated over the past two thousand years, but the commands still remain.

Our time here is dwindling and we find ourselves ready to return home.  Will we return? When? What will the future hold?  There are a lot more questions than we have the answers for at this time.  What we do know is that God has placed us in the area that we call home and has given us places to work, live and love.  There should be no separation of those three. A few years ago I saw a student with a t-shirt on at AHS that read, "These are my church clothes!" My Jesus clothes are also the clothes in which I live, work, play, and love. Clothes like that have tears, get faded, and even down right dirty, but they can be worn again and again thanks to detergent and a little technology.  When it was said that, "My grace is sufficient," I had no idea that it would give me chance after chance and even provide a new set of clothes when the old ones wore out.  The dimensions of grace continue to be more than sufficient. The dimensions of God's love, forgiveness, and provision are also without equal, yet He called us to a life marked by those same qualities. Amazing!

I hope you have enjoyed reading our blogs over the time we have been here in Romania. We will continue to post until we leave in a little over a week and maybe we will even get a chance to zip one off during the trip home.  We have titled the picture that went up with this post "Romanian Gothic."

La Revedere,

John & Lana