Remembering Romania #5

Our family was adjusting to this huge move to Romania by the middle of October. We still had very limited access to electricity, no refrigerator, or beds, but we were finding joy in the small things. If you missed the first parts of our journey click here to find them. I hope you enjoy reading about our family’s crazy adventures. Keep checking back because soon there will be a huge announcement regarding my Dad’s origin’s and legacy.

October 8, 2003

Well, Fedi was able to adjust the generator to put out about 230 watts. ( I found out it’s not just the volts that count but the volts X the amps which equals the watts.) But now the creek is not giving us enough water. It is a drought year and the neighbors say it is unusually low. So we will probably have to make do with a combination of the gas generator and the water generator to charge the batteries and pray for rain.

On the other hand, last night I was laying in bed thinking how much I like it here. It’s not just the beautiful mountains, quietness, and nice people, it’s the secure feeling of knowing I am in God’s will. I didn’t feel this secure in America with all those insurances (health, life, house, liability) and with my family and church close by. I used to worry a lot. Now that safety net is somewhat gone. I don’t know how far the nearest hospital is or the quality of care, there are a lot of poisonous snakes here, our health insurance has a $5000 deductible per person, which would about do us in financially, BUT, I feel that God’s safety net is better. The kids and I went on a walk one morning. Anni stepped right over a poisonous snake and a big dog was stalking us for awhile. I thanked God for His protection. I was frying up some French fries when the oil bubbled over into the flame, for some reason it didn’t catch fire. Again I felt God’s protection.

Heuni coming up here for 5 days was a big blessing to both us and him. His parents are Christians but he is not. He and Fedi got along great and Fedi had several opportunities to talk to him about God. I know he liked it here because we offered to take him home a couple of times but he wanted to stay.

October 11, 2003

We’ve had a couple of things happen that I wanted to write about. The evening of my last journal entry Fedi and I were pretty discouraged. We got around to finally measuring the flow by bailing the waterfall from the dam out of a big tub, as fast as we could with 2 - 15 liter buckets while Anni held a stop watch. We came up with 120-140 gallons per minute. That is too low to even charge the batteries. I felt I was looking at a winter with using only the outhouse (the water pump takes electricity) and a cold house, since the circulating pump takes electricity and the house is heated by a radiator system. It scared me a little. The gas for the gas generator is expensive. That evening though, Fedi read in the Bible about Paul and Silas being thrown in prison. His footnote for this Bible passage said, “Sometimes obeying God means giving up some securities.” This changed my whole outlook. The next morning I woke up with such a sense of well-being. Fedi came up from the creek and said it had doubled in size over night. It actually charged the batteries for about 6 hours. There was also snow on the mountaintops.

While Fedi was adjusting the water generator to get the maximum output, he also, by experimenting found out the end of the draft tube was supposed to be in the water to create a vacuum. This was nowhere in the manual and though it now seems logical, before there were things that made us think the water was supposed to free fall from the tube.

Fedi’s birthday dawned too early for me with the kids bringing coffee and cream of wheat for him. They had made cards, poems, and made up a song for him. They also decorated the house with fall leaves, plastic bags blown up and tied for balloons and a big Happy Birthday sign. He did get 1 present. We went in town and bought a $43 car radio.

Oh yeah, the donation money is pretty much spoken for. Leventa’s wife told Csilla (they are good friends) that after paying their utility bills they only had enough for 1 loaf of bread. They are operating in the deficit every month. That’s why their utility bills got so out of hand. They have been paying the church’s utility bills, which needs to stop. Fedi is going to give them $70 per month as long as the money holds out, which should be enough if they are careful.

Leventa is the Pastor of the little Baptist church we are attending here. He is paid a small salary for this. He is in one way kind of shy and insecure but his sermons seem inspired to me (after translation). He is also enthusiastic about the village evangelism they do every Friday. He and his wife do a lot of good deeds for people so I feel it is money well spent. In any case their five kids need food.

Fedi also plans to give from our current donation money, the old man with the prison ministry $30 per month for now. I think Dad will send more for him though.

October 12, 2003

Yesterday we finally got around to visiting Fedi’s aunts, uncles, and cousins. Driving there we passed two different parades. It is the time for the grape harvest festival. Matching horses were ridden 2 by 2 through the town. One horse wagon carried the girls in their colorful national dresses and another carried the guys in their outfits playing instruments. An elected king rode one of the white horses. Later we passed a wedding. They marched through the town bride and all, 2 by 2 in their best clothes.

When we approached Fedi’s grandma’s town, we had to drive carefully through a gaggle of geese going somewhere. And there were the cows. They are so interesting. It’s pretty much the same in every village. A herder takes the cows from the town to pasture in the morning. Then every evening takes them back to the edge of town but that’s it. After that they are on their own. Each cow makes her slow way to her own gate and stands there waiting. Rebekah got the biggest kick out of one young impatient cow who started to butt the gate in when the owner was slow to open it.

Fedi’s relatives were nice. They all made a big deal over the kids.

October 18, 2003

We had a beautiful snow yesterday. It’s only about 3 inches but stuck to every branch and twig. It weighed down the trees so heavy that our drive was like a tunnel. Now this morning the kids are sled riding right outside our window on some plastic we bought for them.

Our neighbor with the milk cows moved his herd down the mountain during the storm yesterday. So, no more of that delicious, fresh milk. He sent his son back up the mountain to get a baby calf that was born. When we got home his son was waiting for a tractor to pull his jeep out. It had slid off the road and was almost tipped over.

Yesterday Fedi went with the young kids on the Friday evening village mission. Since he was the only adult, the 6 kids squeezed into our jeep. He organized them to go in 2 teams down the street handing out the tapes while he followed slowly with the car and wrote down the house numbers of anyone who was interested. Fedi said he was impressed with the kids, how bravely they did this and how well they handled rejection.

I was told there was a revival here in 1995. It seems hard now. Leventa told me that one thing about Catholics is that every sin they might commit is more acceptable to them than the sin of leaving their church. The church will forgive them for anything else. Also, in these small villages where everyone knows each other it would take a very spiritually hungry person to break out of the century old traditions. The other religion is the orthodox faith. Leventa said though, this is worse. They are more steeped in superstitions and farther from the truth.

While Fedi was there, the kids got to go to Csilla’s for some “Animal Planet”. This is about the only station that is in English. Rebekah and I went to Heidi and Edda’s apartment for a meeting on the kids program. Three couples from the church were there. Some of the meeting I could not understand but they translated the important parts and I am picking up more and more Hungarian. They discussed how to get the word out, where to meet, how to get material, (there is nothing they can buy, it has to be made up) and what activities to do. My part is hopefully draw kids in with an English learning slant to the program. Rebekah is excited to help with this. Anyway I told them we could donate $50 to help start.

There have been some break-ins in the summer cabins close to us. Of the three other cabins that share our drive, two have been robbed. We are all trying to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.

Well, the problem with the pastor trying to pay the churches utility bills as well as support his family on $100-$200 a month has been solved. They had a church meeting and agreed to have special collections for this. They are such a small, poor church, only about 25 members, but the first collection was $70. I was amazed that they could give that much.

Csilla and the girls came to spend Saturday and Sunday with us. Jozsef went on a fishing trip. We had a nice time on Saturday evening playing games and on Sunday a spectacular hike up the mountain in the new snow. The view and the fall leaves and the clean snow are hard to describe. The kids hiked up like troopers and found at least one great smooth rolling-down hill.

Everything is deserted now that we have had snow. We are the only ones actually living on the mountain now. The rest of the cabins are for vacationers in summer time. Our cow rancher neighbor said he heard wolves the night before he went down. We have been warned to watch out for Gino because the wolves will try to draw a dog away with only one showing himself. Then when the dog is away from protection the pack eats him.

Our little jeep is serving us well. We slipped and slid in the mud coming home from evening church, but the 4 wheel drive has brought us through every time. I almost always close my eyes on our drive and let Fedi handle it.

The waterpower is still on and off. Fedi drains the pond we made to have enough water to charge the batteries for about 40 minutes. Then he has to close the pipe off to let the water fill back up. He spent one day working on a valve system with floats to get the rising water itself to open up a valve on the pipe and to close it automatically when the water drops. It works great…in theory….in practice though we had an unexpected problem. When the water dropped, the valve shut nicely and bounced right back open. In fact the whole pipeline jumped with every bounce. Now Fedi has something more involved in mind but we want to see first if this melting snow will take care of our low water problem for a while. Everyone who knows this creek says this is the lowest it has been in years so I think soon we will have enough water.
We are using the gas generator still to pick up the slack. I don’t mind it now that he moved it down to the shed he built. That thing is noisy and smelly. We also, after he turns the generator off in the evening, use candles a lot for light and the propane stove partially for heat.

We do have a fireplace in the living room but it is not functional. I am trying to decide what to have Fedi do next…fix the fireplace or build some cupboards. We are still living out of suitcases after 2 months. The problem with that is that our cement porch is bad, almost like gravel. It is so bad it can’t even be swept. The kids drag a lot of dirt in, which gets in the suitcases on the floor and in the mattresses we sleep on that are on the floor. So maybe I should have Fedi re-do the porch next or maybe build us some bed frames. Now that the water -power is done, the rest is just a matter of what to do first. Poor Fedi may be happy to get back to a normal job to rest.