I'm Back!!

After spending last night in Luton Airport (it was a bit nippy!) and a delay on the flight this morning I finally arrived on Romanian soil at lunch time. I was amazed to see the sun shining - it was much colder in Luton than in Timisoara - although I am told that we can expect changes in the temperature in the next few days.

There was no doubt it was Romania because there was no lock on the toilet door and I failed to raise a smile from the lady on the Boarding Gate when I wished her good day in Romanian!. These sort of people tend to be very authoratitive.   However there is always excitement and love in my heart when I arrive here.  Our friend Peter kindly picked me up and we set off on the new dual carriageway almost all of the way from Timisoara to Arad.  I was giving thanks because the old single carriageway was so...o dangerous with everyone overtaking - a death trap.   Funding from Europe is being spent on improvement of main roads and creating pretty fountains in the main cities - even shopping malls are starting to creap in but the scale of the poverty is alarming.

It was so warming to be back among my hosts, the Luca family (above) and to find Jackie and grandaughter, Elizabeth there to greet me.  Mama Maria is a wiz in the Romanian food department and had a delicious meal waiting for us of soup, chicken and rice and some beautiful home made cake.  After the meal, Jackie, Adina; I had a meeting about the projects and drew up a timetable for the following 3 weeks - there was much catching up to do.  Also staying at the apartment til next week are 3 other English Missionaries, two of which are friends of mine - Kathleen from Bristol and Jodie from Nottingham.  We have worked together in the past with abandoned babies at the city hospital.  Great to catch up with them plus their friend, Matt. They are here for 10 days.  Below is the view from my room.

Jackie confirmed that our consignment of 92 huge boxes (500 shoe boxes and much more) arrived on Tuesday on a huge Romanian truck- so we give thanks for answered prayer.   It takes us almost a year in Wales to prepare the consignment and tomorrow the first stage of operation begins here when I go out to Jackie's home in the village of Sofronea to work on opening and sorting all the boxes.    Firstly we will sort and drop into containers all the many items which have been packed into any odd spaces not filled by shoe boxes - eg medication, knitwear, slippers and much more. Then we sort the widows and babies boxes and finally all the other age groups into gender and age groups.  I give thanks for a lovely Romanian friend called Vio who always helps me with the shoe box operation.  Once they are in piles we simply pick out what is required from our lists for for each distribution.

I admit to being tired tonight - so I'm hitting the sack now but not before I get rid of this mosquito buzzing around even at this time of year.