Forget summer, fall is here and my down comforter is already back on the bed!
This is just a quick update to let you know that after finishing two courses in August I took off for the IT Conference in Poland. The opportunity to drive there with Kinga, a Romanian missionary in Turkey, in a rental car made it a great, sight-seeing adventure. Along the way, we visited northern Romania called Maramures, where you can find bride’s dowry trees which have colorful pots hanging on them (an old tradition) and a “merry” cemetery where all the tombstones have pictures painted on them in colors and tell a story of the person’s life. Spent a night in Debrecen, Hungary and then drove through Slovakia and on to Ustron, Poland just over the Czech and Slovak borders. The trip was like going from the Appalachian Mountains (Maramures), across the plains (Hungary is totally flat) and on to the Rocky Mountains (Slovakia has tall mountains like the Alps), within the span of only a day and a half. Beautiful vistas! The only thing different is the roads – it is like going across the US on back roads, like the old Rt. 66 or the Skyline Drive. No highways as yet in Romania or Slovakia and in parts of Hungary, so it makes for a little slower driving (don’t tell them that, they drive fast!).
While in Poland, we were able to visit Auschwitz and Cracow. It was my first time visiting a concentration camp – something I had always wanted to experience, but nothing can ever prepare you.
Got back to Cluj August 21st and was catapulted into two more courses (about 200 pages of reading a week and that is only for one course!) and seeing patients at Petros. There are 3 more weeks left in these courses and then I will be heading home on October 2nd for a month in the States. Please pray with me for endurance and discipline to “stay the course” with these studies. Thanks! Hoping to see many of you when I am home.
