Isaiah 55:5

We went to a wedding yesterday!! Katie and I were wedding crashers. We had actually met the groom once before in the church at Reghin and we knew his brother from the Reghin church, but we had never met the bride. So we really didn’t know the couple at all. But that didn’t stop us from driving four hours with a bunch of the family members, performing in the wedding and taking part in all of the traditions. In fact, we were so successful in our crashing endeavor, that we actually got a picture of just the two of us with the bride and groom. Here is my proof:

I am very glad that we got to experience a wedding here in Romania. I am all about cultural experiences, and this was one of the most rewarding I’ve ever had. After a four hour in an extremely unreliable 30 year old minibus, we arrived at the church. From there, all of the family( including us of course) went to the bride’s house. It is tradition for the groom, groomsmen, and the best man to ask her father if she can get married that day, and then they asked the bride. The groom picks out the bouquet beforehand, and takes it to her house to present to her. I’m guessing at one point that was probably used as some kind of bribery to get her to come. After some speaking they all came out of the house and got in the cars that had been decorated by the bridal party with balloons and tissue paper. They’re much more considerate with their car decorating than we are. Then we drove our happy procession to a couple of places around the city, amidst much honking, to take pictures. After that, we went back to the church and had the ceremony. We sang some traditional hymns, and the choir sang a few of their own arrangements, and then there was a sermon. After that were some short vows, another kind of mini-sermon mainly directed towards the bride and groom( I’m guessing it was some kind of exhortation about the importance of what they were doing – unfortunately we didn’t have a translator) and then we went downstairs for the reception to eat the first course of the meal. Did I mention that weddings are an ALL DAY ordeal? The eating goes on for six hours. Yes, that’s right, six. Our appetizer alone was like a meal. That was followed by coffee, and while we were eating we sang a bunch of hymns.

After about an hour and a half, we went back upstairs and people gave the bride and groom their greetings, and sang a song or two, or put on a skit or read a Bible passage or something of that sort. The problem with being an amateur at wedding crashing, is that I didn’t realize if people find out that you have a talent, especially a musical one, that comes in really handy for free entertainment. I ended up learning a song by ear in 15 mintues because the bridesmaids didn’t bother to find an accompanist beforehand. After listening to it once, they informed me that they wanted to sing it…get ready, a fourth lower. For those of you who know anything about music, this is like the ultimate horror story. I also had to come up with an arrangement to a love song for the Reghin Youth group to sing, and oh yes, I had a mic thrust on me, and I had to play AND sing on that one. THEN, Katie and I had to sing and give our greetings. Like I said, I’m an amateur at this, so next wedding I crash, nobody is going to know I have any musical ability. I’m going to pretend to be tone deaf.

We ended up having four more courses of our meal, more hymns, and then the best part. The cake. Wedding cakes here are AMAZING. To bring in the cake, they turned off all of the lights, and brought in the cake which was covered in sparklers!!! It was so dramatic and AWESOME. in Romania, people give gifts at the reception, and Attila said it is tradition at most weddings that after you give the couple your gift, they give you a piece of cake. But he said it depends on the village, and at this wedding, everyone received a piece of cake, whether they gave a gift or not. Most people gave gifts of money, but some people did give household items.

At about 9:45 pm, we started home, and we got back to Reghin shortly after 2:30 am. I’m not going to lie, I’m thankful for American weddings after this experience because I’m EXHAUSTED, but I can’t even begin to express how incredible it was to be able to share in the occasion of a wedding here. I crossed one more thing off of my life goals list today.

Attila is really interested in starting a ministry with some of the children from Peris, that came to our English classes in Gornesti, so we spent Thursday afternoon with them playing soccer and English games. We mainly are just establishing relationships with them right now because although we had them in class, Attila had never met any of them before, so he really wants to begin to work with them like he does with the children in Gornesti and Apalina. They really are sweet children – we taught them how to play “Wink ‘Em” and they LOVED it.

We came home from Harghita this week to a problem in Apalina. The church members are undergoing quite a bit of difficulty right now. Apparently, there was a misunderstanding between one of the members and his wife(who is not a believer) and it turned into a huge ordeal that now involves many people. On Tuesday night, church was very emotional. Every member was crying, and there was a lot of arguing and accusations flying around the room. It was very tense. Please pray for this church. If this problem is not resolved, it could destroy the church. Nobody wants to take the blame for anything, and they are too proud to admit that they are wrong, or to apologuze to anyone. One of the big problems as well, is that because they all live so close together, there really isn’t any way to avoid each other, so if one member sees another member talking with someone, they are automatically assuming it’s about them etc… It is just not a good situation.

Eight of our older children from Apalina also went to the Adventist camp this week. However, they were not few very well aparently, and several of them went climbing on the rocks near the camp to pick berries because they were hungry, and Bianca fell and hit her head and had to be taken to the Targu Mures hospital by helicopter. Last I heard, they think she is going to be just fine, but the parents in Apalina are VERY angry at the Adventist because of this incident. Attila said that unfortunately for us, Bianca probably will not come to our camp, and we may have some problems with other parents. Hopefully everything will be fine, and no one will be injured at our camp so that we can maintain the trust of the people.

We had our halfway party on Thursday instead of Friday because if worked better for some of the people coming, and we were able to play Phase 10, finally! Attila won and he was ecstatic. I didn’t realize just how LONG of a card game that was until we played it with 6 people. It takes FOREVER. But we loved it. We made grilled cheese for dinner, and served that cake we bought with the rum flavor in it so we didn’t have to eat it haha – it was a really fun night. It is so amazing to be able to call people up when we have free nights and invite them over to the apartment – just like we would do back home. We live here. We live in Romania.

Katie and I briefly talked today about how much it is going to hurt when we leave. Neither one of us is really ready to talk about it, I think. We are homesick sometimes, and we want to see our families, but this week, both of us experienced that first pain of the thought of leaving. We have friends here. Real friends that we know well and love. Not only have we been completely immersed in a culture vastly different from our own, we’ve been given the opportunity to live a new life here. To share in experiences with new people, and to grow with and be involved with lives that will soon be a world away from us. When we go home we will have best friends on the other side of the world. And that is why it hurt this week to think about leaving. But I know that if God wills for me to return, that my friends will be here waiting, because they tell me all the time, “I wait you. I wait you when you come back.”