Malldova

    Malldova is a gigantic mall here in Chisinau, that is probably as big and as nice as Tyson's Two in Fairfax.    In Moldova, extra care is spent on how you look and the mall supports this core value. Today we all (the women and staff from the home) went there to have some quality time.When we first arrived, we all devoured 10 pizzas. Yeah, it was that post-church hunger.  We then split up and went to the stores the woman wanted to go to.  My group consisted of Jessie and the younger girls.  We spent a lot of time imitating the manicans and looking at clothes.  It was wonderful to get to know the different styles of the girls. They were really relaxed and excited to show us what they liked.  This was one of the first times we have done something as a group out of the home.  I loved it!!!

This is the link to the mall: http://www.shoppingmalldova.md/ro/index.php

 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthinas 13:3

Tajikistan

       Today I learned all about Tajikistan.  In the morning, I left the home and headed to our house to help make a dish called Plov for the school kids. They are currently learning about Central Asia and Tanya was their special speaker. Tanya is one of my friends here who is originally from Tajikistan.  One of the dishes that is common in Tajikistan is Plov.  The first time I had this dish we were at the home and Tanya made it for a Christmas party.  It is so delicious and I had to refrain from eating all of it!!!!  The really cool thing about learning how to make the Plov with Tanya was that she taught me all about her culture and where she comes from.  Plov is a common food in Tajikistan.  All of the ingredients are prepared by the women or wife, and then the actual cooking is done by the man. Often times it is sold by small street vendors as well. It consists of meat (beef, lamb, or chicken), rice, carrots, a lot of oil, whole garlic, and onions.   It took about 4 hours to make!  While it was cooking she showed me pictures of her country and some of her traditions.  One of the interesting things I learned is that weddings are celebrated for an entire week. I also learned that New Years is a very big holiday for them and filled with a lot of festivities.This is similar to Moldova.  After it was finished, we all sat on blankets on the floor, and ate the goodness with our hands as is traditionally done in Tajikistan.  By the time it was done, we had about 25 people in our apartment eating Plov, so fun.   It was a great day!

Below are some pictures of what Plov looks like and what it is made in.

http://www.arbuz.com

Getting Messy

     Yesterday,  I taught the women at the  Home for the first time and all of them chose to attend (praise God).  The agenda was germs and hand washing.  I was a little nervous, because I would be explaining things through an interpreter  (Elena did an amazing job).  I also do not know everyones learning style and wanted the material to be palpable for them.  My main goal was to keep it interactive, and try to cover all the learning styles!  My lesson was 30 minutes maximum, and it started out with the question of where do you think diseases come from.  The last time I was in Moldova teaching and asked this question, I got all kinds of interesting answers. For instance, if a women is sitting on the floor, she will become infertile, eating grapefruit will give you breast cancer,  or most things are caused by the "Current", which seems to mean the outside air or wind.  Yesterday the responses were much different although the wind was still attributed to causing a lot of diseases.  In order to help them understand the nature of germs, I had two of them poor Sprite on their hands and let it dry.  Then I asked the other women, if they had not seen me pour the Sprite on their hands would they think anything is on their hands?  They all answered with an emphatic, No.  You could see the light bulb clicking for several, now understanding that just because you cannot see something doesn't mean it does not exist.  In addition, although the "Current" might carry the germs, it is not responsible for the disease.  One of the girls then said.  if we could see all the germs on people, we would probably want to live in bubbles.  The whole room erupted in laughter, and everyone was looking at each other as if they were covered with germs.   It was pretty hilarious. At the end of the lesson, we all crowded into the bathroom and practiced washing our hands, while singing happy birthday to make sure we scrubbed long enough.

     One of the things that is said in this culture, when someone does not like something, is that it is not beautiful,  you are not being beautiful. I have rarely heard the phrases you are being bad or that is gross or ugly.   Pouring sprite on your hands would be considered a non-beautiful thing.  It was so fun to watch them be messy even though they thought it was not beautiful.  We had a blast!!!!

Lessons from Manicotti

   Tonight we spent the evening at Nancy's house making Manicotti for dinner.  I have never made Manicotti before so this was a new sort of adventure and one I enjoyed very much.  I know you might not think cooking would be that good but it was.  As we were making the pasta shell that you have to roll the cheese into, we notice that many of the shells were broken, some with very obvious chunks out of the shell.  Other shells had more subtle breaks that you couldn't see unless you were really staring at it.  As we were rolling and deciding whether to salvage the broken shells, I was reminded of  how many of the people around me are broken.  It was funny because neither of us felt like the shells were not worth it, were better in the trash. We felt we could work with it. Likewise God never thought I was a waste, never thinks the women I am working with would be better in the trash.  I was almost in tears rolling Mannicotti (I know pretty funny) and remembering how each person is special to God. He does not give up on any of us.  I know, lessons from God while making Manicotti I never expected it.

The Manicotti was delicious and the fellowship was wonderful!!!

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

   your works are wonderful, 

   I know that full well. Psalm. 139:14

Pedestrian Struck

    This week was crazy, but yet, so good.  God was all over it.  At the beginning of the week, we saw a kid laying in the middle of the road, after just getting hit by car.  He was about ten and did not look like he was able to get up.  After doing a quick assessment of the area (mainly, was it safe to get out of the car) Jessie and I jumped out of the car.  Unfortunately car accidents are pretty common here, since people drive pretty crazy, and pedestrians don't seem to pay attention to on-coming traffic.  Yeah, I am not exactly sure what caused this accident, but my heart stopped when I saw that it was a kid, and he was not moving. When we got to him,  I asked him a lot of questions and quickly moved him out of the street.  He allowed me to take care of him.  Praise the Lord, he had only a small cut on his wrist, road rash on his face, and a large bruise on the back of his head.  I love how God orders are footsteps.  At the exact moment that kid was hit, God had nurse there to help him, with an interpreter (Jessie :).  He is good!!!  We left him to the care of the medics, which were arriving when we were leaving.
     My week ended a lot better.  Friday we all headed over to the restoration home to celebrate Christmas again, and one of the girl's graduations(woo, hoo).  The staff made all sorts of traditional Moldovan/ Tajik food, and it was delicious.The house was complete chaos, but it was full of a lot of joy and laughter.  I got choked up quite a few times watching the kids and women open their presents.
     I am feeling extremely blessed and in awe that I am able to be a part of this work here.  I start teaching more in the home this coming Friday.  I am super excited but would appreciate pray.

Caroling on Christmas

     Yesterday we celebrated Orthodox Christmas.  In Moldova Christmas is celebrated in the 25th of December and the 7th of January.  It has been really nice to celebrate Christmas for an entire month and then some.  We started the day off attending a packed service at a local charismatic church.  The service consisted of preaching and beautiful choir and instrumental music.  The orchestra consisted of violins, cello, piano, accordions, and mandolins. We sat in the balcony and, for close to 3.5 hours, enjoyed the Christmas service in Russian and Romanian.  It was so good. 

     After service our team headed over to Seasons in Malldova and had a delicious meal. From their we headed to the North Bus Station where we had no clue how to get to, but thankfully our friend Curtis did. We were going to one of the towns to go Christmas caroling, which would start around 8:00 pm.  When we arrived, we met up with a youth group at one of the churches and then began to go to different house singing Christmas carols in Romanian.  I have not had much practice in Romanian so the words that I sang were all wrong, but by the end I had a pretty good handle on some of the songs.  We ended up getting multiple food gifts from the families we visited which we ended up eating later at the church around 11:30.  Everyone was very kind and welcoming. Jessie and I ended up staying overnight with a family from the church who were extremely sweet.  I had a wonderful time!

I am looking forward to being back at the home this coming week.  I can't wait to see the ladies