Famous First

This past Sunday, October 7th, was a big day here for me and Karen. The Nazarene church had its European conference in Turkey. So almost everyone who in any position of authority, in either church, was out of town for about a week. So Roberta, the pastor for both the Sighisoara and Tsigmandru churches, asked if Karen and I would "run" both services. Karen chose the music for both services and I volunteered to preach at both churches. I know, this was shocking to me also. I came up with a topic to talk about in the service here in Sighisoara, but I was struggling with material for the theme I wanted for Tsigmandru. I talked about it with Karen and she felt that her testimony better fit the theme that I had in mind, so she volunteered to preach in Tsigmandru. Well it went great for both of us. I felt lead to preach, but it was very stressful to do for the first time. The enormous responsibilty and privledge to preach was not lost on me. It is the highlight of my work here thus far. I like to joke that all the Nazarenes left town and turned over the keys of the church to the Free Methodists.

Karen and Melanie were able to go on a retreat this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with the staff, students, and volunteers of Veritas. I have been home alone with the boys, which is much more difficult here than in America. We are doing well and will be joining the group on retreat tommorrow. The retreat ends Saturday at noon, and families are invited to come stay Saturday evening. The boys are very excited because the retreat area is located in the mountains near Sibiu. I am sure that Karen will make a post and put up some pictures of the retreat after she returns home. Maurice