Author: Julie Peters

European Eating Adventure: Albania

by Julie Peters///Uncategorized

This year Sam and I have the goal of cooking and eating a meal from every country in Europe. There are 51 countries in Europe, which would match up for us to cook one country’s meal a week. While we would love to get in all 51 in 2018, I know life will interfere and it will probably take us more than a year. That is okay though!

The first country up for our eating adventure is Albania, which is the first country alphabetically. I researched traditional foods, dishes, and meals and came up with a menu that I could find ingredients for and could easily cook.

I came up with a menu of Albanian lentil soup, beetroot pie, cabbage salad, and rice cake for dessert. I found Albanian recipes on Pinterest and inspiration from the blog Global Table Adventure.

Lentil soup, beetroot pie, and cabbage salad

We listened to Albanian folk music while we enjoyed our meal, and we looked up a map of Albania and read interesting facts.

  1. Every evening there is an official evening walk called a “xhiro”
  2. Albanians shake their heads to agree, but nod to disagree
  3. The majority of Albanians are Muslim (70%); the second largest religion is Christianity (17%)
  4. Albanians use scarecrows and teddy bears as talismans to ward off envy from neighbors
  5. The traditional dress of Albania is made from wool, cotton, and silk with embroidered patterns and symbols
  6. Lunch is the main meal of the day in Albania and businesses shut down at noon for a few hours to enjoy it
  7. Albanians eat dinner around 8:00 PM
  8. Men and women traditionally eat at separate tables
  9. Heart disease and obesity are rare due to low consumption of meat and high consumption of vegetables
  10. Mother Theresa is the only Albanian to win the Nobel Prize

(Facts from here and here)

Rice “cake” and coffee

Sarmale Casserole

by Julie Peters///Adventuring

Sarmale is a quintessential Romanian food, made of a mixture of sausage, rice, and veggies wrapped in pickled cabbage. I have yet to try “real” traditional sarmale, but I make this casserole version of it almost every week.

On our recent trip home I made my family a somewhat traditional Romanian meal, including two different types of this sarmale casserole. I was asked for this recipe by a few people, so I decided to post it on here in case others are interested in trying it as well.

I originally got this recipe from Sam’s Mom, who got it from Allrecipes, but we have both improvised it quite a bit from the original recipe. I have gotten to where I make it a little differently every time based on what I have around, but I keep the base the same.

Sarmale Casserole

Base:

1 small-medium head of cabbage, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes

2 cups veggie broth

1/2 cup dry brown rice

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper, to tast

Add-ins

1 lb ground beef, cooked and drained

-or-

1 small package tofu crumbled

-or-

1 small package chopped mushrooms

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

or any combination of the above!

Combine all ingredients in a crockpot and cook on high 4-6 hours, or until the cabbage is soft. Alternately, you could place all the ingredients in a large Dutch oven and bake in the oven or cook on the stovetop.

We like to eat this over mashed potatoes, and for the full Romanian meal for my family I also made mamaliga (a side dish similar to polenta) and salata de varza, which is a cabbage salad with a simple vinegar dressing. Romanians also like to eat this topped with sour cream.

If you try it please let me know how it turns out and what you think! Happy cooking!

 

 

What We’ve Been Doing Lately

by Julie Peters///Uncategorized

On December 13 we began our journey back home for the holidays! I had been counting down the days for a long time and we were both so excited. Our journey began by driving five hours to Belgrade, Serbia on Thursday to be ready to fly out early Friday morning.

On the way there we stopped at a cute bakery in Serbia for a pastry and coffee! We exchanged five dollars for 500 dinars and bought two coffees, a chocolate pastry, and two huge buns to save for later for 250 dinars, which converts to about $2.50.

We flew from Serbia to Chicago, where we stayed with some friends of Sam’s for a couple of days so Sam could preach at two different congregations Sunday morning and Sunday night.

Sunday afternoon we were able to meet up with one of our very dear friends Cassie. Cassie is one of my closest friends and my last year at FC we lived across the hall from each other and spent a lot of time together. She was also one of my bridesmaids in our wedding. I was so happy that she drove two hours to come see us and worship wish us Sunday night!

That night Sam and I were so eager to get home to Mississippi that we decided to start driving right then. However, Sam had a section of a final to take before midnight, so we just had to find somewhere with wifi for him to complete it, since he had already studied. The task of finding somewhere open with adequate wifi connection proved to be much more difficult than we anticipated, but finally Sam was able to complete his test in a McDonald’s parking lot right before midnight. The conditions were less than ideal, but he got it finished and we began our journey home around midnight. (And Sam’s professor graciously let him retake the test under much better conditions!)

We arrived in Mississippi at 9:30 Monday morning and surprised Mama and the family! We were exhausted, but we were all so happy. The next two weeks were a whirlwind of activities and events and loads of quality time with family. 

Thursday after we got back Sam, Daddy, and Clay undertook the challenge of the Tanglefoot Trail from Houston to New Albany. Sam ran the entire 44 miles and Daddy and Clay alternated running and biking, five miles at a time. I had planned on being with them, but unfortunately I got sick the day before and I was not able to join them. I was very lucky to have a Mama at home to take care of me though 🙂

They were exhausted, but they finished and I am so proud of them!

Every year it is my family’s tradition to do a LOT of Christmas baking, both for our family and to give to others. Mama saved all the baking to do after I got there and I absolutely loved being in the kitchen all day with Mama and Leah! 

We also all decorated gingerbread houses together, which was also a lot of fun.

After Christmas Sam and I made a trip up to Kentucky to be with his family for his brother Paul’s wedding. Sam was a groomsman for Paul and I got to be with all the girls all weekend making flowers and setting up everything for the wedding. The wedding was beautiful and we are so excited for Paul and Alayna!

For New Year’s Eve we celebrated with lots of friends and family at our friends’ the Mims house. We did not last quite until midnight, but we watched the ball drop at midnight Eastern time and enjoyed being with everyone! Sam’s brother Abe and his wife Grace also came home with us after the wedding and we loved getting to spend a couple more days with them. 

On New Year’s day we went to Corinth to brave the frigid weather for Koach Kenneth’s annual Resolution run! I think it was 10 degrees, but the windchill was much lower! I think it was 1 or -1. Either way, it was freezing! We were one of the very few crazies to run (we had ski masks to avoid frostbite) but many other runners joined us for breakfast, including the rest of our family.

We were so happy when we were done and able to warm up inside with coffee!

Early Tuesday morning we began our trip back to Romania. We had a 9 hour drive to Chicago, then a 7.5 hour plane ride to Munich. After a quick layover we had a 1.5 hour flight to Belgrade, then a 5-6 hour drive to Craiova! We got home around 1:00, finally got to bed around 2:00 and slept well into the next day! Last night we were able to get a little closer to a normal sleep schedule, and we hope tonight will be the final night to get us back on schedule.

The trip home was absolutely amazing and I enjoyed every bit of it. It went by entirely too quickly and I was not ready to leave yet when the time came. Coming back was so much harder than I expected, but it is slowly getting better. The more I focus on spiritual things and doing things for others the easier it gets, and we are taking it a day at a time. The more we get settled and back into a normal routine the better it gets.

I have a wonderfully long list of goals for the year and ways to keep up with family, including a book club with Mama and scheduled FaceTime sessions with my sisters and friends. I hope to write a post about 2018 goals soon!

Six Months

by Julie Peters///Adventuring, Uncategorized

Six months ago I put on a white dress. Then some pretty music played and I took my Daddy’s arm and walked down an aisle. Then I made the second most important commitment of my life to the most important person in my life.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Sam told me today. In some ways when I think back to that day I feel like I have blinked and six months have passed!

Six months is not a very long time, but it is still enough time to grow incredibly close to a person, grow as a person myself, and learn countless lessons. I have been asked how it was going from a long distance relationship to the close relationship of marriage. So far it has been absolutely wonderful and full of blessings. We have already gone through so much during our six months together so far and I am excited to see, Lord willing, what the future holds.

Sam and I knew each other three days shy of one year when he got down on one knee and took the first step in our commitment to each other, and nine days later he was on a plane to Romania. We were apart for nine months during our engagement expect for two weeks right in the middle. The majority of our relationship was long distance, and although we were able to communicate very well through letters, text messages, emails, phone calls, and FaceTime sessions, we could not wait to actually be together every single day. I can remember talking about it through computer screens, daydreaming together about seeing each other when we wake up every day, running together, or just getting to talk in person whenever we had something to discuss.

Although I never would have chosen for it to be so, I think we grew a lot from our lengthy long-distance relationship. We learned how to communicate when apart and work through difficulties. We also grew to appreciate being together. Even now we still pause sometimes to say, “I can’t believe we are together! This is so much fun!” I hope we never lose the excitement of being together, no matter what we are doing. I hope we can always hold on to just a little bit of this feeling.

Although in some small ways the last six months have been harder than I anticipated, in a huge way it has been so much better than I ever could have imagined. I imagined that marriage would be blissful, but I did not understand what a blessing it is as well. God’s plan for everything is always the best, and I realize a little more every day how perfect His plan for marriage is.

Date night in downtown Craiova

So far during our marriage we have been through a lot. For seven weeks after we got married we lived with my parents and traveled all over the States for Sam to preach and give reports to various congregations. Then we moved to Romania and lived with Sam’s parents for a little while before getting our own apartment in Severin. Three months later we moved two hours away to Craiova to start a church here. We have been so many places, met so many people, and had so many amazing experiences together. We have also gone through some hard and stressful days and many, many tears (at least on my part!), but the hard times have just helped us draw closer.

When I look back on the past six months, at all the joy, smiles, and laughter, along with the stress and sadness I am amazed at how far we have come. We know each other so much better and we are remarkably closer than we were six short months ago, and that thought excites me. If I have witnessed so many blessings already, and I am learning more every day, I cannot imagine what blessings years of marriage must hold. I pray we will continue to draw closer to God and closer to each other, and that our marriage will be a tool in accomplishing God’s will for our lives!

Difficulties

by Julie Peters///Adventuring
“The wives are the ones who really go through the difficulty. They are the real heroes.” I heard this statement as one man was giving a missionary report. I thought, “What do the wives do? How can they be called the heroes?” Well, after the last 4 months I am learning what he meant. Living in a different country is disorientating. The culture is unusual. The way of life is unfamiliar. The attitudes are different. Julie is facing this all and I’m trying to help. Going through this, I have thought about how to think about difficulties and want to share some thoughts that have helped me.
 
Our first few months were difficult. At first Julie would share her trials with me and I would try to think of ways to encourage her. I know guys like to problem solve rather than empathize so I was trying to listen. Though I didn’t know what to say, it was hard for me to keep quite. I thought it would be more encouraging to say something wrong than to say nothing at all. I said things like “It would get better” and “God is our rock, we just need to trust.” Then some days got better and some days got worse.
Eventually my line “things would get better” had to stop because things weren’t getting better. It has been 4 months already and things are just as hard as they were before. Also, the line “God is our rock, we just need to trust,” had to go. First, if you know Julie, then you know she has trust and she is not lax about faith. Secondly, the line had to retire because it assumed with more trust everything would get better. This idea is dangerous because of its corollary: if things are bad, then you are not trusting. This is not true. This is not biblical. 
After studying the Lament Psalms in my seminary class this week I began to realize how comforting they are. In these psalms the writer tells God of his distress and then he calls on God for help. Calling out to God in distress, a kind of complaining, is biblical and it can be used as a device to depend on God. Sadly, we often portray faithful Christians as those who have everything figured out. Yet Lament Psalms show us we can be confused, feel hopeless, and still place faith in God. We don’t have to suffocate by the expectation of internal harmony; we can be have hope in spite of our strife. So I think the right way to think of difficulties is that it is okay. It is okay for things to be difficult. God will either take away the difficulty or he will give you the strength to bear it. People who overcome difficulties are heroes. While I am here in Romania, not suffering in comparison to Julie, I can say she is the real hero. She is conquering much every single day. 

Our New Home

by Julie Peters///Adventuring

We now live in Craiova!

We knew our contract for our current apartment ran out on November 3; so about two weeks before that deadline we began looking for apartments in Craiova. We did not know how quickly we would be able to find something, but thankfully we knew we could live with Sam’s parents again until we found a place.

One Wednesday night before our normal weekly trip to Craiova I looked at apartments online and made a detailed list of different places I thought would work, their addresses, price, and distance from the city center. But when Sam began calling the owners on Thursday morning every. single. one said the apartment was not available. I’m still not exactly sure what happened or why the apartments were still on the website, but maybe something was just lost in translation. After our study we got back on the website and began searching more, hoping to look at some places before we left since we only made the two hour trip to Craiova once a week typically. Sam found a listing that looked like it might work! The pictures looked nice and the description said it was very near the center, which is just what we were looking for! It was also in our price range, so we called the owner and we were able to make an appointment to go see it.

As we made our way there we were surprised at how long it took to get there, and it was not very near the center at all. The apartment was nicely furnished, just as we saw in the pictures, but it had a very heavy smoke smell in the whole apartment, especially in the bedroom. I was sorry to be picky, but I really did not think we would be able to get the smell out and make it work.

We still had a little over a week left though, so we made plans to try again the next Thursday.

However, on Monday Sam randomly decided to look at new listings on the website. I was in the kitchen cooking or cleaning and I heard him talking on the phone. He had found a new listing near the center, but there were no pictures. The agency working for the owner sent him a video of the interior and when Sam showed it to me I could not believe it. It was near the center, reasonably priced, and extremely nice! Sam called back the agency and told them we were interested, but there was already someone else who was scheduled to look at the apartment that afternoon. Sam told them that if he did not want it that we would be there the following day to see it.

The rest of that day and Tuesday morning was back and forth. The other man did not want it, then he did. Then the owner did not want to rent to him because he could not speak Romanian. Since we cannot speak very well either we did not think there was a chance of us getting to rent it. But Sam tried and sent an email to the owner, telling her our story of why we are in Romania, explaining our Romanian speaking abilities, and asking her to let us rent from her. The next morning the agency called saying the owner agreed to rent to us, before even having met us! We began packing right away and brought a load up to Craiova that afternoon.

We feel incredibly blessed for everything to have fallen in place so nicely and we are so thankful to God for answering prayers and helping us through it all!

Here is a tour of our new home!

This is the entryway/foyer when you first walk in the door.

This is our lovely kitchen! It is a little smaller than our last kitchen, but it is all really nice and I have enjoyed cooking in it so much so far.

This table can be extended to twice the length, so when we have guests we bring it into the living room and extend it, but when it is in the kitchen it is extra counter space while I’m cooking.

Here is our living room! Since we just moved here and we are just getting started we have been having worship services and Bible studies in our apartment. The spacious living room with lots of seating has been great for that and we are really thankful.

I also have my desk in the living room, which I have really enjoyed. If we ever need this table it can be easily cleared off and moved, but it is nice not having to clean up my books and papers for every meal.

This is Sam’s desk in our bedroom. He has also enjoyed having a real desk. So far this set-up has been working really well for both of our studies.

Here is our bed! We love our “Peters” pillow and tree painting with S+J on the tree.

So far we are settling in nicely in Craiova! Now that the apartment is all unpacked and cleaned it is nice to have a comfortable place to go while we are getting used to everything. We are still taking a trip once a week back to Severin to stay with Sam’s parents and meet with the brethren there. For the first two weeks we drove there on Saturday, spent the night and worshipped with the brethren in Severin Sunday morning, then come back to Craiova for our services at 5:00. Last week we traveled to Severin on Friday and Sam’s parent’s came back with us to spend the day in Craiova and return on the train.

Right now we are encouraged and excited to be here in Craiova and we pray our work here will be pleasing and glorifying to God!

 

Adventures in Language Learning

by Julie Peters///Adventuring

From homemade flashcards to learning websites to movies, books, dictionaries, and grammars, Sam and I have tried many different methods to learn Romanian. All at once.

All these methods were helpful. Sam could carry on a very decent conversation in Romanian, and while I was still afraid to actually speak it I could understand a lot of what I heard. Each time we had a Bible study I learned new Bible terms from my parallel Bible and I could pick up words here and there in conversation. The most helpful learning tools for me were making my own flashcards on Quizlet from a word list I got from Gabriel Wyrner’s Fluent Forever and using Duolingo and Memrize every day. It would take me about thirty minutes every day, but along with my online classes and everything else we had going on I felt like that was a decent amount. Plus I was exposed to it every time I did anything outside of our apartment.

In an attempt to get more serious about our learning Sam created a learning schedule for us. Every Wednesday he prepared a Romanian lesson on a topic such as articles, pronouns, verbs, etc, and it was helpful for both of us. We also each read a chapter in Colloquial Romanian each week and on Sunday night we did all the exercises from the chapter as our “test.”

This all worked well, and we really were learning. But it was still very hard. Sam was much farther ahead of me and could speak a lot more, but for me it was still exhausting to try to understand what I was hearing, what the verb tenses were, and what adjective form goes with what noun (and does it go before or after?). It was easy for me to get discouraged and think I would never learn the language or be able to connect with people. I would then go do my flashcards, learn a few new words, and continue with my day.

One night, as we like to do often, Sam and I made coffee and sat down to watch a TED talk. That night we chose to watch one about learning a new language from two guys who learned four languages in one year, three months per language. Their trick? Do not speak English. Even if you must look up every single word, do not speak English. This forces you to learn your normal vocabulary and become comfortable with it.

When the video ended I looked over at Sam and asked, “Nu Engleza?” (No English?). “Da,” he replied, “numai Romaneste” (yes, only Romanian). We proceeded to talk about our plan and determine what the rules and parameters would be (and we used Google Translate to speak in Romanian to make our plans) and decided that this was what we needed to learn Romanian. We could only speak in English in our bedroom on our bed, or if we are in a situation where we cannot go to our bed and we have something important to say. We have not stuck to this rule 100%, but so far we have been pretty close!

Although we have not been doing this experiment for very long we are already seeing the benefits. I am more comfortable with speaking Romanian when before I was much more hesitant to try to pronounce the words. We have found that some words and phrases are so natural for us to say that we use them even when we’re talking in English. It is still easy to get discouraged, but we are definitely learning a lot and staying encouraged most of the time.

Learning a new language is hard, but it is also very exciting!

Another Running Adventure

by Julie Peters///Uncategorized

Our latest adventure in running was a mountain marathon and semi-marathon (half marathon) in Baile Herculane, which is a small town about an hour away from Severin, where we live now. And it is beautiful. As we drove up on Friday night to pick up our race numbers and join many other runners for a pre-race pasta dinner I was amazed at the beauty of God’s creation all around me.

“Can you believe we live here?” I asked Sam. “We live right next to these mountains. It is so beautiful!” All this was before I even stepped foot on the racecourse.

Friday Afternoon

We spent Friday afternoon walking around and exploring the town before joining some friends for the pasta dinner near the race start location. That night we actually drove back to Severin instead of staying in Herculane overnight, but it ended up being best for us because we were much more comfortable in our own apartment the night before running.

Before the Start

Saturday morning came early and cold. I do not like the cold and I dread having to go outside if it is even slightly chilly, so I was not too excited to go run that morning. However, it was completely worth the cold, and it did warm up nicely that afternoon.

For the first two kilometers of the race marathon and semi-marathon runners ran together. At a little over a mile Sam and I said goodbye and split off into our respective courses. Then the adventure began.

Before this race I had been injured for over a month. A week before the race I began running with no pain, but I only ran 4 miles at a time. I was not planning on running the race because I had not put in the proper training, though I was happy I was over my injury! Thursday night before the race Sam and I were about to go to sleep and I said, “I think I want to run Saturday. Do you think that would be crazy?” My runner husband answered, “No, I think that would be great!”

As soon as I split off from Sam and began running on a narrow trail in the woods I thought I had made a mistake. I was running on a narrow dirt trail covered in leaves on the side of a mountain. Every so often the trail was slanted or covered with rocks and a slight misstep could send you sliding down the mountain. Normally I wear contacts, but recently I have been wearing my glasses much more often because I’ve been having issues with my contacts. This was also a mistake, I thought. Wearing glasses that aren’t even exactly my right prescription made it difficult to be able to look down so I wouldn’t fall and then look ahead to see where I was going. I prayed the whole time I was on the trail that I would make it in one piece! Although I came out with bruised knees, I did make it. Also, that portion of the race was only about a mile and I actually enjoyed most of the rest of the course.

The course was breathtaking. I constantly thought how I wished I could just take pictures of everything, but I also know pictures could not have done it justice. The course was difficult, with steep hills up the mountain that forced all the runners to walk, or perilous downhill trails fraught with rocks and leaves, making slipping or falling a very real possibility.

During the first part of the race I prayed that I would somehow make it through the race, but during the middle I prayed praising God for His magnificent creation. Although the fallen leaves made the trail dangerous, the fall colors on the trees and blanketing the ground added a special beauty to the experience.

The last mile of the race was rough. I was feeling the effects of not having run half as far in over a month and the last portion of the course was almost completely down hill on a rocky trail. I had to stop and walk to keep from falling several times and I was overjoyed to finally see the finish line! I finished in 2 hours and 28 minutes and I was happy to stop running!

My legs were hurting, I was cold, and I just really wanted Sam, but I was finished. After I got some water and something to drink I felt much better and I was able to sit in the sun and wait for Sam to finish. I made a friend who could speak English and we visited for a while, talking about why I was here in Romania, our families, running, and much more.

Sam’s course was much harder than mine, with twice the distance and twice the altitude. It was a tough run for him, but he finished! I was so happy to see him come around the corner for the finish. We were both just so happy to be finished and to be together again.

We were so happy to see each other!

We stayed around until 8:00 that night for the awards ceremony before heading home again.

It was a long day. It was hard and exhausting. But it was beautiful. Our God is an Awesome Creator.

Encouragement and Evangelism

by Julie Peters///Adventuring

“If you’re discouraged, go pass out some flyers. It is so encouraging to spread the gospel and work for God.” As Sam gave reports to congregations in America this summer he exhorted the brethren to find encouragement by working for God. Although I have not necessarily been discouraged lately, I have recently been encouraged by the spreading of God’s good news and the work done for Him in Romania.

Four evangelists from America made a two-week trip to Romania earlier this month and we were blessed to spend one of the weeks with them. It was a crazy, busy, absolutely full week. By the end of the week we were exhausted, but extremely encouraged.

Monday night the men arrived from Constanta, Romania, to Drobeta-Turnu Severin. We all met that night to share a meal, fellowship, and fold hundreds of flyers about the gospel. It was a wonderful, relaxing way to begin the week.

Folding Flyers for Brasov

The men spent Tuesday morning passing out invitations for the Gospel meeting that evening. I spent Tuesday morning cleaning our apartment and cooking lots of food for everyone to come over for lunch. All the preparation was worth it to have our living room full of people, sitting wherever they could find a seat, eating and enjoying one another’s company together.

The Gospel meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday night was successful, with many visitors, a full church building, and two great lessons each night.

We had a full building each evening!

We have continued to study Acts every Wednesday, and this Wednesday was no different. It was encouraging to have a larger group for the study and discussion!

Acts Study

Thursday morning two evangelists, one translator, and Sam’s parents began the long trip to Brasov where they spent two days passing out flyers, talking to people, and having a Bible study each night. The other two evangelists joined Sam and I in Craiova where we did the same thing.

On the way to Craiova

In preparation Sam and I had made several trips to Craiova, securing a room for the studies, passing out flyers, getting an ad in the newspaper, and putting up several posters.

“Would you like a flyer?”- Eugene and Sorin

The study was set to begin at 6:00 p.m. and at 5:55 we were still all standing outside, waiting for anyone to come. Trying not to be discouraged, we simply said we had done all we could do, and whether or not any visitors came we would still have a study. However, at 5:58 a woman walked up and asked where the study was. Soon after we began the study six more people walked in, and we were able to meet, talk to, and get contact information from most of them.

Taking a Little Break

Evening Study

We spent Friday in a similar manner; walking around the city passing out flyers and talking to people. That night we had five visitors, who were all different from the previous night. Again, we had two great lessons from God’s word and gained new contacts from people interested in the gospel.

Sunday morning all the evangelists split up to preach at different nearby villages and the church in Severin. Sam and I went with one of the men to the village of Lac. I had actually never been to a village before, so it was a neat experience and I’m thankful I got to go. Afterwards we enjoyed an authentic Romanian meal, then returned to Severin for services that evening.

The Congregation at Lac

Romanian Lunch

As I mentioned in the previous post, Sam and I are planning prayerfully to move to Craiova in about two weeks. Last year when Sam was facing some discouragement here in Severin he began doing some work in Craiova. To his knowledge there was not a faithful church in the city of approximately 300,000 people. Slowly the work turned into regular bi-weekly trips to have a Bible study in a local library on the gospel of Luke. Due to various circumstances and the way the work was going in Craiova, when Sam and I first arrived in Romania together we talked about moving to Craiova in the near future. We began advertising more and making more frequent visits, planning to move there in January after we return from visiting the States for Sam’s brother’s wedding. As the work continued to progress in Craiova and our current apartment contract was about to be finished, we made the decision to move next month instead.

These visits and studies have been extremely encouraging to us and we are excited to move and continue the work in Craiova. We understand that it will be difficult to move away from Sam’s parents and the familiarity of Severin, and try to start a new work from scratch, but we will only be two hours away from Severin and able to visit often, probably even once a week. With God’s help and wisdom and advice from others we are ready to begin this next step in our journey.

Casa Noastra (Our Home)

by Julie Peters///Adventuring

Recently I posted a question on Facebook asking what you all would like to read on our blog. Thank you so much to everyone who answered! We will try to write a post on each suggestion.

I know I posted several weeks ago that we found an apartment and I posted a few pictures, but here is an official “tour” of our home. We were so blessed to find this apartment. We found it quickly, it is bigger than we expected to find for our budget, and our landlord let us sign a contract for only three months.

The first couple of days after we signed our contract and began moving in were a bit overwhelming. We love our apartment, but it is pretty old and when we first moved in it was very dirty and there were several things we did not realize were broken. We went room by room, moved things around and scrubbed every surface, then we moved in our things. Now every time I clean I get things just a little cleaner than before. Also, we have been blessed with a great landlord who has been so prompt in repairing everything for us. Our first week we were almost constantly having repairmen at our house, but now everything works very well and we are thankful!

Our three month contract for this apartment will be up on November 3, and we have decided not to renew it. We have been thinking and praying about it for some time now, and we are going to move to Craiova, a city about two hours away from Severin. Before very long I hope to have another post to share with you about our new home!

Here is a tour of our home.

This is our hallway when you first come in the door. We live on the top floor of our apartment (third floor) in apartment nine.

Here is our living room/dining room/office! Sam uses the desk on one side and I sit at the table. All my things fit in a basket, so when we need to eat at the table I just move it somewhere else. This is where we eat when we have company, and a lot of the time Sam and I will also eat at this table if I’ve been cooking for a while and the kitchen is hot.

Here is our kitchen! I was prepared to have a tiny kitchen, but we were very blessed to find an apartment with a really nice-sized kitchen! I love cooking in it every day.

Here is our kitchen table we also eat at sometimes. When I took this picture a while back (not long after we moved in) Sam had just given me some flowers 🙂

I learned to cook in a nice kitchen with a gas stove, and I remember telling Mama I would have to get used to an electric one because I did not expect to have a gas stove any time soon! However, I am excited that our apartment has a nice gas stove! It does not have an electrical starter, so we keep a lighter in the cabinet above it. There is a big gas tank in the cabinet next to the stove, so whenever I want to cook or heat something I twist on the gas and light the stove. There is also a little door in the bottom of the oven that I open to light the fire in the bottom if I ever want to bake something. There is no temperature settings and I still haven’t gotten an oven thermometer yet, but so far I have been to bake potatoes, muffins, and bread with no problems!

I brought several little things over here that people have given me and they definitely help our apartment feel more homey! The towel on the oven was given to me by a a wonderful couple Sam and I stayed with as we traveled all over the place this summer. The apron (you can see it better in the first picture) was given to me by my best friends Cassie and Bailey, and Bailey also made me the potholders hanging to the left of the stove as a wedding present. Finally, the little embroidery hoop hanging above the sink was given to me by my sister Olivia. She made it for me for being in her wedding. It has little embroidered cacti and it says “Live Simply.”

Here is one last picture of our kitchen. I love the shelf above the sink where we keep everything in canisters, such as rice, beans, oatmeal, mamaliga, and coffee.

Here is our bedroom! My cousin gave us the “Peters” pillow as a wedding gift, so we used that to choose our bedding. Olivia painted us the picture hanging above our bed and gave it to us last year when Sam got to come visit during winter break. It is a tree that looks like it has a heart carved on it with “S+J” in the middle.

This is our home! We have enjoyed it so much, and I know it will always be special to us as our first apartment together.

~ Julie Peters