Before we were going to talk together, I wanted to write down some thoughtful questions about their beliefs. Questions I wanted to know, questions I think others would like to know so I got my pen out and jotted them down. I wrote down questions like, “How do you explain the gospel of Jesus Christ?” “How do you authorize your worship? Bible? Creeds? or Tradition?” and “What is the biggest threat to your church today?” I had seven questions in all. I kissed Julie. Then I started walking down the apartment steps.

My friend Adrian scheduled this meeting for me after I told him I have been trying to talk to an Orthodox priest without success. He was the translator. Walking into the church was not the most welcoming. It was quite dark and candles were lit. The painting of the saints covering the walls seemed were dark, flat, black. There was a girl in the corner with her head on a shelf and her hand on an icon. She just stood there leaning.

Mihai, the priest dressed in his priestly garb, quickly approached us with a nice smile on his face. Adrian introduced me, we put some chairs in a circle and started the conversation. “Ask whatever questions you have.” “Okay,” I replied. “First, what is the gospel of Jesus Christ?” He looked at me for a moment. “I cannot explain it. It cannot be explained. Only God can explain it to you. Just read the gospels and epistles and it will be explained to you, if God wants to. Paul explains it very well in his epistles.” “Okay” I replied, “but you cannot give me your own summary?” “Ok, God is love. God is light. God want you to have peace and not be in turmoil.”

I then wanted to know how the Orthodox church saw protestants. “What do you think about protestants?” He replied, “they are in the dark about many things. They went to far when they left the Catholic church. Catholics are extreme in that they glorify Mary too much, as they think the Pope is infallible, as they don’t allow the Pope to get married.” “So do you think protestant or Catholics are saved?” “I do not judge, only God knows,” he replied. Then he told me a story. “You know, once a Orthodox priest and a drunken bus-driver died and went to Saint Peter. Peter let the bus-driver into heaven and sent the Orthodox priest to hell. And the Orthodox priest cried, “Why” and Saint Peter said, you preached too many sermons and people were just sleeping. But the drunken bus-driver lead 23 people to heaven when they prayed for their lives.”

“When I walk around town passing out fliers in search for an opportunity to present the gospel, some Orthodox believers call me a “pocăiți.” What does that mean?” Looking a little embarrassed, he explained slowly and carefully. “It means a person who repented. It can mean a good thing, like when someone turns to God. But people use it also for people who leave the Orthodox faith.”
The last question we talked about was the topic of studying the Bible. “This was one of the extremes of the protestant movement,” he said. “The Pope is looked to for truth for Catholics.” “The people are to study the Bible for their truth for the Protestants.” Then he brightened up; “the Orthodox stay right in the middle. We want the people to read the Bible, but the explanation should be left to the priest, who has studied it in college. Just like a patient goes to a doctor for medicine, Orthodox Christians go to the priest to hear the meaning of the text.”

Mihai had to leave the conversation for 20 minutes to bless some food for a walk-in believer. After he returned we concluded our discussion with the main threat of the Church. “What is the main threat for the church today?” “Peace,” he replied. No one has peace today and that is what everyone looks for. And because they don’t have peace, they aren’t able to live right. It’s like a tree which can’t bear fruit because the winds are pressing against it. The world needs peace. With that, I asked if we could talk next week about worship, baptism, singing, and icons. Lord-willing Adrian will visit Mihai again next week.

Sometimes I cry. A lot. Almost every day.

Sometimes I ask myself again and again what I am doing, because sometimes I have no idea.

Sometimes I feel stuck in the middle of stress and there’s nothing I can do.

At these times I have to slow down, stop, and remind myself that this is my dream. I am literally living my dream!

I think it is typical of most young girls to daydream about their Prince Charming and the perfect wedding day. I had my whole wedding planned out when I was 14 (and I used 0% of my 14-year-old ideas!) and I had a picture in my head of my “ideal husband.” I prayed that if it was God’s will that He would show me my “ideal husband” and we could get married and live happily ever after.

Now I am living my dream and so much more. God more than answered my prayers and gave me the perfect husband for me, at a time when I was not even expecting it.

When I met Sam (although I had determined NOT to have anything to do with guys my first year of college) I was blown away. I can remember praying to God that I had no idea if He was answering my prayers and this was the one, but if he was I honestly could not imagine anyone better. He went above and beyond every item on my “ideal husband list.” As a senior he was always so kind to me, a freshman who was terribly homesick and had no idea what she was doing in college. The more I got to know him the more amazed I was, and I remember thinking that if nothing ever worked out for the two of us, I didn’t think I could ever like another guy; no one would ever match up. We began dating second semester of my freshman year, and a year after we first met each other Sam got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I was beside myself with joy and I did not hesitate for and instant to say yes. I had known for a long time that Sam was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. This was my dream.

Our long-distance engagement was difficult, but we survived and had an absolutely perfect wedding. Even though it was nothing like my early teenage fantasies, it was my dream wedding, mostly because I got to marry my dream guy.

Now I get to live with my best friend every single day. I get to wake up beside him and tell him good morning instead of texting him. We get to eat meals together, study together, run together, and everything! We still look at each other sometimes and say, “I am so glad we get to be together now. Living with you is so much fun.”

I am living my dream.

Beginning when I was in about 8^th grade my family started reading lots of missionary biographies for school. The first one I ever read was about Hudson Taylor, and we went on to read countless other stories of missionaries to tribes deep in Africa, India, China, England, and many, many other places. I was so inspired by all these stories and it became somewhat of a secret dream of mine to become a missionary someday. I remember thinking it would be more difficult to do it on my own, so it would be better if I married someone who was willing to be a missionary and we could go together.

Now I am here, married to my wonderful husband who was a missionary in Romania for nine months before we got married, and we are missionaries here together. Being a missionary in a foreign country is certainly not as glamorous as perhaps I imagined as an eighth grader. It is much harder than I anticipated living in an unfamiliar country, surrounded by a different language, a different culture, and lots of people who are not readily accepting the good news we have to share with them as much as we would like. But I am learning so much. I learn from watching my husband work tirelessly every day, studying, thinking of new ways to reach people, and going out and talking to others, spreading the Gospel. I am learning so much patience. I am learning to trust in God like I never have before. I certainly have not learned any of it perfectly, and I am still learning every day, but it is truly such a blessing.

I am living my dream.

All my life I have wanted to be a mama. I have gone through phases where I was not sure if I wanted to get married or not, but I have never questioned whether or not I wanted to me a Mama. Dolls were my favorite toys growing up, and I absolutely love doing anything with babies or little children. They never fail to bring me so much joy! I grew up with an absolutely amazing Mama who taught me so much, and she inspires me every day to be like her.

These days, I really have to remind myself that this is what I want to do. Some mornings I lie in bed feeling extremely nauseous, just wishing it could go away. Some days I see Sam cook for me and himself, do dishes, and go out of his way to do anything to make me more comfortable, and while I am incredibly thankful for it, it is hard for me to watch him do the things I feel like I should be doing. Some days I am so exhausted I feel like I’m failing because I can barely keep our apartment clean and getting out to go anywhere is a feat.

But it will all be so worth it, I know. Whenever I feel like complaining I just have to stop and remind myself what it is all for! Sam and I are so excited for our child and we pray every day that we will be godly parents and lead him or her to the truth by our words and actions. We pray we can grow the Kingdom through our family. And if we can accomplish that with God’s help, it will be more than worth it. I cannot wait to be a Mama

I am living my dream.

Hello readers! We have fallen a bit behind on blogging, but hopefully we will be back in the swing of things soon. It doesn’t seem like we’ve been up to much lately, but here’s what has been going on in our life the past couple of weeks!

This is a picture of us before setting out to run some errands. We both wore our backpacks this time because we had a lot of grocery shopping to do. Now that we live in Craiova the grocery store isn’t just five minutes away from our house! The nearest small store is about 12 minutes away, but if we need more than just apples or cabbage we walk to a bigger store a 20-30 minute walk away. Carrying back the groceries for such a long walk is much easier in backpacks!

Yesterday we went running errands again and Sam brought his GoPro that he got for Christmas. We want to record little everyday things, like walking around town, so we won’t forget.

Every week we have been traveling back to Severin to visit Sam’s parents. We have been going on Monday morning and returning Tuesday afternoon after lunch. We have enjoyed these visits so much! It is always so nice to visit together and get to relax a bit. Usually Sam will go around to see people or run errands and Sam’s Mom and I get to study together. We haven’t gotten to visit yet this week due to various reasons, but we plan to make the trip tomorrow!

Every Sunday and Tuesday night we meet to worship here in our apartment. I bring in chairs from all around the house and get out songbooks, Bibles, and prepare the Lord’s supper (on Sundays). We pray, sing (usually in Romanian, but sometimes in English too, depending on our visitors), and either Sam will give a sermon or lead a Bible study. Lately we have been having 2-3 visitors each time we meet and we are extremely encouraged right now about the work here.

This is one of my favorite hymns in Romanian, “Suntem fraților pe cale.” It is the same tune as “O Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” which we actually sang at our wedding. The Romanian words translate a bit differently, but here is a very rough translation (hopefully you can understand the thoughts/ideas; it is quite hard to translate it word-for-word smoothly!):

We are, brothers, on the way

To the promised land.

God with his strong hand

He leads us as he said

 

Chorus:

Aleluia! Aleluia!

Let it resonate

Up to heaven to hear

That he rescued us.

 

Once we lived in sin,

But Jesus forgave us

And he showed us love

And forgave us all our sins

 

When we end this life,

God will receive us

He will then put us in the right

Where we will rest.

 

 

 

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!

 

 

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!

 

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!

“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.

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