Cook-out, wedding and cast free!

 This past weekend, I attended Sami & Irina Crisan's wedding in Sebis, Romania. On Thursday, I travelled with the Bunacius and Stocks to Almas. Almas is Oti Bunaciu's mother's home village so we went two days early in order to spend sometime with his family. Oti spent many summers in this villages with his cousins and maternal grandparents and was a wonderful tour guide of this rustic village. On Friday, Oti's family exposed us to a Romanian cook-out at its finest. There were micis (Romanian sausages), pork fillets, chicken, kebabs, home-fried potatoes along with some vegetables. Smoked pig fat is a popular cook-out food in this region of Romania so I proceeded to eat some melted over bread and it was delicious but probably not very healthy :).

On Saturday, we attended the beautiful wedding and reception of the Crisans. The wedding itself was gorgeous with loads bright flowers and precious flower girls. The wedding reception consisted of a 5 course meal complete with wedding cake served at midnight. During the reception, some of the guests played a game that was sort of like a scavenger hunt race meets musical chairs. For instance, if there were 10 guests playing and the first nine back to the chairs with a wallet that was not their own progressed to the next round. The loser had to do something for the couple during their first year of marriage and were assigned what to do (example: take them to a movie in April).

Since returning to Bucharest after the wedding festivities, I have been working on the documents to obtain a residency permit. Aside from doing paperwork and running all over the city with Mishi to get signatures and stamps for this, my Romanian language studies have taken high priority because of my increasing frustration with not being able to communicate very well with those I come in contact with. Today, for instance, I have spent about five hours memorizing the definitions and correct Romanian spellings for the hundred vocabulary words in my Romanian textbook for this week. Now it is time to get started on the grammar sections... joy!

This evening, I went to visit Nicu and his family because he had his casts off while I was gone to the wedding. He seems really happy to be able to move his legs again. His mother is confident that he will be walking well enough to return to school on September 12. Currently, he is walking with the aid of a walker but should be able to, according to the doctor, stop using that in a few days. I will be checking up on him as school approaches to see if he will in fact be able to come to school without physical aid.



The cook-out crew



Prayer Concerns:

- Nicu as he learns to walk flat footed for the first time & praise that he is doing well and has no infection!
- Faculty, staff and students of Ruth School (school starts September 12th)

- my residency permit :)