December 29, 2009 - Tuesday -
Hey readers, Lydia here. I haven’t written myself on our
blog for a long time! But I thought I would share a very
interesting, slightly disgusting, and somewhat funny event
that I took part in the week before Christmas.
Twas the week before Christmas, when all
through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a
mouse… Oh, wait, wrong story. :-) The week before Christmas
my boyfriend’s family invited me to come along to their
annual family gathering when they kill their pig. This is a
tradition for Romanian families during the Christmas season.
I was slightly nervous to go as seeing animals killed isn’t
really my “thing”, and I knew that I would be completely
surrounded by Romanians forcing me to eat who-knows-what of
the pig.
When I first arrived at the
great-grandmother’s house I was greeted by a large Romanian
family in a small living area (country houses are typically
two or three rooms including the kitchen). I praise God for
the ability to speak and understand Romanian that He gave me
during this time and for the patience of the family. So, I
was greeted by the family and then immediately put at the
table to eat sarmale (cabbage rolls). There was lots of
conversation before everyone went to bed early as everyone
had to wake up at 4 in the morning.
At
around 6 in the morning, after all ready being up for at
least an hour and preparing the pig to walk down death-row,
the pig was brought out and killed. (I dared my boyfriend
that before they killed the pig he had to say some loving
words to the pig. He actually did it! His family all looked
at him and told him to shut up and get out of the way. :-) )
Here they do not use a gun. Instead they slice the pig’s
throat. Of course this causes the pig to squeal and squeal.
Thankfully my Betsy (as I called the pig—my brother informed
me however when I got home that Betsy is a cow’s name… oh
well) did not squeal very much. I watched the actual killing
of the pig from a window as it was well below zero with 3+
inches of snow on the ground outside.
The
next step was to torch the pig’s skin and clean the skin.
Then they cut the pig up. First they cut off the head and
the legs. Then they cut a chunk out of the pig going down
the back that included the tail. Next, they got all
of the
innards from the pig. All of this and the meat and skin were
taken to the kitchen to be prepared for food.
I didn’t get to help much in the kitchen
as
the kitchen was the size of a typical American bathroom and
the women of the family needed to be in there as they
actually knew what they were doing. Carna
ţ,
cardabos (types of sausage) were made, and they used the
intestines as the packaging for these. Most of the innards
were put into a very large boiling pot. I did not see what
they specifically used all of these for, but I did eat
liver. No, I did not like it. :-( I also ate pig brains.
Surprisingly, they tasted good, but the texture was exactly
what you would expect of brains, and they sort of melted in
your mouth before you could chew. This was not so pleasant.
This whole process started from around 6am and lasted until
around 7pm.
The family’s farm also had cows, sheep,
chickens, horses, and rabbits.
I did not see the horses and
rabbits, but I did enjoy the cows and I even helped lead the
sheep out onto the pasture.
Throughout
all of this, conversation, laughter, jokes and some playing
in the snow was everywhere. It was a truly Romanian cultural
experience! I won’t be forgetting this. I had a great time.
Lydia
December 28, 2009 - Monday -
Last evening was an historic event in Arad, and we had the
privilege of being part of it. To back up a bit, last year
Paula had a God-prompted idea of getting all of the
"independent" (meaning not part of the Pentecostal, Baptist
or Orthodox denominations) to join together for a united
celebration of Jesus' birth. We were able to get all of the
pastors together to talk about the idea, but in the end just
two of the 6 churches chose to participate. We were thankful
for this small step, but we also saw firsthand how difficult
the issue of Christian unity is in our particular area of
Romania.
Fast-forward one year. This year one of the
pastors that participated last year approached me (Scott)
about trying another united Christmas celebration. So
wanting to honor his initiative, he and I put together a
meeting of the pastors from five churches. It was way too
late in December to be starting such a thing, but it was
still worth the effort. To our pleasant surprise, the
pastors and leaders of all five churches wanted to
participate! A meeting was held one week later to put
together the details of the service to be held on Sunday
evening, December 27.
One of the pastors has good relations with
the Arad city government (relationships are everything
here), and through him God gave us favor...we were
allowed to use the city's beautiful
"Cultural
Palace" (where
the Arad symphony plays weekly) for our gathering. One church's
band played the opening worship set, children from our own
Emmanuel church played their chimes piece, another church
presented a drama, I preached, another church's band led in
Christmas carols (Stephen repeated his guitar solo...got it
on video this time!),
and the pastor from another church
gave the closing blessing. And during the fellowship time
afterwards both pastors and people were saying, "This was
great. We should do this more often."
The whole evening was a great success...and
hopefully one more step towards more mutual appreciation and
cooperation among churches for the cause of Christ. Rejoice
and pray with us! Scott
December 26, 2009 - Saturday -
Ahh, the day after Christmas ("Boxing Day" as our British
friends call it)...unlike the busyness of post-Christmas
shopping in the USA, it's a fairly quiet day in Romania.
Some of the Oaza teens are spending the afternoon at our
house, baking in the kitchen (homemade stromboli for
dinner...Yum!) and playing video games.
We celebrated Christmas Day with stockings
and gifts at home in the morning, and Paula roasted a whole
turkey for lunch (we can buy them frozen now in the stores).
Later in the afternoon Paula, Lydia and I stopped by Oaza's
Shalom house to visit the staff and kids while Stephen went
to the Adoram church to play guitar for their Christmas
evening service.
Christmas Eve was full of Christmas
preparations, from food to wrapping. In the afternoon we
were invited to the home of Lydia's boyfriend to meet his
family and exchange some simple gifts. We met them for the
first time this past Sunday when they joined us at church.
We enjoyed their traditional Romanian hospitality and
getting to know them...and doing so all in Romanian. How far
we've come in four years!
Later that evening we went to the Adoram
Church's (the church planting where I've been teaching)
Christmas Eve service. Most of the service was performed by
their children's ministry, but the Adoram band opened the
service with some rock'in Christmas music and some cool
lighting to match. In this video clip, Stephen is standing
behind the lead singer (there are a couple of brief glimpses
of him), and the electric guitar sound is all Stephen. He
even opened the song with a guitar solo, but because he
didn't tell us that he'd be doing this, we didn't have our
video ready! He's our humble kid, never looking to draw
attention to himself. We were and are very proud of him.
After the service, I rejoined the Adoram
group (Paula was sick so she chose not to go) for some
traditional Romanian Christmas caroling. Caroling here is a
VERY important tradition, and it often lasts all night. We
began caroling at 10:30pm, I bailed and went home just
before midnight. I was then awakened at 2:30am with a phone
call: "Wake up, we'll be at your house in 5 minutes to sing
to your family." :-) I know they had several stops to make
after our house...the Romanian way for Christmas!
Last Sunday at our church (Emmanuel), our
children presented their Christmas program. The following
video will give you a flavor of the chimes, but there was
also singing and a drama about the meaning of Christmas.
Paula and others had worked with the children very hard the
2 weeks prior to last Sunday, and it showed in the kids'
performance. Bravo! Scott
December 24, 2009 - Thursday -
Merry Christmas Eve to all our blog readers. There has been
much going on in these last couple of weeks...we've had no
time to write about it. We are remembering the Romanian
Revolution that happened 20 years ago this week. Here's a
video of a newscast 20 years ago... Scott
December 8, 2009 - Tuesday - We
have just released our latest newsletter. You can find a
printable pdf copy
HERE,
or you can follow this
LINK to view it online. Scott
December 2, 2009 - Wednesday -
Yesterday was
Unification Day in Romania, a national holiday. It is
similar to our own July 4th Independence Day in the USA.
Click on the link to read the history of how Romania came to
be as it is today.
Stephen
continue to play rugby with one of Arad's two club teams.
His team has yet to win a game, but he is having great fun.
This past Sunday's game was the muddiest yet (as evidenced
by his cleats in this picture). For anyone who has played
American football, you know how much more fun it is to get
this muddy in the process :-) Scott
Thanks for stopping by for a
visit. We arrived in Romania in January, 2006. After
several years of ministry in the USA, God has given us an
opportunity to come alongside some great people in Romania who are
living for Christ and wanting to share Him with others. God has
called us to help extend, through leadership development and church
planting, what He is already doing in Arad,
Romania and beyond.
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