I'm here!!!

Well I am finally using this blog for what it was originally created for! I hope my previous blogs have entertained you until now...I arrived in Romania around mid night Tuesday (4 pm tues in Ar). I was greeted at the airport by Bro. Dave, his wife Melissa, Drew Foot, and Joy Wilson. Drew and Joy had stayed with Dave a couple weeks ago and were back with him for a few days. 

The trip over was interesting and did not go as planned. My flight to Chicago was great. Got to chat with some other guys from Sheridan headed on a mission trip to India. This was very encouraging. After arriving in Chicago, things got rather, boring. I had about a 4-5 hour layover there which consisted of dinner (alone of course) and a lot of sitting around and reading. When I finally left Chicago and headed to London I was thinking sleep. This was the first part that did not go as planned. I only got 2 maybe 3 hours of sleep on the almost 8 hour flight. When I got off this plane my plan was to spend my 6 hour layover in London out exploring. This happened to be more complicated than I expected and I really wasn't feeling like it after little sleep anyway. I napped in the London air port somehow, and also got a lot of reading done.

After arriving in Bucharest it was a 2 hour drive back to Puchoiasa where the Manary's live. It was so good just to be in the car with them and Drew and Joy because I hadn't had a single conversation with anyone since the guy from Sheridan on the plane to Chicago. When we arrived at the house it was about 2:30 am here and it was time for bed. So my thoughts were, I haven't slept hardly at all, I'm about to crash. Wrong. I lied awake until about 6 am here (10 pm AR) and finally fell asleep.

Wednesday we took it easy until later that afternoon. Dave, Drew, Joy, Jessica (oldest Manary daughter), and I loaded up and headed 2 hours across Romania to the Brasov area where their church camp is. I got to drive all the way there! Oh, did I mention this route was tons of hills and hair-pin turns? AND I drove a stick shift(Thanks Michael Clark for teaching me how!) Here we met up with Bro. Jim Black and his daughter Hannah. Needless to say I crashed early knowing we had a day of work the next day. That work was mainly made up of moving a fallen tree (no small tree) as well as some mowing/weed eating that needed to be done. We ended up staying 2 nights there before heading back to Puchoiasa this morning.

This afternoon Bro. Dave's long time prayer of owning a 15 passenger van finally came thru! We went and picked one up today! It was such a blessing to him and his family. There is nothing better than being here and seeing God supply their needs on His timing. The faith of this family is shown in everything they have done thus far.

Tonight was awesome! My first of many Manary Family Nights! It was filled of prayer, singing, and reading the Word. Oh and topped off with some Banana Splits and "The Empire Strikes Back"!!! It is such a blessing to immediately feel apart of this wonderful family. I can already see that when my 5 weeks is up it is going to be extremely hard to leave.

Hope this post helps clear up where I have been the past few days! I am sure I will be updating again in a few days! Thank you all for your prayers. They mean more than I can ever express! God bless you all!

John 3:30

In Him,
  Lawson Albey