Krazy Kim's Spring Kapors

“April showers bring May flowers” as well as summer and many other exciting things for this missionary. I kicked off the month with the celebration of the death, burial and triumphant resurrection of our Lord. I spent the weekend with the Oana family in Oradea and experienced a truly Romanian Easter celebration. Daily church services starting Thursday night, neighborly visits when every treat imaginable is exchanged, traditional egg decorating and of course, a lamb dinner. (I even went to choose the lamb and watch the slaughter. What a reminder of what the Lamb of God suffered!)

This picture shows how we use Easter eggs in our celebration. Tradition says that one child exclaims “Hristos a-nviat!” (Christ has risen!) and the other will respond “Adeverat, a-nviat!” (Truly, He has risen!) Then they will click their eggs together in celebration. This tradition is based on the idea that when children in Israel heard the news of Christ’s resurrection they joyfully clicked together the eggs they had just gathered doing chores. In Romania, this same greeting exchange then replaces Hello for the next 40 days (until the celebration of Pentecost). I truly enjoyed the whole Easter weekend and relished the time I spent singing and chatting with many young Christians who celebrated the sacrifice of their new found Lord.

After Easter, for the first time, I celebrated my birthday in Romania. The Lord truly made it special by moving many of you to send cards, emails or packages as well as a few cherished phone calls. I was able to go out for Chinese, make American pizza and celebrate with my Romanian friends in a new language. What a multicultural birthday!
I continually praise God for the many friends He has given me here to add to my cherished ones from home. I truly felt loved as they all were used of God to physically demonstrate His love and care for me.

May has also been a terrific month of consistent language progress. By God’s power, I am able to understand most things and function in normal conversation. I’m beginning the Intermediate step of language study now which includes more grammatical specifics so I won’t sound like a 5 year old for the rest of my life.

Learning the Romanian culture has also been a high priority in my learning. This last weekend, I was thrilled to participate in a 3 day Cultural Conference at my school. This conference not only provided a time for 24 missionaries encourage each other, but also provided a valuable supplement to our cultural learning. Lecture topics ranged from Romanian history to what Romanians think about missionaries.

The weekend started with a tour of where Romania’s revolution began here in Timisoara. It was truly sobering to hear about the events of that first week especially since our tour guides we actually here participants. You have to remember that everyone here ages 16 and older actually lived under Communism and remember those days of oppression and suffering. It makes me even more grateful for my American heritage and I am humbled by what others suffer for the name of Christ. I pray that we never forget to pray for our Christian brothers and sisters around the world that continually suffer for the name of Jesus Christ.