It's Sunny in Romania

Us at the front of the church where we meet with deaf members.  Beautiful church!

Our backyard view. 

Our reading.  Alex just finished Wizard of Oz, and Alexa is halfway through "IKTMIT"

Outside our apartment, we found this horse-drawn buggy!  There's a few around here.  Romania!

Visiting the deaf church leader, Szaby Mate.  He's the key to our feeling welcome in Timisoara - we can't imagine being here without him and his wife, Angela.

At the Mates' home.  Bible verses are written on the wall, in Romanian language!  We brought apple pie with vanilla ice-cream - very American food - and they loved it!  That's Szaby's wife!  She's a teacher for deaf kids at a deaf school here.  Next blog will have more information on that deaf school.

En route to visit a family 2 hours away from Timisoara, They have 5 deaf children and are very poor. The Mates' always bring them food so they asked us to join them this time. The drive was a bumpy one!

Finally out of the city

Jesus is loved by many

Ema, the Mates' daughter.  Playing on our iPod!

Ah, another horse-drawn buggy!  On a highway full of speeders.  

The town where the family lives, its practically right next to the border of Serbia.  

Stuff we bought for them, their daily needs which consists of potatoes, plenty of oil, flour, sugar and of course, candies for the kids. 

Shy, but friendly.

One of the houses.  Most of the houses in Iam looks like this.  

Haulin' food!

All the kids are deaf.  They are very sweet.  They are not orphans, but they are very poor.  Iam is a very isolated village, and they eat maybe one meal a day.  When we came here, we really thought of how blessed and easy we have it in the United States or Canada or even Timisoara.  Are we thankful for the country we were born in and the kind of life we had growing up?  

The five deaf children. Four of them go to school and the last one on the right does not but we saw that he was being encouraged to go by Szaby so we hope he does decide to go back to school.

With their dad, on the right, and another hearing sister and her baby, on the left.  The whole family lives in a single room with two beds and a stove to heat up the room.

Saying la revedere.

Their front door.  The house is in bad condition, and might fall apart in a few years.  If you want to help this particular family out, e-mail us at aa@odeafo.com and we might be able to make arrangements with the Mates for them to be able to deliver extra food or supplies.  

The long road back home.  Very bumpy.  You can see the dirt road.  Restrooms?  Outside!

 That's all for now!  We just visited church and it went well.  We are visiting a deaf school tomorrow, but we got word that it might be difficult to take pictures of the kids, but we will try our best to do that.  There are two deaf orphans in that school, so we are excited to meet them.  

God bless!