Wedding Bells or Wedding Honks?

Summer is a time for weddings and when you live on a small town's main street you are witness to many.  Our apartment is located on Marghita's main street directly in front of one church and two doors down from another so we have had our share of weddings in the last two weeks.  Yet the first one was definitely the most memorable.  A few days ago Todd and I were in our apartment just relaxing after work in Casa Alba when all of a sudden we heard a drum beating.  Well, we didn't quite know what it was at first, but we soon found out the sound we heard was a drum.  We followed the sound to our balcony, which overlooks a church, and saw a drummer, accordion, and saxophone players for a wedding.  We watched as the happy couple left and the wedding party followed.  We thought it was a pretty neat and that it was all over.  Boy, were we wrong!  About five minutes later it seemed as if the whole town was ringing with the sound of car horns honking.  Turns out that it is a Romanian custom to have all the cars in the wedding party go through town horns blazing to announce the new marriage to all who can hear.  Now I'm all about love and sharing a special moment, but when you live on the main street and there is about five weddings on any given Saturday you just don't care past wedding number two.  Enjoy the pictures below of our first Romanian wedding experience.

First Casa Alba Shift

Friday was our first Casa Alba shift. For those of you who are not familiar with Casa Alba, it is the foundation-run orphanage that holds a little over twenty children. The children range from ages three to eleven and are divided into four rooms according to their ages. We work primarily with pink room (Camara Roz) which holds the youngest children, all around 4 years old.

We decided to visit them the day before, Thursday, just to say hi and let the kids know we were here so it would not be a shock to them (especially Alex) when we showed up to work the next day. It was so neat! As we walked up to Casa Alba, the children were upstairs and could see us through the windows. They started yelling, "Todd & Rocio are here! Welcome Todd & Rocio!" They were all so excited to see us, even Alex! It amazes and humbles us when things like this occur. It's incredible to be part of these childrens' lives and have them care about us as well.

On Friday we had the afternoon shift and it was a blast. Yet we can't deny that it was EXHAUSTING! We try to blame it on the jet-lag but perhaps the fact that neither of us were ready for the energy of 5 four year olds during seven hours is closer to the truth. We kept them busy though. We took a walk to the local park and even had fun playing dress-up. Enjoy some of our pictures below!

Diana, Georghe, Gina, and Cerasela being themselves outside Casa Alba

Walking to the Park

Alex all dressed up

2 Planes, 1 Taxi, and lots of luggage

We made it! We made it! Can you tell we are excited? After months of planning and praying we are finally on Romanian soil. It was a long trip, just over 28 hours to be precise, but a good one. We were so excited and grateful that we got all our bags in Budapest. It's always a toss up there. We spent our first day battling jet lag and getting our bearings around town. It was quite a shock going shopping in Marghita. Inflation has really hit. Things are nearly the same prices as at home and some even higher. We definitely were not expecting that. It was nice to spend time with some of the other missionaries today and see what has been going on. The next few days we hope to settle in and do some much needed maintenance on our apartment before work at Casa Alba starts Friday morning!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Today is the day! The bags are packed, tickets in hand, and sad goodbyes unavoidable. Yet we are so excited to finally head off to Romania and start our ministry. Please pray for us as we embark on this long journey over there. We are traveling with lots of luggage (six bags, two carry-ons, and two laptop bags) so please pray that we arrive to Marghita safely with all our bags. Thank you all so much for all the love and support you have brought us so far. We will write again as soon as we are settled in.

Commissioning Service

This past Sunday, The Vine Church (our sending church) had a Commissioning Service for us. I know some of you were unable to make it so we wanted to share a little bit about it with you. For those of you who do not know a Commissioning Service is when people are set apart and anointed for a specific work in the Church. In our case, we were set apart and anointed to be The Vine's first missionaries. It was an amazing service! Neither of us knew what to expect since we had never attended one. Towards the end of the service Pastor Aaron had us go up and he spoke to us about our calling. He then prayed for us and anointed us with oil. After that he told us that we were going to do our first bit of ministry today. At that point, my stomach did a flip. I kept thinking, "Wait, I didn't sign up for this," but at the end it was an amazing blessing. He told us we were now to pray and lay hand on the congregation. He had all the men and women who wanted prayer line up. I prayed for the women and Todd for the men. Pastor Aaron was so wise. Both of us had never done it before, but know it is something we will be doing a lot in our ministry. By having us do it in our home church with those we know, it took the fear away. It was such a humbling moment to pray and lay hands on those we love, especially our parents. After the service, we had a great time with everyone during our good-bye lunch. The tacos were especially amazing! Below are pictures to show you how the day went. We are both so blessed and grateful to have such an amazingly supportive home church as well as family and friends who love and support us as we step into this next phase of our lives. Thank you all so much!

Pastor Aaron giving us words of wisdom.

The anointing

Praying for the congregation

Expressing our gratitude to the church