Zoie and Ashley realized they used to be best friends when they were 4 years old.

Everyone is exhausted by the time we boarded the last train of the trip.

Here are some pictures to go along with the post from yesterday. I am sorry if they don’t seem organized. I have trouble figuring out how to lay out lots of pictures on the blog.

A nice dinner with the Henolds. They have Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew in Romania.

A good gathering for church in Baia Mare.

The kids kept a journal of what they did throughout the trip.

Fried dough on a roll at the Christmas Fair. Very tasty.

The kids swam several times at the resort pool.

Silas, Zoie, and I went into town on our own for a few hours one day.

Our accommodations at Petnehazy Resort in Budapest.

Eating lunch at a local Burger King

All together on one of the many public transportation rides. This was the subway.

Dan gave his testimony at the church we visited in Budapest. Afterwards the Prangers fed us a wonderful lunch.

Silas loved the Hungarian goulash we had at the restaurant Monday night.

By 8:30 a.m. the following Saturday we were out of our resort and on the road again to catch the cross-country train to Debrecen that would eventually connect us to Baia Mare, Romania.  We got to Debrecen with about 3 minutes to get the connecting train to Romania, and we jumped in the train and found an open compartment to settle in before taking our second breath. When we handed the steward our tickets she informed us that we had only paid for the tickets and not the reservation fee. The ticket agent never even told us about that fee, so we had to shell out some more money to make peace with the steward and be allowed to stay on the train. We are pretty sure it wasn’t a bribe, like is so common in this part of the country.

We were greeted at the train station in Romania by the Henold family, and grabbed a bite to eat at McDonald’s before going to the house and crashing for the night.  During the week we had 3 opportunities to pass out John/Romans; twice in Baia Mare and once in Sighet after we visited the Communist Resistance Memorial Museum, located in a former prison where the resisters were held.  Our first Sunday in Romania we went to the gypsy village where the Henolds are trying  to get a church started. We had a good turnout the for the service, and a solid gospel message was given.  It snowed hard the second weekend we were in town, which made the mountain roads difficult to traverse.  Dan was looking forward to preaching that week, but instead of going to church we listened to Pastor Sowell’s message on the internet.

Other than Silas getting his foot caught under the car at the science museum, our trip home proved to be the most dramatic part of the entire vacation.  We weren’t sure what kind of connections we could make at the Romania/Ukraine border, so we thought our best bet was to take a train back to Debrecen, Hungary and then up to L’viv.  So our journey started at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning, the 22nd.  By 9:30 a.m. we arrived at Debrecen with no trouble, but through a series of events we ended up having to hang out at the train station all day and wait until midnight for the next train to the Ukrainian border town. To make a very long story short,  in the dead of the night, with 6 sleepy children and lots of baggage we changed trains 3 times, until finally, at 5:30 we caught the train (almost missed it) for the final leg of our journey. God blessed by allowing us to have the compartment mostly to ourselves, letting everyone stretch out and get some real rest, and giving us some beautiful scenery through the Carpathian Mountains. Just about 40 hours after we started our return trip from Romania we finally arrived in L’viv. A taxi driver gave the Bardwells a great deal to take them home from the train station, and I had a quick and easy trip home on the bus. Overall, I think our trip was a success, and I praise the Lord for an opportunity to “come apart and rest awhile.”  Check back in a couple days and I will have added pictures to the story.

For the time being, all food service places are required to wear masks.

It was reported to be everything from biological warfare, to the pneumatic plague, to simply a campaigning ploy by the top political leaders. After the smoke has cleared and the information looked at, it appears that Ukraine, especially the western part, was hit by 3 different strains of the flu virus, including the swine flu, or California flu, as they call it here. One of these viruses quickly attacks the lungs and it can take a life very quickly if not attended to immediately. At this time of year and in this part of the country the death toll is higher than usual. It seems that everyone you talk to has family or friends, or knows someone, who was sick or died from the flu. Just this week my next-door neighbor was found dead in his apartment as a result of the flu. By the grace of God, none of the missionaries in L’viv have fallen sick, and we are taking measures to stay healthy. We didn’t have kids’ club or English club for a couple of weeks because of the quarantine, but school is back in session next week and our ministry schedule will be back to normal. It has been a blessing to hear our church members testify how they have been able to speak of Christ and the peace he gives in these times of life’s uncertainty.

We got our needed information at the station from a very cheerful and helpful young lady at the desk. NOT! Customer service still needs some work here in Ukraine. Even our trip to the restroom was an adventure, but I will not go into details here. After finding beans at the bazaar and finding out that we didn’t need to visit one of our church members at the hospital because she was coming home later we decided to stop at the coffee shop for dessert and a “much needed cappuccino”.  After ordering a very delicious looking struedel the waitress returned to tell us that they didn’t have any more. Our replacements were delicious and we were rested and refreshed after walking several kilometers since  starting out that morning. Time will not permit me to recall the events that Laurel and I encountered separately as we split from each other and headed home.