Feeling odd...

Hello from Romania!!
At the moment, I'm writing this from a computer where everything is all in Romanian so I'm trying to figure out if I should press "publicare postare" or "salveaza acum" to publish this. Oh well, it's one of the two! But this is not the only place where I'm feeling lost. Being in a country where you don't hear any english around you is hard to get used to. Having Stef around who remembers bits of the language is very helpful. But I should start at the beginning!
We flew out of Vancouver 8:30 Sunday evening to London. I thought I would sleep on the plane but unforutnatey that did not happen so by the time we got to London, we were exhausted. We had to wait 4 hours for our next plane to Bucharest which was delayed in this area where they only put the gate number up 5 min. before your flight so you have to be ready to run when they post it. We did managed to make our flight and after that plus a long car ride with a relatively tame driver compared to a lot of Romanians, we made it to Romania at 2 am on Tuesday morning. Stef and I figured by this time we had not slept for over 32 hours so we crashed at our apartment and ended up sleeping for the next 12 hours without realizing it. It's a very odd feeling this jet lag. This afternoon we walked around Brasov with Steffi (one of the project managers here), her foster daughter Becca and her sister. She showed us where to get groceries as well as the tourist places and restaurants to go to. The architecture of the buildings here is amazing. They look so old and beautiful. The street where everything is has no cars on it, it's just a cobblestone road with shops on either side so it's really fun to walk down. And the food here is really cheap as long as you don't buy American brand name. We found this out the hard way when we bought a tub of butter for .75 while our Honey Nut Cheerios cost over 6 bucks. It's hard to get used to the money here as well as 20 000 lei only equals 1 doller but on the bill it only says "2" instead of 20000. I'm still trying to figure it all out.
Tomorrow we'll start our work in the orphanage in the morning which I'm really looking forward to. We found out it's illegal to take cameras into the hospital though so I won't be able to bring back any pictures of what I'm doing! kind of unfortunate but it's understandable. I got a little taste of what the kids are going to be like when we saw Becca this afternoon. She's already 2 and a half but Steffi said when she was 1 and a half she was still wearing 3-6 month size clothing. She's very very tiny.
Speaking of tiny, the Romanian people are very short and very small so I'm feeling like quite the oddity being here. Some of them look at me funny sometimes but oh well. It would be worse if I was blond. You look down the street and there are absolutely no blond heads unless they are dyed. there is definitely a Romanian look.
Well, I'm going to go try and get some sleep if possible. We've been forcing ourselves to stay awake even though we are exhausted so we can actually sleep through a night. I'll give you all an update soon! love you all,
Deanne

1 week and 2 days until take-off!

I have decided (along with the rest of the world it seems) that blogging is a much easier feat to perform whilst travelling as opposed to mass emailing. And so, I have fallen to the wiles of the blog. This blog in particular will keep you updated on the more exciting aspect of my life - my trip to Romania and Greece - as opposed to the not so exciting days of everyday living here in Abbotsford.
I can't believe we leave in a little over a week! It's actually starting to become real. I'm getting nervous (slightly), scared (well not really), and excited (a lot) as I think more and more about it. I still don't have all my support in, I still need about $600. However, I have no doubt in my mind that God has amazing things in store for me on this journey and he WILL provide. I'm doing my best not to worry about this aspect. As I've discovered in my short life so far, God likes to teach me patience and utter trust in him by waiting until the absolute last minute to make things happen. My nerves are usually shot by this time, but at least I'm learning to not depend on myself for anything. I think the rewards are worth the frayed nerves.
My friend Stef, who I am travelling with, was able to raise more support then she needed so we are also going to be able to bring along a hockey bag full of diapers and clothes and things for these babies! I'm so pumped that we could do this. This is something they also definitely need.
I would ask that you keep me in your prayers as I leave this week. Flying overseas is always a little bit sketch and I get a little antsy sitting for that amount of time! Also, i know that these two weeks with these kids is going to be heartbreaking for me. As I've found in the past, sometimes I find myself caring a little too much and in doing so, set myself up for pain later on. It's going to be difficult coming home to my comfortable North American life and leaving these kids where they're at. Pray that I will find the strength and know how to deal with all these things as they come up.
Well that's about it! Keep in touch everyone. Tell me what's going on in your lives as well! I love you all,
Deanne