Wowsa, I finally did it! I finally took the plunge. Into what, you say? You may be asking what’s going on?
I am finally in Romania! My dreams have come true! I am no longer working on the Parent Vision Trip, but I’m here looking for my own place to live and learning the language and everything! It’s so crazy! As you are all aware (or hope so), God has told me to pick up my life and move it half-way across the world and place it down in Draganesti-Olt, Romania. I thought leaving would be so hard! In a sense it was. It was hard to say goodbye to my family and friends. However, I’ve always been one who could never settle in one place. Since I was little, I have always wanted to travel and see the world. When I found Romania on the World Race, my heart in a sense beated more than it was used to. There were signs that I had been praying about a team and they showed up in Romania. The prayer was that my team would be made up of many different countries. (RESO Ministries has 6 Romanians, 3 Canadians, 1 Moldovan, 1 British, 1 German and now me, 1 American.) Another thing I had prayed for confirmation was that not only would they work together, but that they would be family. They would have Christmas as a big family. They would invite each other over for dinner. You know, family. Not just the body, but F-A-M-I-L-Y.
So yes, I am here! I apologize for not blogging about leaving and everything, but it was such a busy time and couldn’t get everything done. Let’s send this one out first. My last day at Starbucks was September 6th. Haha…the expression on my face was very much about excitement…no worry, no sadness, no anxiety. This was the Saturday before I left. The next day, I had my going away party at a beautiful location. Madison has a couple isthmuses. One of them is called Picnic Point. Picture below. It was so nice to have friends and family come and show up. I did try to make gogosi, which are Romanian doughnuts, but I’m not all the way there yet. After the party, a couple friends came over to help me pack and clean out my apartment. Let’s keep going….from moving out, I ended up running errands like a crazy woman all day the 8th-getting rid of everything I didn’t need or trying to spend it getting things I would need. From there, I ended up going to Chicago, as I have family there and my ticket was bought out of O’Hare. It was so nice to see my family before I left. It seemed so surreal that I would be flying out in less than 24 hours for at least 2 years in a foreign country. This was Monday, September 8th.
The Big Day
I wish I could tell you that there was this big send off or this big welled up amount of emotion. Let’s be honest….I was truly excited! I wasn’t nervous or afraid or anything. Going through security: same emotions. I was at peace. Nothing was going to stop me from getting to Romania. And then takeoff: emotions started to come. It was hard, friends. Take off and finally leaving the USA was really a challenge. It finally hit me all the faces and names of people I wouldn’t able to simply text them saying hello. I was overjoyed when I finally landed though… 😉 We’ll leave it there until the next blog 🙂
