Psalm 107:1 - “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
Dear Family and Friends,
I am very tardy in reporting back to you after our trip to Germany because I am disappointed to tell you that they worked on our car for five entire days and did not fix the problem. The automatic transmission was totally rebuilt but we told them in the beginning that was not the problem. Because they did not repair the problem, we did not have to pay the $2,200 for rebuilding the automatic transmission so that was a blessing. They even sent the car to a large VW dealership service center to be put on the computer and they still could not find the problem. I said to the mechanic, “If I am in the motherland of Volkswagen and they can’t find the problem, I am not sure I have hope left that it can be fixed.” He replied, “Sure we can. You just have to leave it for at least ten days until we can take all the electrical components out.” Daniel informed them that we were leaving that very afternoon and that they needed to put the car back together. They did so and we drove that night through hail, rain, sleet, and snow. I am not joking a bit! We did find out that there is possibility it can be repaired for free by VW if it is determined that our car has a manufacturer’s defect. Our mechanic in Oradea is trying to work all of this out for us now but we still have no definite answers.
We did have some fun stopping along the way to get our car fixed. We spent a night in Mondsee, Austria, the sight of the beautiful church in the “Sound of Music” where they had the staircase seen. We also spent one night in Salzburg seeing the sights. In the end, Daniel refused to do the “official tour” of the “Sound of Music” sights because he thought it was too pricey for us. So, we took a map and set off along with our friend, Lauren Peckman, who we picked up in Vienna after she flew to meet us from Greece. Lauren kindly took this photo of Daniel pretending to sing to me in front of the mansion where they fell in the lake in the movie. We had fun posing for her!
The next stop was in Fussen, Germany to see the world famous Neuschwanstien castle in the state of Bavaria, Germany. We were not disappointed by the beautiful interior of the castle but the extremely dense fog because of the weather made it impossible to take a photo of the entire thing so I have included one from their official site along with one that we took of the entrance. It was so beautiful done and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to finally see the original “Cinderella’s castle.”
We are thankful to The Lord for all the safe travel and for protecting me when I took a bad fall in Salzburg. (Long story that I am too embarrassed to share!) We prayed for His presence to guard and protect us and we know others were praying as well so we thank you so much!
We were happy to get back home to Romania and see our employees. Here is a great photo taken of our family at Agape Home and all five boys.
The house father, Viorel, is pictured far left and his wife, Rodica, is pictured on the bottom with their two children. The rest are our boys and if you go back and look at the first photo I sent out of them, you will notice that they have all gained weight in the last six weeks!
I had no idea that teenage boys could possibly use as much hair gel as they do. Oh my! George has now been converted to a hair gel user as well as you can see from the photo. (He is the one standing directly behind Rodica.) Our social worker, Alina, informed me that she thought she would loose it with them the day she took three of them to buy new sport shoes for school. I had warned her that boys were far more difficult to shop with than girls and she informed me I was right. It took them hours to decide on shoes!
Our truck donation total is now up to $19,704 so we still have some left to go before we can buy a truck. We are getting very close and we thank all the people that have so generously given.
We are so excited about the speaker system we were allowed to put in the Maternity hospital to play classical and instrumental worship music through a MP3 player for the abandoned babies in our Arms of Mercy project! All of the speakers are mounted now and the wiring is done and I downloaded some music yesterday to see how it will work. There are currently 11 abandoned babies in the section where we have our workers. I would love to be able to send you photos but I am not allowed to take photos. I will, however, ask permission to take a photo of our workers holding a baby with only the back of the baby’s head showing.
Okay, I think I will end for now as this has turned out to be much longer than I anticipated.
We hope everyone in the USA has a blessed Thanksgiving celebration. May The Lord bless your families abundantly and may your heart truly be thankful to The Lord for all He has done.
Basking In The Son,
Michelle
Mark 10:45 “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Posted on November 20th, 2007 by Michelle
Filed under: Michelle's Journal