I Think I'll Go to Washington Part 1

You know, since the last time I saw that boyfriend of mine was in March. Last Wednesday I got up bright and early to fly up to Tri Cities to spend a week with Tad and his family.

My trip got off to an interesting start thanks to a mix up with security. The man standing on the other side of the metal detector either didn't understand that when Valencia set off the alarm he could just check her, or was too lazy to do so. Thus, a very flustered me got patted down and wanded. My flight went smoothly. I was fortunate enough to have been seated next to a man who trains search and rescue dogs, so he's used to flying with dogs at his feet.

I had a two hour layover in Salt Lake City, enough time so I could relieve Valencia and get some lunch. Valencia's favorite part of the SLC airport was getting to ride on the little carts they drive around. We rode on one to get out of security to relieve her, and another when I accidentally went to the wrong gate section. She thought that was the best thing ever.

I got some lunch from Quizno's and found my gate. I happened to meet an older couple whose daughter has raised dogs for gdb. Flight from SLC to Pasco went well and Tad picked me up. When we got back to his house, it was discovered that the crockpot had not been plugged in. So dinner was out at a Mexican restaurant. after dinner we went to youth group at tad's church. He helps out with the kids, and is a general punching bag/tackle target for the boys, lol

Following youth group (about 10) we went over to his friend Paul's place. I finally got to meet Paul and another friend Theresa. We hung out, talked, and I watched them play DDR.

Thursday Emily drove down from Spokane and we went out to lunch at Red Robin. It was great to see Emily again, and Red Robin is always a tastey lunch option. Poor Tad though got patronized by our waitor. *every 5 minutes* "Do you want a box?" "No, I'm just a slow eater." "Oh, no worries man, me too." oh goodness

After lunch we piled into the Tilden's minivan and set off for Seattle. We arrived around 7 and met Tad's Uncle Dave at a restaurant called Thirteen Coins. His uncle was really nice and seemed to like me, which we always count as a good thing. By the time we were done with dinner it was time to head over to our hotel and get to sleep.

In the morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and made our first stop of the day at Uwajimaya, a giant Japanese food/gifts store. I picked up some Pocky and Mocchi and looked at their paper lanterns. When their bookstore opened Tad and I took a quick look through there.


I do love me some Pocky :o)

We met my Aunt Diane at Duke's Chowder on Lake Union for lunch. It was great to see her again and for her to meet Tad and his family. The Hastings and Tilden families are quite alike in personality and humor, so everyone got along great. Mrs. Tilden's favorite thing to do in Seattle is browse through the giant Good Will Outlet store. I tend to be a bit germaphobic, so I didn't do much looking, though I did find a cute mini deck of Hello Kitty playing cards.

Once the Good Will shopping was done it was time to head back to the Tri Cities. We stopped at the SuperMall outside of Seattle and then at Jack in the Box in Ellensberg for dinner. It was on the way home that Tad was given the new nickname "Puddin Head" by his dad. ;)

Saturday we had a leisurely morning and lunch and then got dressed up to go to a wedding at Tad's church. He and his family have known the groom (Jake) for years at church and Tad knows the bride (Heather) from NNU. Needless to say, he was very excited to have so many of his friends from home AND from school in the same place. The ceremony was beautiful, had I not been wearing mascara I probably would have cried through most of it.

The reception was in the church gym. They had icecream, punch, and cake and cute little bride and groom rubber duckies. I got to see several of Tad's friends who I had met before and meet a lot of new ones. Favorite moment of the wedding was probably when Tad's sister Jeana caught the bouquet.


so cute!


me with my love


Jeana with the bouquet

We had dinner at a nice Chinese place, came home, changed, and headed out for another party. I finally got to meet Tad's other friend Lindsey, a birthday buddy for me. Theresa, Paul, Trevor, and Jason were there, as well as friends Molly, Kyle, and Jessica (Paul's girlfriend). There was some volleyball and badmitten played, some hanging out and talking, and bbqing. Later, after it got dark, we hung out in the basement and some people watched a fiarly inappropriate sounding movie. Before we headed home we stopped with the group at Safeway and got mini Ben&Jerry's icecreams.

It was great meeting so many of Tad's high school friends. Though it's sad that most of them aren't Christians, and it sounds like they've had pretty rough lives. Makes a lot to pray for. :)

Adventure Chronicles of Becky, Krista, Lindsey, and Valencia

I made my third trip this summer up to the LA/OC area on Saturday to hang out with my favorite Biola roommates Becky and Krista. The plan was to meet in San Juan Capistrano, have lunch, do some shopping, and hang out at the beach. We accomplished some of the plan, but mostly just had fun. :)

Valencia caught a very crowded train in Solana Beach thanks to an Angel's game that afternoon. Fortunately, being disabled gives me a better chance of actually securing a seat, which we did. The girls found me without any additional trouble or too much getting lost, and we drove down to Dana Point. We decided lunch would be a good thing to do first. No problem, we'll just drive into town and find a place to eat.

Well, beach towns tend to be very spread out, and a little sparse on the shopping centers. All we managed to find was a shady looking taco stand, a Quizno's, and a Big Lots. We opted to head back into San Juan Capistrano, which proved to be difficult since we couldn't find our way back to the street we needed. Oh well, at least we were together.

Once back in SJC, we quickly found a nice Mexican place. Lunch was good and we ahred a flan between us for dessert, yum! After lunch we drove back down to San Juan Capistrano Park Beach. It was beautiful and not crowded at all. We got to spend about an hour playing in the waves with Valencia and finding pretty stones and shells in the sand.

Desiring to not repeat my last train fiasco in Orange County (see "California Adventures" for more info) we made it back to the station with about 15 minutes to spare. We crossed the tracks, like I always do when I go south on Amtrak, and looked around at the shops there.



Taken right as my train pulled up about 40 feet away. No problem. I waved a quick goodbye to the girls and ran to hop on. Except...uhoh. The door I ran up to wasn't open. "hmm, that's odd" I thought. I started running down the train to the next one and found myself in gravel, sloping down, making the door (which was not open) too high. "Crap! I'm on the wrong side of the tracks!!!"

San Juan Capistrano barely has a station. There is only one track and only one platform, and we were definitely on the wrong side. A very nice man offered to help me run around the train, but he began running to the front, and there was no way I was going to cross tracks *in front of* a train that was about to leave the station.

Thankfully, my friends were still there. I ashamedly called home and said I would be on the next train, and then we went to cool off and wait at a donut shop a couple blocks down.

And I definitely made sure I satyed on the correct side of the tracks the second time. I think two missed trains means I'm done with trips to LA for the summer :o)

5-31 Alfa & Omega Church

Sunday was a nice restful day for us. The service at Alfa & Omega didn't start until 1:00, so we had some chill time in the morning. After breakfast Matt led us in worship and Alan led a short devotional. Then we loaded up and drove into the city. Bucharest is a lot calmer on the weekends. There aren't people commting into the city for work, so traffic is a lot lighter. The church meets in a building they rent in a multipurpose type room.

The service started with our first concert as Symphonic Winds in Romania. In this way it felt a lot like a typical Winds tour, except all of Mr. Feller's program notes had to be translated :o)

Abe and Rachael Mitchell gave their testimonies and then the sermon began. I really liked the pastor. If I could always have a translator with me I would totally go to that church. He spoke on James 1, which can be applied in any culture. It was definitely interesting on this trip being on the receiving end of translation. After the sermon was worship, and oh my goodness. I wish every worship session I was in was like that. There was so much passion for God in that place, and so much community.

It kept striking me, as we were singing the English words to worship songs they were singing in Romanian, that that is a small glimpse of what eternity will be like with all nations together. There was even one song that I happen to know the words to in Spanish, so we had some trilingual action going on there, haha

By the time the service ended it was almost 3:00, so we skidaddled over to a mall (different from the one on Saturday) for lunch. The clarinets shared a margarita pizza from "Springtime" in the foodcourt. Apparently in Romania they eat ketchup on their pizza, because they were automatically giving it to everyone, but they asked us if we wanted it.

I also took advantage of the gelato stand nearby and tried chocolate and watermelon. I would for sure have both again. yum!

There was time upon return to the team house for a quick nap before heading out to fellowship with the church members at a local park. Parks are very important in Romania because most people live in block houses with no backyards. Their parks are enormous and quite beautiful with lakes and trees and lots of roses. Most of the fellowship time was playing volleyball and soccer, neither of which are my forte in life. I sat and watched people's purses and chatted with Brinn and Krista.

Brinn is a veteran H2H team member. She and her friend Katy were on their 8th trip to Romania. Krista is a new H2H staff member who just began a 2 year stay in the country.

We left the park around 9:00, had a driving tour of "Bucharest at Night", and returned to the team house for a light dinner of pasta salad and homemade chocolate donuts, lol! We had nightlight, skipped hot seat, and went over job assignments for the children's day carnival.

5-30 Jim's "Revolting" Reveolution Tour

You'll see why the H2H staff nickname it the revolting tour by the end.

Breakfast was special this morning. Friday night they told us to be in the dining room half an hour before we usually were, or we'd miss out. The surprise was a H2H tradition: bomblets! Omelets made in freezer bags. You put the eggs, cheese, and other desired omelet ingredients into a freezer ziplocks, mix well (done by squishing, rather fun actually), and drop them in boiling water for 15 minutes. It's amazing, easiest omelet I've ever made, you should try it!

Once our bomblets had been consumed, we took advantage of having all of our group back together again and had rehearsal in the dining room. lol After lunch we headed out for Jim's tour. We started at the music hall in Bucharest, which is beautiful. Jim started off by telling us about Romania back 200 years ago. They were a strong nation economically thanks to agriculture and flourished artistically.

It was at this point that it started raining, which made things more exciting. But you can't have a trip to Europe without a little rain. We walked the couple blocks from the music hall to Revolution Square. On one side of the square is the old palace, which is now an art museum. Jim explained the events of the revolution to us.

After WWII the Russians took control of Romania. The people were miserable, forced to live in the enormous block houses and work 13-14 hour days. In the sixties Ceausescu, a Romanian with a 4th grade education, rose up and offered that he would lead Romania for the Russians. He promised that under his leadership the people would flourish again and prosper the Russians more than they were at the time. The Russians agreed and pulled out of Romania.

Work conditions did grow better for the Romanians. Ceausescu built thousands more block houses and set up a strict routine for his people. They would get up, go to work, come home, watch an hour or two of TV with their family, and then get to bed early. TV consisted mainly of Ceausescu giving a speech with the same 5 points every night.

Things changed for the Romanians though after Ceausescu spent some time in North Korea. He came back a different leader He began referring to them as "my dear children" and increased the length of their work days.

At the start of the revolution Ceausescu had been giving a speech about a week after a massacre of praying people in a town in the north. The square was so packed with people that there was hardly room to move. A group of people began shouting about the massacre, and because there were so many people, the secret police weren't able to reach them to silence them. The whole square became an uproar. Ceausescu and his wife were airlifted out and tanks came in, blocked all exits and opened fire. Mass chaos. The buildings in the square still have visible bullet holes in them. A couple of the buildings have been patched, making it look like scars.

The Ceausescus were caught and tried as enemies of the state and were executed Christmas Day 1989. That's within my lifetime. It's incredible to think these things happened while I was alive. It was a very disturbing day for me, I can't even begin to imagine what life that way would be like. I wonder now what things are going on in the world that we will only find out years from now. My mom said that they knew things were bad in Romania, but they didn't know any more than that.

It breaks my heart that there are things happening in the world, in Sudan, North Korea, Afghanistan, and so many other countries, to innocent people, that I won't hear about for another 10 years. By the time we hear about them, they'll be over, and it will be too late to help.

"Sometimes God breaks our hearts to show us a piece of his." Jen Schroeder

We spent a little time in Revolution Square and then drove past the People's Palace so the brass could see. Our final stop on the tour was the Church of the Patriarch. The Patriarch in the Eastern Orthodox Church is sort of like the Pope in the Catholic Church. Each country (I think, don't quote me on this part) has their own Patriarch. The Patriarch lives in a house behind the church. It was a gorgeous church, but it's sad how dark these old European churches feel.

At the conclusion of our tour, we broke off into several groups for some free time. My group went to the mall :D

The mall we went to happened to be the largest mall in Erope. Rnadom right? Who would have guessed that Europe's largest mall is in Romania? Not me! It wasn't set up too different from an American mall. The things that stood out were the very European styles in all of the store windows and the smoking. I hated the smoking. I don't know if I could ever live in Europe because of that.

We got to do a little souvenir shopping, which consisted of us crowding around one little kiosque. The rest of the time in the mall, I was in this Walmart like store called Cairfor or something like that. I bought a great deal of chocolate. Our shopping complete, we headed back to the team house for a bbq (done inside thanks to the rain) and hot seat.

5-29 Oldtown Bucharest and More Lessons at Peris

Morning devotionals Friday were appropriate for the work we were doing (not that there wouldn't be a devotional that was appropriate) "Found, Called, Adopted" Important thing to remember when working with orphans, we're all adopted. Jim mentioned that some of the older orphans have expressed a deeper understanding of faith because they can more easily make the connection of being adopted than we can.

Explorations of Bucharest continued with the oldest standing section of the city. We saw St. Anthony's church, the oldest church in Bucharest. The architecture in Romania is incredible. It's quite unlike anything I'm accustomed to; "beautifully unique is how I've been describing it. There are intricate paintings that cover the ceiling depicting Bible stories and beautiful stained glass windows. Something cool about all Eastern Orthodox churches is that they have 3 domes on top to represent the Trinity.

We walked through a town square where there was a statue of Dracula, after all, Transylvania is a region of Romania ;)

Around the square were a number of shops, which meant some souvenir shopping time. I bought three beautiful painted eggs and some postcards from one and then went to the glass shop up the street. Romania is known for their glass, crystal, and porcelain. I would have loved to buy some crystal, but even with the exchange rate in my favor, it was too expensive. I did buy a small braided porcelain bowl. It has small pink flowers painted on it and says "Made in Romania" on the bottom.

Lessons at Peris were made interesting thanks to a sudden rain shower that sprang up as we arrived. Most of us and most of the kids were mostly wet, lol. That didn't matter too much though, plus, it was an exciting day. The queen woke up. That was really exciting, seeing how happy the kids were. We played some humns for them, taught them how to play "Hot Cross Buns" on mini recorders, and gave them paper crowns to decorate.

Play time Friday was slightly gross thanks to a lot of wet dog poop on the play area. Pretty sure everybody changed clothes as soon as we got back to the Team House

Dinner was a cheerful affair, thanks to the return of the brass from Rossiori. We had a much more lively night light, hearing about some of what the brass had been up to, and then moved quickly on to hot seat.

Two favorite hot seat moments of the night:

*Abe's Turn*
Matt Fell "If had to marry someone in this room, who would it be?"
Abe "Erin or Andrea"

*Andrea's turn*
Matt Fell "Would you marry Abe?"
Abe "Hey! You have to at least let me ask myself!"
Matt "So ask her"
Abe "Andrea, will you marry me?"
Andrea "yes Abe, I'll marry you."

And

Stephen "I can be decisive, sometimes."

Goodness I love band people :)

California Adventures

The ticket you get when you go to Disneyland on your birthday is a two-fer, which means you can go back and go to California Adventure for free within 30 days. Amanda said she'd go with me if we went on a day her pass wasn't blocked out before she started her internship, which was today.

I caught the train in Solana Beach just befor e9 and met Amanda in Fullerton a little after 10. We drove down to Anaheim and made our way to the park. It was a beautiful SoCal day for us, and not too crowded. I snagged an exit pass and a "Just Graduated" button. I don't know if I can go back to not walking around Disneyland wearing a button that merits a "congratulations" haha

We went on Soaring over California and California Screaming right away. I hadn't been on CA Screaming before, it was a lot of fun. It has great drops, and a loop that was actually enjoyable. We went through the bakery and tortilla factories there and got samples of sourdough bread and flour and corn tortillas. I ate the sandwich I had brought for lunch and we shared a delicious chocolate shake.

Since it was getting quite warm out, we thought going on the rapids ride would be a good idea. We shared our "raft" with this cute family from Davis whose son was very excited about everything. Upon leaving the ride sufficiently wet, we went on the Monsters Inc ride, very cute. We squeezed in one last ride on the orange spinning swings and took a few pictures.

Now comes the added adventure. We forgot to account in the time it takes to walk from the park to the parking lot, so we ended up leaving about 10 minutes before my train was to leave. Needless to say, I missed my train.

Well that's fabulous.

The next train wasn't for 2 hours, and I needed to be home before then so I could get ready for community band, hmm. time to be creative.

I then remembered that Dave was going to be in Orange County that day doing stuff for the fall. Time to swallow some pride and pull out the cell phone.

"Hey Dave, where are you?"

I was in luck, he was still in Orange County. I ran into the nearby convenience store and got him a large diet pepsi as a thank you, and Amanda drove me down to Anaheim to meet him. He drove me the rest of the way home and it was actually quite an enjoyable ride home. We talked about a lot of different things and discovered some mutual music tastes.

I made it home about the same time I would have had I caught my train. Band was quite sleepy for me, but I made it. And oddly enough Dave picked me up from band too. (He had been on his way to the video store and mom asked if he would stop by to get me on his way home).

Another delightfully fun Disney day.

Speaking of Disney, I saw Up last week with Raelene and absolutely loved it. It may now be in the runnings to be tied with Nemo for my favorite Pixar movie. Pretty sure I cried as much as I laughed in it, but it has some great messages. I was also able to use my Coldstone birthday coupon, which makes anything even better :)

5-28 Open Air Market and Lessons at Peris

Morning devotionals on Thursday were out of another Max Lucado book (they are big fans of Max Lucado, I think I should get some of his books, I've never read very much of his stuff) "Grace for a Moment". It described all the things hands do, and how everything your hands do should be ministry.

Cultural experience for the day would be the largest open air market in Bucharest (possibly in all Romania, I don't remember). We were informed that this would be the most likely day we would get pickpocketed, were that to happenon the trip. Thankfully it did not. Since a group of 15 Americans would draw too much attention, and we would inevitably get separated anyway, we divided into smaller groups. I was with Amanda, Andrea, and Sanda (our translator and guide).

The market reminded me a lot of the ones I've been to in Mexico. Jim mentioned later that most open air markets are the same no matter what part of the world you're in. A difference I noticed between the Romanian one and Mexican ones really surprised me though. The Romanians don't barter over prices. I tried on a lot of cute skirts, but didn't buy any because most were way too small for me. It didn't matter much that there wasn't price negotiating because everything was so cheap. I bought 2 mugs and a wooden spoon for 10 lei (about $3.50 American).

After lunch at the team house, it was back to Peris for more lessons. The classrooms are a surprising contrast to the rest of the orphanage. The orphanages receive funding from two departments: child protective services, and the department of education. The department of education does a lot more for the children than the child protective services do. The classroom was small, but clean with desks and a chalkboard and several computers.

We taught the same lesson to two classes: 1st and 2nd grade and 5th and 6th grade. There's a pretty wide age range in the classes though. For our lesson we introduced the children to the clarinet and taught them about musical tempos. Katie Feher made up this amazingly cute story to teach the lesson through, kind of like Peter and the Wolf. It was about a little girl who met a bird (flute) a cat (clarinet) and a bear (saxophone) while walking through the forest. The animals taught her about music, and through what she learned she was able to wake up the queen who had been put under a sleeping enchantment.

I got to be the queen, though I didn't do much, because the little girl didn't yet know enough music to wake her. The kids gave lots of suggestions to try to wake me. The cutest one was to ask nicely, and the little boy came up and asked me very nicely (in Romanian) to wake up. The funniest came from a 12 year old boy named Aline. Aline and his twin Florine are two of the more difficult children at the orphanage, they get themselves into a lot of trouble.

The previous day, when the queen didn't wake up, Aline suggested that they kiss the queen. Fairly standard method of waking sleeping royalty. Well, Katie asks "are you volunteering?" Wrong child to make that suggestion to. Aline got up, walked over, and gave Rachel (the queen on Wed) a very long kiss on the cheek. This story at Night Light Wed night prompted Jim to make the new rule: No making out with orphans.

In any case, since we were a different group of ladies on Thurs, Aline thought he should make that suggestion again. "Perhaps we should kiss the queen" As soon as Sanda translated that I began panicking, oh snap, I'm about to get kissed by a 12 year old Romanian orphan. Luckily Amanda was looking out for me and quickly said "oh, but you tried that yesterday and it didn't work, remember?" Thank goodness for friends! haha

We played several clarinet quartets for them, which they loved and kept asking for more. Florine even told us that he wanted us to play forever so they could fall asleep to music. Then we handed out tambourines we had made from paper plates and popcorn for them to decorate and play with.

After lessons we had more playtime outside with the kids. This was the day I met little Ana. Adorable little 6 year old who's favorite thing is piggy back rides. She doesn't do much talking, the staff said she gets some amount of speech therapy and they think she has some developmental issues. A very sweet little girl though. I also got my hair done by Alina and by Flori (Ana's older sister) and played a very vigorous game of tag with a blonde boy of about 12 (I think) named Alexandre.

When it came time to leave we had a bit of excitement. As we got back to the vans we noticed there was someone in the driver's seat of one: oh, it's Aline, surprise surprise. We all start yelling and running to get him out, and as Amanda and I pull open the side door, he manages to unset the parking break and put the van in neutral. Great. The van starts rolling down the hill towards the lake.

Luckily Stephen had already been in the van and was able to save the day. He pulled Aline out of the driver's seat, jumped into it himself. His eyes near about popped out of his head when he put his foot on what he thougt was the break and the van didn't stop. It was the clutch, he tried again, and this time succeeded in stopping the van. Whew!

This was actually the second time that Aline nearly sent the van into the lake. Several years ago he managed to get it rolling, but with no Stephen there to save the day, the only thing that saved the van from the lake was the tree it ran into.

Anyway, we certainly had a lot to talk about at dinner and Night Light. Ho Seat was fantastically amusing thanks to Elayne. Pretty much everything she says is hysterical, but the winning quote of the night was "I dig guys who don't have all their teeth."

Classic

A random note I included was that our "This is the day the Lord has made" devotional in the morning, really helped me think about my issues with change. *This* is the day the Lord has made. Not just yesterday, or 3 months ago, today, no matter what today holds, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

The trip itself really helped me transition from Biola into the next thing. I had great fellowship with everyone, but it really helped me see that God still does great things and brings great people into my life regardless of where I am.