A whole new world.

It's cold. I'm really not sure what the temperature is, but it makes my house's 60° (16C) from last year feel pretty warm. I'm wearing long underwear, pants, wool socks, warm slippers, a big, thick hoodie with the hood up, a thin hat under that, and finger gloves. We will get used to it. 

It's also very hard to communicate with most folks here. Duh. They speak Romanian, I speak American English. But that doesn't really make sense until you're here, and suddenly, I can effectively communicate with about 12 or 15 people. Thankfully, I live with one of them (It is so good to do this with my wife. Friends and acquaintances from the same college are pretty good company in a different country, but Kelly? Mmm), and thankfully, we're being introduced to more. Our friend Graţi had us over for dinner last night with a few of her friends from IMPACT, and it was so so so good. We're making friends.

But my most persistent desire since we arrived in Romania has been to speak Romanian. We're going to be taking Romanian classes soon and we live all around it, and God has a delightful way of bringing good desires to fruition, and He's already made us good at learning languages, so I have confidence (picture Julie Andrews about to enter the Von Trapp estate...) that we will learn it and learn well. But these things take time, and I want to communicate now! Patience, child. It will come.

Today is the first really clear day that we've experienced in Lupeni, and I have never lived in so beautiful a place. I guess we can post a picture or two, but a picture will only communicate a small bit of this beauty. I think Kelly posted some from the semester she spent here, but if you're really curious, I suggest you come and see. Or visit Maine. Or Alaska. Or Washington. I love Ohio's forests and Michigan's fertile soil, but living in the shadow and majesty of the Carpathians is making me not want to ever live away from mountains. We shall see if this desire is fulfilled. 

The change of living in a new place or with new people is always hard on me somehow, but I always either get used to it or the difficulty is eclipsed by the joy of living, or it simply goes away. Moving takes more than a journey, and the journey can be hard enough to cope with (I think we're getting used to the time difference and making up for shallow sleep on the plane). But I know now, after many moves during college, that with patience and faithfulness, the place and people always bring joy. And joy outlasts sorrow when we let it. So I'm very thankful that we can stay here for a while and let God root us here.