What can we say??? Well, we are still alive and kicking.
Life has been busy and of course there have been important things like holidays to fit in to our schedule. We’ll try to fill you in on our activities since our past post.
It was good cause for celebration on May 10th when we held the opening ceremony of a new building at Cahul in the south of Moldova. This had been a long, challenging building project (as it always seems to be in Moldova), but the building came up magnificently on the day. Salvationists from neighbouring corps joined in the celebrations and Commissioners Wim and Netty van der Harst were the guests. Before the official opening Salvationists gathered in the town square to advertise the special event and then enthusiastically marched to the hall. In true Moldovan style they were able to miraculously feed all those present before the long trip home over those horrible roads in a vehicle with no suspension. (Thank God for Voltaren!)
Making our presence known in Cahul Town Square
Marching up the street to the Hall
Checani Band playing outside before the official opening
Feeding the troops after the service
In early June Moldova hosted the Commissioning events of 14 cadets. TheEastern Europe Territory consists of 5 countries and because of political tensions it has not always been possible for the cadets to be together during their training. In fact the 3 cadets from Georgia have had to do the majority of their training in isolation, because of the tensions between Russia and Georgia.
It was great to have them all together in Moldova for the final weeks of training and then to share together for their Commissioning.
14 Cadets - 10 were from Moldova
Just a week after that… at last!!!…we were heading home to Australia for nearly 4 weeks furlough.
How sweet it was to walk through those doors at Tullamarine airport and hear little Joel call out ‘Nanna!! And, of course meeting and cuddling our dear little Sadie for the first time. As you can imagine the tears were flowing as we all met up again.
We stayed with Beth while we were in Melbourne, with Megan and Andrew not being too far away. Matt and Clare had travelled over from Adelaide to be with us, so we were able to spend lots of time together. Fish and chips was one of the meals we were looking forward to! One meal was enough!
We celebrated 3 significant birthdays while we were home. On our first Saturday it was Sadie’s 1st birthday. Many family and friends gathered together for a BBQ lunch (another thing we have missed!) and then there was the gift giving.
Sadie's new handbag
The following Saturday it was ‘fairy bread’ again as we celebrated Joel’s 2nd birthday with a ‘Thomas, The Tank Engine’ theme going. The night before, Viv helped Megan and Beth decorate the cake while the fellas headed off to an AFL game. It was lovely to be a ‘hands on Nanna’.
Waiting patiently for 'Pass the Parcel'
Making the 'Thomas the Tank Engine' cake
The magnificent finished article
By the 3rd Saturday we were in Adelaide and mixed with the extended Callander clan as we celebrated Mum’s 95th birthday. All a bit overwhelming I think, but she enjoyed having the family around. She is keeping remarkably well and still as sharp as a pin!!
Mum's 95th Birthday - she's looking good!!
Before arriving in Adelaide after leaving Melbourne, we spent 3 days at a holiday house in Daylesford with our immediate family. It was just lovely to cook meals together, play table games, enjoy the spa tub, browse the antique markets and the Lake Bookshop, and of course, the coffee shops and walk around the lake. It really was a memorable time together….and what a joy to have our 2 grandchildren jump into bed with us of a morning!!
Yahtzee and breakfast together - good times
The Spinks Clan in the Daylesford park
Some serious 'cousin chemistry' taking place
Then it was on to Adelaide where we stayed with Matt and Clare. Being Viv’s hometown it was also possible to catch up with her sister, Judy and her girls. We took the opportunity to ‘do coffee’ on the Norwood Parade on several occasions and did a family trip to Gumeracha where we fed the animals together at the ‘zoo’ at ‘the Big Rocking Horse’. Simple outings were so enjoyable!!!
Great grandma is how old..????
The 'men' feeding a 'roo at Gumeracha in the Adelaide hills.
It was refreshing to do business in a ‘no hassle’ manner, where the service was efficient and courteous and no stamps required. Travelling on smooth highways was another enjoyable experience, without the absence of blaring horns.
But of course, all good things must come to end, and long-anticipated holiday was over. It was 30 hours between boarding the plane in Adelaide before we set down in Chisinau!!!! There were 2 long airport stop-overs in Singapore and Istanbul. As tired as we were, we returned to our apartment where 7 young Americans had taken up residence. They were members of a Mission team from U.S. Central Territory. I definitely wasn’t cooking a meal for them first up, so it was a matter of a quick shower then all out for a pizza. Don’t remember much about that meal at all!!
Anyway it was back to work the next day, facing the 100s of e-mails that awaited us and of course the catch up boards.
The Mission team spent 5 weeks in the division. (They had already spent 3 weeks there when we arrived back). They spent a week each at 2 corps conducting children’s day camps and involving themselves with general corps programs. Other activities included accompanying the Mobile Clinic to the villages and conducting children’s programs while the medical team conducted their clinic. A couple of days were spent in manual work at DHQ and then the final week spent as part of the leadership team at our Children’s Camp where about 100 under-privileged children had a wonderful time with good friends, good nutritious food, games, stories, swimming and of course Bible teaching. A team from the UK also helped in the leadership of the camp. Of course tears were shed as they left and as always there was the sense of mutual blessing for those who were the visitors and the visited.
Ministry at Ungheni Corps
Street ministry at Dubossari
They did get tired at times.
The night before leaving to go home - memories of last years team!!!!
With our visitors 'out of the way' we seriously started to search for a new apartment to rent. We had been paying too much rent for too long, and the finance is just not available for us to purchase a new property at this time. Sadly, the world financial crisis has meant that sponsorship money has dried up and we find ourselves having to make difficult decisions as we go through the budget process.
Anyway we found a 3 room apartment and are paying just over half the rent we were previously paying. It is actually a little better décor than our previous apartment and the owner kindly did some renovations before we moved in which have really made it a pleasant place to live, even though we have one bedroom less than in our previous apartment. Still room for visitors, so you are still all welcome.
We signed a contract and moved in within 2 weeks, spent a week there settling in and then it was off on some more holidays as there was overdue long-service leave we needed to take. We headed off for 3 weeks in Switzerland and Italy (one of the benefits of living in this part of the world means travelling a distance equal to that between Melbourne and Adelaide means that we are in a totally different country!)
Will fill you in on our next blog!
Until next time… (which will be a lot sooner than this one!!!)
Ian and Viv xoxo
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