Patience Training

We had an awesome time in Gherla, Romania this weekend.  Sunday morning we were greeted by many friends at the Open Bible Church, and the service was fantastic.  During the worship, we  sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Mike preached a sermon from 2 Kings about Elijah and fire from heaven and living lives like Elijah.  Then during the communion service we were able to pray for almost everyone present that morning.  We sure had a powerful time and we believe others did, too.  Following the service, the Philip family invited us to their home for a delicious lunch.  Like I said, we had an awesome time in Gherla.

Traffic stopped going the opposite direction.

Traffic stopped going the opposite direction to us.

The trip to and from Gherla, however, tried our patience.  It was beautiful weather, but the traffic was heavy both ways.  On our way to Gherla on Saturday, we were about halfway through our trip when the traffic came to a halt.  About half an hour later, after creeping along at a snail's pace, we saw that there was a large carnival and craft sale in the little village of Negreni.  Since the highway is only two lanes and goes directly through the village, the cars coming and going to the event snarled traffic.  But we made our way through and arrived in Gherla only about 45 minutes later than we had expected.

On the way back, we anticipated that we may have similar problems driving through Negreni and we did.  But this time, the traffic going toward Hungary didn't stop, but just slowed down.  Going the other direction, however, the cars were stopped for about 15 kilometers!  We were thankful we made it through the area.  Then, about an hour later, traffic again came to a halt.  Much later, when we inched close enough, we saw that there had been an accident ahead of us that caused the delay.  Our trip home took a total of one and a half hours more than the usual five hours. 

We decided that God was teaching us patience during this trip. Hopefully, we learned it well. We thank you for your prayers for our safety and for God's blessing on the church in Gherla. He certainly is at work!