Back from Prague

Hello Everyone I made it back from Prague this last monday. I had an absolutely wonderful time there. I met Ludo & Sylvia the day after my arrival at the main train station. We then spent the day going to many of the well known sights in Prague.

Prague is a wonderful place to visit especially if you like architecture and history. There is so much history there its unbelievable. I think the Highlight of my whole trip there was seeing Saint Vitus Cathedral. It is a truly spectacular sight. you do not realize the enormity of it till you see it in person. Its a wonderful example of the gothic style.

I also have to mention that Prague is one of these places in europe that even if you do not know the language you will be fine. I was able to get around on the citys metro without any problem. And at the restaurants most of the wait staff understood my english fine. and when they didnt all i had to do was point. as the menus were in both czech and english.

Well im goign to leave you with a couple of photos

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trip to prague

hey everyone so as some may know i have to travel out of country to get my passport stamped so i can stay till the end of August. so this Wednesday i will be going to the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic. I cannot wait to go I have heard so many things about that city and all the great sites. My camera is definitely going to get a workout there. I will most definitely have many pictures to share with you guys once i get back. and of course i know some of you may be wondering, I will see and meet up with Ludo and Sylvia while im there. so it should be just the break i need. Im working like mad trying to get the school advertisement video done before i go so that means roughly a day and a half to edit 3 hours of footage down to 15 minutes complete with narration.

well every body have a wonderful day talk to you later.

Weekend Off Campus

Ok so this last weekend I was able to get off campus for the weekend and go home with one of the students. The trip actually started at 6:00pm thursday night. We left herghelia for the nearby town of Tirgu Mures, here we boarded a train to Brasov at 7:20pm. The journey on the train was quite an experience, the train trip was 10 hours. about the second stop a group of gypsys boarded and i was told by christi that i should keep an eye on my luggage. i understood why, about 8 times that night one of the gypsys would open our compartment door and see if there was anything within easy reach to take. but we would just say hello and they would leave. after we arrived at Brasov it was time to board a bus at the autogara (aka bus depot) to a city call slobozia where we then took another bus to where the students home was all in all it was about a 16 hour journey. The family was very friendly and kind, and one of christi's aunts asked if she could adopt me. One thing that i had to get use to was when i had to go to the bathroom i had to go outside to an outhouse because there house had no running water. His family was very hospitable and cooked so much food for us, i still cannot believe how much i ate over the weekend at times i thought my stomach was going to burst. This was also the first time i had ever eaten a goose egg. which in case you are wondering does not taste any different but is about twice the size. I had a wonderful sabbath aswell christi's cousin got baptized and the whole church there was very friendly and outgoing.

i will keep you updated with any more adventures. and see you guys in roughly 85 days

trip out of country

Hello every one so it has been a while since i have made a new post. this next month i have to go out of country because of the regulations of a tourist visa being only good for 90 days. this will give me a chance to see a little more of the world. I am currently planning to meet Ludo and Sylvia in prague the weekend of the 12th of june but still have to work out all the details. but it will be nice to see a familiar face from back in oregon. and should also be a wonderful opportunity to capture the beautiful city of prague in pictures. i will post an update as soon as i get things finalized.

Thank You

Hi everyone i just wanted to take some time to thank all of my friends and family for your continued supports and prayers. Things here are starting to go a little better im getting to know some of the people a little bit more and am feeling a little more comfortable here. It also sounds as though they are going to have me start working on more english projects which will be much easier and I will be able to get more done this way.

Also I wanted to let those who may not have known but you can leave comments to my posts and i check them pretty frequently so if you just want to write just a short little message its a great place to do it.

Thanks again for all yours prayers and support

Nick

Begining of May

Hello everyone, it's been a while since i posted an update so i thought i would let you know how things are going. I am still trying to learn more romanian. but it is a very slow and gradual process. The language barrier definitely gets in the way at times particularly with the projects they have given me to do. Almost all of my projects have to be in romanian so this makes things quite difficult, and at times halts me at a standstill where I can not go any further without the help of someone that speaks both english and romanian. many people speak both languages but are too busy with their own projects to help me with mine. So far i have made a flyer for the summer youth camp and helped design the flyer for the summer health camp aswell as nearly completing the advertisement videos for the health camp.

I wish everyone a blessed day and blessings throughout the month of May.

Birthday

as some of you may know my birthday was 2 days ago. it was really kinda weird thinking abou have my birthday in another country. the day pretty much went as normal except they sang happy birthday to me at breakfast and at lunch at the workers cafeteria. there they sang the a romania version which i did not recognize at all they also made a fruit salad for desert that was very good. and then they called me over to the school where they had small cakes for the students to celebrate my birthday and said they hoped that i felt as though i was part of their family. it was quite nice.

also one of the girls named raluca gave me a little cow that is very similar to a beanie baby. i was joking with her now i can have some milk but since its a herghelia cow i guess it only makes soy milk.

here is a link to some more photos: i post there because its faster easier and i have more space.

photos

Update april 22nd

Hi every one i am sorry i have not posted an update in a while. The students and staff are on vacation and the internet access has been very hit and miss sometime i might get access for a couple minutes and that is it. Also today a woke up with a sore throat and a cough, stomach ache and an extremely bad headache. I am still trying to complete the advertisement videos for both the summer youth camp and summer health camp. as well as finish the flyer for the health camp. but it seems as though God thinks i may need to develop patience. the director was supposed to give me some material for the flyer a week ago. and also a naration for the health camp video since i do not speak romanian. i reminded him daily but never happened i also needed to get into the tv studio today but around 20 minutes ago at 6:00 i was givin about 30 key to try but i cannot get into the sanitarium to try them out so i am waiting an hour so someone can unlock it. other than these problem things are going alright. the breakfast yesterday was very good it was a granola pie. with a choice of a banana or rasberry dressing to go over it. it was quite a nice change from eating the same thing for breakfast for the last 2 weeks. also the trees are turning green and the birds sing very loud. it is rather peaceful here. but i do miss the united states very much. i especially miss talking with church members on sabbath. I also miss being able to understand the sermon. oh how i wish english was spoken everywhere. I will be glad when the students get back so there will be more people that speak english. it can get rather lonely especially when im working while the others are in the camp that is going on and i have no one to talk to.

well i hope you all have a wonderful week

cramped deadlines

Hey everyone I know i havent posted real recently so im posting an update as to how things are going. Well as most know from a previous post i was given a fair amount of projects that need to be done with some that had to be done by the 23rd of April. well one of these projects was to make flyers for a summer health camp. I thought ok thats not going to be a problem to have it done by the 23rd. well yesterday daniel came to talk to me and told me he talked to the magazine where they advertise and they needed it by the next morning . well i came up with a couple designs but daniel and the secretary did not like them so i had to start again. i worked on the project from 8:00 yesterday morning to 9:00 last night or roughly 12 hours with my breaks to eat. so i am keeping plenty busy. now i just have to get the video edited by the 23rd for both the summer health camp and youth camp

Please keep me in your prayers.

Sabat fericit

Hello everyone I thought I would share some photos that i took today. Today I went with some students on mission to a small village which is very poor. they do not have a church there but some familys are willing to listen to the bible being read and for us to pray for them I especially liked interacting with the small children. we walked there and back witch is about 8 miles. this was especially hard for me as it was uphill both ways and I was carrying my camera gear witch together weighs about 17 lbs. but i really did enjoy it.

well anyhow hope you like the photos.

Happy Sabbath

Hi everyone it is my first sabbath here at Herghelia. and since i do not understand much Romanian. I am going with some of the students to a village that does not have a church to talk and interact with the children there. this is an outreach to help reach others about who the Adventist church is. it is my understanding that I will come in contact with gypsies today. so this is very exciting I hope that even though I do not speak their language that I will be an example through my actions in interacting with the children and towns people.

God Bless and have a wondrful Sabbath

photos

ok so I thought that some of you might like to see some photos from romania. I havent been able to take many because i have been so busy but here is a couple just to give you an idea of what it is like over here. i promise i will get better shots to share with you. particulary of the sunrise. it is so beautiful words just cannot describe it. its so incredidably vibrant.

Projects

Hello everyone sorry my posts have been rather short on detail I have not had much access to the internet. but i do now that I am working over in the studio. Yesterday I met with Daniel who is the director of the school and we sat down and discussed what I would be working on and the priority of the projects. I now have a list of around 8 different projects, with around 4-5 tasks per project. I have 2 which need to be completed by the 23rd at the latest. for these I have to design flyers and pamphlets for both the summer health camp and youth camp. along with designing the flyers I also have to create a 30 sec promo for each to be aired on the hope channel in romania. and also a 3 minute promotional video to show at churches and schools. .

Now that I have these projects it helps me to forget a little that I am in a foreign country because I am kept busy. I also went into tg mures for the first time yesterday to exchange money and get some neccesities. That was an adventure. I rode into town with the school secretary Anca who hasnt driven in 2 years. When we got in the car she said ill drive to the mill then you can drive the rest of the way into town. I told her the only problem with that is that i dont know how to drive manual. so off into town we went. Anca being scared to death of driving and I was reassuring her the whole way. we got into town safely and ran the errands that needed done but when we went to start the car back up it would not start so we had to push it and force it to start by using the clutch. we then safely made it back to Herghelia passing horse drawn carts along the way none the worse for wear.

arrival

well i arrived here safely. one of my bags got lost but was delivered to me the next day. The first four days i was helping the medical missionary school students with a health expo in brasov. I am now at Herghelia just outside of TG Mures. where I am happy to report it is very beautiful and warm spring weather.

One more day

The time is nearly upon me now. I leave tomorrow from Portland, have a layover in Frankfurt, Germany, then another flight into Bucharest, Romania. once i arrive it is a 6 hour car ride to where i will be staying.

I will try to post again the day after I arrive.

The Time is Aproaching

ok so the time is nearing. I am headed out on tuesday march 31st at 1:30. i am so incredibly excited yet nervous at the same time. I have a feeling i will be quite tired the first couple of days. I calculated it all out and my total travel time is 22 hours.

12 more days

Ok so there is only 12 more days till I head off to Romania. this is so exciting but at the same time it makes me a little nervous going by myself to a country where they do not speak english. But i can't wait for the adventure to start.

Romania

well as most of you who visit this blog know, I am going to Romania at the end of this month to help with some multimedia production at an adventist lifestyle center and medical missionary school. I will be there for five months. This will be the place to come to see the updates. I will try to keep it updated at least once a week