Well, we arrived safely in Oradea after a long day of traveling. Each of the three legs of our flights were delayed, but we made all our connections touched down in Budapest only one hour late. We had a nice long drive from Budapest to Oradea as we got to try out our Romanian with our driver Lajos. His English was better than our Romanian!
First impressions upon driving into Oradea (ten kilometers from the Hungarian border) was that of contrast. The Soviet era dominated the northern side of the road (mostly vacant buildings) while the southern side of the road boasted numerous modern looking factories with French, Swiss, German, and American sounding names. After dropping our luggage in our "hospitality suite" (see a few pictures below), we headed out to dinner at Two Chefs with John and Sylvia Fotea. Both John and Sylvia are colleagues of mine at Emanuel University. This was clearly the best meal we have had in Romania so far. Subsequent meals have included kidneys, spinach, sausage, chicken, pork, cauliflower, various soups and desserts. Sweet tea is served at dinner. This may be hard to believe, but I am doing better with the food than Cheryl.
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Our bedroom
(meant to house students, so we
pushed the beds closer together) |
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| My study in the spare bedroom |
Getting back to our housing, we have plenty of space, but our kitchen is quite sparse. We wash our dishes in the bathroom sink during the hot water hours (5:30-7:30am and 8-10pm). Hot water for showers come from a small heating tank and necessitates brief showers. We are on the third floor, which is really four floors above ground level. Lots of stairs and great exercise. Since we have no car, we have been doing a lot of walking to grocery stores and the local Cash & Carry store (similar to WalMart). Getting back to contrasts, the grocery store is part of a new mall complex that reminds one of malls all across America. On the way to the mall shows another side of Romania in the form of tired looking Soviet flats (apartment buildings) and local shops. We also pass a McDonald's and were informed that it was one of the higher end restaurants.
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| Soviet-bloc housing on the walk to the mall |
After much anticipation, I found out I will be teaching two classes in the fall--Financial Accounting and Entrepreneurship. I will probably teach a two-week module on Finance for graduate students sometime in November. I am scheduled to teach Finance to the undergraduates in the spring along with another course to be determined. I am the oldest member of the faculty by far and they seem truly pleased to have me on board. Cheryl has been included in most discussions and she may become an assistant to the English language instructors. The key word used throughout discussions has been flexibility. This carries through everything they do including the weekly schedule of classes. Since the professors need to have other jobs to make a living, class schedules vary week to week. For example, the Entrepreneurship class will meet four hours each week, but this may be two hours on Monday and two on Thursday, or it may be four hours on Wednesday.
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Emanuel University
(housing and classrooms and offices on right, chapel on left)
(our room is fourth floor on the corner just right of the lamp post)
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Thank you for all your prayers for safe travel and for ease in transition. We are enjoying our down time before the students arrive on Monday. Cheryl and I have begun to work our way through the book of James and it has been a nice to study together. Continue to pray that we can be the hands and feet of God in this place. The doctrine of survival for 1989 that stated "Follow the rules; Do nothing that is not asked of you; Going beyond the call of duty is totally unacceptable; and All that belongs to you doesn't belong to you" still runs deep within this culture. We have already seen how Emanuel has begun to change this mindset in their students and in the surrounding community.
Pache (Peace),
Cheryl & Tom
