Before I share about the mystery phone call I received at the airport in Houston, I just wanted to give a “quick” update on today. My day started at 6:00AM with a loud knock on the door. My friend’s son-in-law, Beni, had driven through the night from Timisoara to Bucharest with all the Bible study workbooks and had arrived early. We scrambled to get ready, and found out he couldn’t wait until 9:00AM to unload at the church. He needed to be on the road after several other stops in Bucharest. Frank was off at the train station for 2 -1/2 hours waiting for Lee, the IMB media specialist, to arrive. The trains had been delayed quite a bit. Without him back at the house, it was like a circus trying to figure out the best choice on where to unload the books. I finally made an executive decision. Diane and I headed with Beni in the truck to the church amidst phone calls to get someone there to unlock the doors and to help unload. A dear man, Bob Craig, walked from his house to the church in sub freezing temp to wait for us there. We finally found the church without the use of the GPS (quite a feat for two American women who are both directionally challenged!!!) We don’t speak Romanian well, and Beni can’t speak English. I can’t help but believe the Lord was laughing His head off at our antics. Anyway, we took two loads of 30 workbooks each from the van over the icy driveway to a back door of the church, up a step, down several steps and then into the library. I decided that was pretty foolish of us to do that much up and down movement which was inviting another fall. So, I made another executive decision to have Diane stay inside, and Bob and I would do the walking back and forth. Took awhile, but we got it done. 900 workbooks, leaders guides and some DVD sets. Needless to say, we got some good exercise today.
Frank and Lee showed up finally at the church when the hauling was complete. Frank had suffered enough at the subfreezing train station with the bitter cold wind howling through the main building. His only reprieve was the McDonald’s where he would pop in to get warm once in awhile.
Then we headed over to a currency exchange place and got a GREAT exchange rate. As Diane and I walked on the sidewalk, she slipped and fell on the ice. She’s okay, but sore tonight. Between the two of us, we have really racked up some black and blue marks. I noticed today a pretty big lump on my left forearm from my fall yesterday.
We got back to the house and had some lovely hot tea (they all had coffee) and bisquits. I decided to go upstairs and get some much needed rest. Lee followed suit shortly afterward. She spent many long hours on trains coming in from Krakow, Poland.
I woke to the smell of the best homemade pizza I have ever had!
We worked on all the conference materials this evening:
1) Put all the documents in the individual folders
2) Made all the gift packs for 60 ladies
3) Cut all the ribbons
4) Printed all the response cards for Friday evening
5) Cut all the cardstock for the 600 ladies to participate in the door prize drawings
6) Printed all the agendas for Friday evening
and some other details.
The internet was down for awhile, so I am now doing the blog, emails and working on fine tuning my notes for Saturday.
Sooooooooo, are you all worn out just reading this update? Are you sure you are up to reading about my phone call??? Should I just wait until tomorrow to write about it?? Okay, okay, don’t get your feathers ruffled. Here’s the story:
The beginning of the story really started several weeks ago as I began to put together the list of conference invitees. I was going through the lists from previous conferences to re-invite many of the ladies. One lady in particular named Vica was one person I just couldn’t seem to find. Her contact information was proving invalid, and I was really bummed she wasn’t going to make the conference. She lives up in Bacau and leads a women’s Bible study at First Bapist. All the efforts by my Romanian conference team to find her were to no avail. So, I just gave it up to the Lord, and trusted that one day she would get some of the materials. Well…….
As I sat at the gate awaiting the boarding time, I received a call from a strange number in California. A very sweet young Romanian woman named Loredana had just been perusing the Beautiful Gate Translations website and saw the Romanian resources we currently offer. She was so excited about them and wanted to know how she could obtain a few Bible study workbooks for some elderly ladies in her San Francisco church. I explained that the materials could only be distributed in Romania and Moldova. I was, in fact, on my way to do another conference in Bucharest to introduce the newly translated study, “Believing God”.

Well, we had a lovely visit and it turns out that she had a copy of the first translated Bible study by Beth called “Jesus the One and Only” which her mother had given her. She said she would email me, so we could keep in contact. We hung up, and I felt so blessed. A few minutes later, she calls again saying she had just called her mother to tell her of the upcoming conference. She asked if it was too late for her mother to attend, and that she thought I may remember her mother from the first conference. I asked her what her mother’s name was and guess who it is??? That’s right. Vica. This precious woman can’t speak English, but she blessed my socks off so much back in 2008 that I asked her to close our conference with prayer. Not only that, she had stayed with all of us at Peggy and Larry Carnes house. In fact, Loredana looked at the pics posted in the photo gallery on my website and found a picture of her mother. I almost came off my seat at the airport. I told Loredana that she would not believe the lengths we had gone to to find her mother, and here the Lord arranges the connection all by Himself. We were both so excited to see God’s hand of provision, and I look forward to seeing Vica again in just a few days.
Now, was that story worth the wait??? Hope so, since I now have writer’s cramp.
I have tried to post pictures, but Frank’s computer has a corrupted file which won’t allow any pictures to be saved. Total bummer. He’s working on getting it fixed, though.
Gotta run for now, but will write again tomorrow night.
Answered prayers:
1) Weather is breaking up and clearing
2) US dollar is holding steady
3) Cost of book transport was less than expected
4) The enemy is being held at bay in spite of logistics challenges
5) Our health is holding up
6) Lee made it in safely
Keep praying, dear friends and family. Love you bunches!
Paulette