Nate and Noah to Romania

September 13, 2023

Just like that, we are a full week into a one-year odyssey in Oradea, Romania.

Well… sort of.

There is that 10 hour time difference we have to account for between Oradea and Portland. At the time of publishing, it is more than likely that this article will not quite link up exactly with the timeframe in which we left. Bear with us; that dynamic is going to take some time getting used to, as will the metric system, the Celsius scale, the 24 hour clock, and the new sensation of NFL games airing at 8pm, 11:30pm, and 3am local time.

While there is plenty that feels somewhat odd in getting used to, Noah and I cannot help but be blown away by the abundance of pleasant surprises and great comforts that the Lord has brought our way in such a short amount of time. In the handful of days since our arrival, we have been met with such kindness from so many different people. We have seen the Spirit of God move in the midst of a church that we’d only heard about in legend but have now experienced firsthand. And of course, we’ve had some delicious food! Coming into a new culture can be quite difficult, but from the beginning, we have felt so very blessed to already have people who have stepped in to help in places we didn’t even know we’d need it.

Our journey to Oradea began on Wednesday the 6th. Running around fretfully to complete last-minute tasks on three hours of sleep, our first great help came from a friend of ours from PBC named Julia. Julia went to great lengths to help us host our goodbye party days earlier, and she came in clutch again to take us to the airport. Being that she herself is Polish, she had a great deal of practical wisdom and advice to give about traveling in Europe, which brought great comfort to us as we prepared to board a plane with nerves already shot from the past 24 hours of hustling and bustling. After saying farewell and boarding our plane, we had a quick flight to San Francisco, followed by brief turnaround into an 11 hour international flight to Frankfurt, Germany. After a lengthy five hour layover, we would then board a small plane to Cluj Napoca, Romania. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, we would catch a ride to the train station, wait, then board a train that would take us home to Oradea in the span of three hours. When all was said and done, we had spent nearly 24 hours making our way from Portland to Oradea. Jetlag is a very true and menacing reality, and as we experienced the worst of it en route to Frankfurt, we were met by a small but needed comfort in a stranger named Megan. Megan was a flight attendant on our plane to Germany, and she went out of her way to joke with us and ensure that we were taken care of throughout the lengthy flight over. The small moments of laughter were pockets of joy to us in the midst of a disorienting, exhausting stretch of hours. She was not the only one, as upon our arrival in Cluj, we benefited greatly from two separate strangers: our driver, Alex, and a kind soul named Cosmin who we met at the train station as he helped move our luggage as he awaited the arrival of his daughter. These two shared much practical wisdom and many personal insights into the culture and nature of the Romanian nation and its people. They were under no obligation to do this for two young, wide-eyed, sleep deprived American boys, but their willingness to share with us allowed us to catch our breath and relax a little bit. Perhaps we were going to make it here after all.

At the ripe hour of 6am, our train arrived in Oradea. Coming out of the train marked the fulfillment of prayers prayed years before by both Noah and myself for God to lead us to whatever field He saw fit. This was His choice, and we were overjoyed to be seeing it for the first time. We were also overjoyed to see a familiar face greet us as our train rolled in; that face belonging to our friend Katy, who faithfully taught us Romanian every Wednesday for the past seven months. She was kind enough to come pick us up along with our luggage, and after stopping off to drop our belongings in our dormitory, she set out to show us the city. Since we were already in the dorms on the campus of Salem Christian Center, she began to show us around the church that we will call home for the next year. Once we had seen the campus, Katy took us downtown for coffee and breakfast before showing us the city square, the river, and a lookout on the hill that overlooks all of Oradea. Noah and I were thrilled to stretch our legs after so much travel, and to be able to see the place we had only known in imagination (and Google Images) was incredible. We then spent the afternoon settling in and taking rest. Our true room is still being renovated, and thus we have settled into the guest suite for the time being. In the evening, Katy again picked us up to take us to the home of the Ciuciui family, where we were greeted by several families from the church. The reception was incredibly warm, and we felt overwhelmed by the warmth and hospitality of everyone there. In our very first day, we were met by kindness that helped us worry far less about all that there was to do to settle in and integrate. It became immediately clear to us that no matter what would happen over the next year, we would not lack for friends. One of our most difficult tasks in preparation was to leave a community that Noah and I so loved and cherished, and in the span of only 12 hours, God was beginning to create a new one.

Our first Sunday at Salem Christian Center was as incredible a day as we could have asked for. The idea of our first day came with some nervousness as we descended the stairs from the dorms to the church lobby, but just as in the very beginning, we were met with kind smiles and warm greetings that made it easy to feel at home. Though the service opened with prayer and worship in a language that Noah and I have only an elementary understanding of, we were touched by the familiar feeling of the Spirit of God moving among His people. We were introduced to the church, and after a few clumsy words of Romanian and translated English to the congregation, we left the sanctuary to meet with youth students for the first time. We had 11 students in all, and our time was spent asking questions and trying our best to become familiar with each of them. We left that first meeting encouraged and excited after seeing and interacting with the young lives that we hope to come to know and speak into in the coming year. Following the post-service period of introductions, handshakes, and interactions, we found ourselves again at the Ciuciui’s with multiple others, enjoying a rich sense community and appreciation for how the Lord was already opening doors to relationship. To end the day, Noah and I went along with a group of young adults into downtown Oradea to walk the town square and enjoy some ice cream along the way. I must hand it to the Romanians, they certainly know how to make you feel like “one of their people.”

The following days, as you can imagine, have been filled with a variety of integration tasks that have taken a great deal of bustling about, but these moments have been interwoven with similar beautiful moments of newfound comradery as our first day. Katy and her friend Iulia have been consistent friends and guides to us in the early going, often giving us practical advice around where to shop, what to eat, what daily essentials we need, how to interact with the Romanian culture, and other such pieces (not to mention their acting as translators for us on multiple occasions). There is a medical student in the dorms named Jaco who has taken it upon himself to be a help and a guide to us as well. Jaco has become a fast friend of ours, and as he in his early fifties, he has had much wisdom to share and has offered to help us in multiple ways on multiple occasions. Of course, the Ciuciui family, including Ted, his wife Mona, his brother Calin, and their mother Zamfira have all been instrumental in this beginning process. Each have given kind words, wisdom, and prayers for us in these past couple of days, and Noah and I could not be more proud or excited to be serving under them. There are other names that could be mentioned, but they will no doubt make their way into future accounts as time goes on.

As of today, there are a couple projects that we have already begun work on and are currently setting up. In the last few days, we have worked to clear a space in the church for a classroom by moving the former library to a new space. We will spend the next few weeks sorting through the library’s contents to decide which books will stay and which will be donated. Right across the hallway, we have been given an office in which we will meet with students and carry out any administrative tasks. We are still working on finalizing the layout and de-cluttering both of these spaces, but they have made some real progress in the last few days. As autumn fast approaches, the church’s apple trees are producing fruit, and we have been tasked with harvesting apples so that the church may continue with its yearly tradition of blessing the congregation with fresh-pressed apple juice on Sunday mornings. Additionally, we are preparing for our first youth meeting, which will take place on Thursday night. We have worked to put together a schedule of meetings that includes the Sunday middle school service, a Thursday night youth gathering, and a Saturday “fellowship day” that will allow us to enjoy time having fun as a community. As we look ahead, we are discussing with Ted, Mona, and Calin what we want students to be able to come away with from this year. Noah and I have begun discussing and praying over what we would teach in order to best equip youth students to love the Lord in the most complete way possible.

As we go forward, we would for you to partner with us in prayer for a few things. These things touch on the personal needs, church needs, and overall ministry needs that we are seeing at this time. We are all in this together!

Personal: Please pray that Noah and I will grasp the Romanian language at an accelerated rate now that we are in-country. As we’ve become immersed, we now have a greater potential for learning, but we also realize how much more there is for us to learn. Many of the young people do in fact speak and understand English, but to varying degrees. All standard church services are in Romanian, and much of the marketplace operates solely in Romanian. We are now attending Romanian integration courses with Jaco at a local nonprofit on top of our other language learning efforts. Pray that God would open our minds to be able to connect with these people in their own language!

Church: There are multiple on-site projects that need to be done, including the completion of the library and our office. Pray that our work would be expedient and fruitful so that the church may be utilized to its fullest capacity in every area, including the dorms, the offices, the soccer field, the orchard, and the outdoor work shed.

Ministry/Youth: Pray for wisdom as we proceed into these initial services with the youth and as we plan the material that we will present throughout the course of the year. These beginning times are crucial, so please pray that connections would be made quickly and that the Lord would bring in just the right leaders to help disciple these students!

Thank you all for your incredible support, love, and prayers as a new season begins for us! We are excited for all that is to come, and we can’t wait to bring you the next updates around what is happening here in Oradea!

Blessings, Nate and Noah