Random pictures

Now that we only have a few weeks left here in Europe, I thought I would post a few random pictures. Enjoy!

A visit to Pompeii

Have you ever wondered what happened in the story of Sodom and Gomorrha? I mean, have you ever imagined how the people responded and all the chaos that surrounded God's destruction of those cities? Well, if you want to get a real glimpse in to what those people must have experienced, visit Pompeii, Italy.

I had head about Pompeii and saw historical information about the destruction of Pompeii, but I was not prepared for what I saw when we visited Pompeii, last week.

For those who do not know, Pompeii was a city that sat directly under Mt. Vesuvius. It was known as a totally corrupted and erotic city. Even in those days, the godly people of that generation regarded Pompeii as a modern day Sodom. During the days of the first church, Pompeii was totally given to sensual living in the extreme and even today, there are some historical venues about Pompeii that require people that enter to be 18 or have written parental permission to enter the site. Obviously, we weren't interested at all in those sites, but the fact that the historical evidence for this city has to be guarded so carefully from innocent minds, speaks volumes about what the city was like.

Anyway, in the year 79 A.D, Mt. Vesuvius erupted and buried the city of Pompeii in a heavy layer of ash. Now you can go to the city and see remarkably preserved remains of a once great city. I went expecting to see a few buildings in ruins, but the significance of Pompeii is that basically the whole city was preserved. We walked across the city for four hours looking in houses, businesses, temples and stadiums and still we didn't see half of the city. Because the city was buried in ash, most things in the city are very similar to what they were on the day it was buried. We saw paintings on the walls of houses, beautifully tiled floors, cart ruts on the road, and graffiti that the inhabitants had scrawled on places around the city--again, some of it, obscene. Pompeii has one piece of graffiti that says "Sodom and Gomorrah" and no one has been able to discern if it was written before, during or after the eruption. Either way, it was apparently an appropriate description of the city.

The most grim part of it all was seeing the plaster casts of the people and animals trying to flee the city. One of the first archeologists to work with this city did future generations a service, by pouring plaster into the body-shaped cavities that were in the ash and preserving the actual figures of the people and animals. The people tried to escape as the city filled with ash and poisonous gas and their postures and positions are perfectly preserved in these casts as well as the positions of animals as they tried to escape. A fully harnessed mule was in one shop and both adults and children are preserved in the "garden of the fugitives."

Pompeii is an experience that I won't forget for a long time, and I sometimes wonder if this city wasn't preserved for a warning to future generations. Whether the destruction of Pompeii was a destructive act of God or a tragic natural occurrence may never be known, but the picture of this city starkly reminds me that we are leaving footprints on the sands of time and future generations will certainly judge us by what they see.

A Visit to the Colosseum

While we were in Rome, we were very privileged to visit the Colosseum. I had looked forward to going to the Colosseum because of the rich, historical heritage that it held. We were not disappointed in what we saw there. For one thing, we were prepared to pay a very significant amount to get into the colosseum because we really wanted to see it. Those of you who know Rick's frugality would be surprised at what he was going to pay to get in! The rule is that everyone pays full adult price unless you are under 18 AND a citizen of the European Union. Obviously we had a whole lot of people under the age of 18 with us, but being a citizen of the E.U was a different story. The kids can mimic some of the accents here fairly well, but when they asked us where we were from, we had to tell the truth. The man at the ticket counter said, "Oh, it's going to cost you a whole lot to come in here." Rick already knew that:( However, apparently God touched his heart because he said, "Let's just charge you for the two adults and you can come in!" Rick didn't argue and we walked in very quickly before they changed their minds!

The colosseum was a very special place because I had read in many books of the many, many Christians who had stood in the center of the Colosseum and cheerfully gave their lives for the Savior that they loved so much. I remember reading of young people who stood in the center of the Colosseum and sang beautiful songs as the lions were released to kill them. Now, we were standing where they had stood, and I must say that I felt very unworthy, but so privileged to see this sacred place. Now, there is a cross erected near where so many of the Christians gave their lives.

This was not the first time on this trip that we had seen places that had been such bastions of wickedness, but now the evil is gone and the symbols of Christ still stand. Isn't it amazing after so much wickedness took place in the Colosseum, and so much blood was shed because of the name of Christ, the central point of the whole colosseum is a cross?

Another example of this was when we visited Corinth in Greece. Corinth was one of the most degraded cities at the time of Paul, and I am sure that in all their vain glory, they thought that their statues and monuments to the gods would stand forever. Now, though, Corinth is about Paul and the ministry that he had. An insignificant man left his mark on that city with preaching a seemingly foolish message. It is encouraging to see that however strong evil seems to be, God and His Word will last forever!

A mighty fortress is our God

A Bulwark never failing

Our helper he amidst the flood

Of mortal ill prevailing

Let goods and kindred go

This mortal life also

The body they may kill

God's Word abideth still

His kingdom is forever!

When in Athens...

Tomorrow we are leaving Greece, but we have enjoyed our time in this Biblical country. We started out in Thessalonica and continued on to Athens. Yesterday was a full day of services here and we spent the evening at the Acropolis. Our little Paul didn't preach on Mars Hill like the Apostle Paul, but he did enjoy the view! Tomorrow we head for Corinth and Rome and tonight we work at an Iranian Refugee Feeding Center (our instructions are to not wear any American flag logos--wonder why?)

Ministry in Albania

Today we are in Albania. I never thought that we would get to visit Albania, but God has graciously opened the door, and here we are. Albania is one of the most interesting countries that we have visited. Probably most people know that under communism, Albania was one of the most closed countries that there was. As one person put it, Albania under communism was a sister to North Korea today. Now that it has been open for almost 20 years, it is still a very third world country, and quite interesting to visit.

We came to Albania from Macedonia. When we crossed the border into Albania, it was on a lonely border crossing high on a mountain. We approached the border and were greeted by friendly Albanian border guards. After they finished practicing their English with us, chatting about our huge family size and stamping our passports, we crossed into Albania. We usually like to exchange money right away when we cross into a country so this time, Rick decided to go into the official bank right there at the customs office. He stepped into the dingy "bank" with broken windows and looked around but there was no one to be seen so an official led him into another room where a bank teller was asleep on a sofa. He woke him up so we could exchange money. Rick asked what the exchange rate was for Albanian money versus the U.S. dollar. He said that he didn't know but he thought it was 1,000 to 1. Then a few seconds later, he changed his mind and said, "No, I think it's 100 to 1." Considering that was such a big difference in money, Rick thanked him and went on our way without changing money! Later we found out that it is about 90 to 1.

As we crossed the border into Albania we immediately began descending deep into a balley. The road was a very winding road deep into the valley. It looked very similar to descending into the grand canyon. One of the first things we noticed was that we had just dropped off into a different world as we descended into the valley. Immediately we saw countless numbers of circular bunkers all over the place. These bunkers were built to withstand heavy bombing and they are literally everywhere over the countryside. Lots of places there are more bunkers than there are houses. When we entered the main town that we were staying in, between each building in town, there was a bomb shelter built into the ground with a little chimney sticking up. The pastor here told us that the dictator built 600,000 bunkers and I can believe it by just how many we have seen.

There are literally miles and miles of terraced mountains that the people were required to dig out to make way for the communist fruit farms. Last night on our way to a church in an outlying town, I had a hard time imagining the amount of work (slavery) that was required of the people to literally use hand tools and terrace the mountains in order to plant these huge fruit farms. When communism finally fell, the people were so angry over the slavery that had been subjected to that they destroyed these fruit farms--also causing great hunger for themselves. Now there are just terraced hill sides left with very few trees or else very young trees growing randomly. Another reason that their mountain sides are without old growth vegetation is because when communism fell, the western countries (most notably Italy--a neighbor), came in and cleared the forests of old growth trees and gave the people almost nothing for the trees. For example, the Albanians who were unbelievably poor after years under a despotic communist leader, were given about five dollars for an old growth oak tree. Five dollars was a huge amount to them, but it seems terribly wrong for them to have been cheated just because they didn't know the value of the trees. Now they have beautiful mountains that have almost no trees.

Most of our time here in Albania we are spending at a church and christian radio station in one of the most beautiful area of Albania. If you look on a map and see the eastern border of Albania, you will see a very large lake. We are at the southern end of the lake, not too far from Greece. As we have travelled to churches at night, it has been some of the most beautiful scenery that I have ever seen. There are towering mountains with this very large lake below surrounded by the cities of both Albania and Macedonia. Last night, Christian, our four year old stated it very well. He was sitting behind me in the van as we descended the mountain toward the lake. The sun was setting and the lights of the city were beautiful. He said, "Mom, this is a nice view." I said that it was. A few seconds later, he said, "This is a nice view (and then with his characteristic North Carolina drawl, he said with great emphasis, 'MAN!'"

During our time here in Albania, we have enjoyed the beautiful Mediterranean temperature and lifestyle. Last night we went out late after church with the pastor and his wife. We walked along the beach here in perfect cool weather and ate outside at a little restaurant along the shore of the lake. We had typical mediterranean food of meat, cheese and salad. The restaurant is owned by a neighbor to the pastor. Years ago when the pastor came here, he was preaching on the street when the owner of this restaurant hurled a rock at him. He thanked him for throwing the rock and later the two became neighbors. The man is still not overly friendly, but the pastor thought it would be a nice gesture to take our family to his restaurant and give him some business. This man was jailed a while back for human trafficking so it's not like he is your model business man, but the food was delicious. This picture is Paul with the wife of the human trafficker. I was sitting very close by...Then tonight we enjoyed pizza also near the beach. We ate inside, but the restaurant was had large open windows where we could here the albanian music outside. The music is live and you can walk along the beach from restaurant to restaurant (almost all outdoor seating) and see people playing accordians, or singing opera or playing other instruments.

Albania still has many physical needs that we take for granted. The city we are in tonight is only one of two cities that has water all day every day. The rest of the country has it when it comes on. Electricity can be sporadic. It has only gone off once since we have been here, so that's probably doing pretty well. As many third world countries are, environmental carefulness does not seem to exist. I have been appalled to see how much litter and garbage is left sitting around, especially in the rivers and streams. There seems to be a mentality here that they lived so many years with a dictator telling them what to do so now they don't want anyone to tell them what to do. I can understand how they would get that mind set, but it seems a no littering law couldn't hurt much! Wages and prices are also still quite low here. Today the six men in our family got haircuts for a grand total of nine dollars! A man who does manual labor here makes ten dollars a day and today we were told that a "pricey" hotel in this city goes for twenty dollars a night.

Albania is a beautiful country in spite of all the difficulties they have endured. Today we drove just a few miles and had a picnic at what used to be the private park of the former dictator. It is a beautiful park with waterways and swans and nice walkways. As with most of Albania, it needs a lot of maintenance and repair, but it was a beautiful place to walk around in (don't fall through the foot bridges over the river--repairs desperately needed here).

We passed out tracts at the gypsy market on Saturday. Many received the tracts cheerfully, several asked us for them, and several threw them on the ground or tore them up. Overall I think the reception was quite good considering that a big percentage of the people that were given the tracts were muslim.

Our time here in Albania has been one of the most rewarding of our whole time here in Europe, and we are so thankful that the Lord allowed us to come. The people here appreciate being able to hear the Gospel and they are enjoying their freedom. Two stories that we heard here made us realize the depth of slavery they had here just a few years ago and made us rejoice with them that those days are past for them. One man here complained about the lack of concrete available for building his house. He made the comment that the government had plenty of concrete to make all the bunkers they were making so they should have enough for him to build his house. He received TEN YEARS in prison for his lack of appreciation to the communist Albanian government. Another man made a similar complaint when he saw Macedonia from a distance and commented about how much greener it looked over there. He also received a harsh penalty.

Now the church is growing as the former regime very successfully destroyed practically all churches and religion. Most of the believers here are young people and seem very sincere. The church we are staying in has a Christian radio station that broadcasts over a large part of Albania as well as Macedonia. They are now playing Rick's program also so we are glad about that! Their antenna is made from some strong pipes welded together, and we are sleeping in one of their studios which is soundproof by being covered with cardboard egg cartons!

Come over into Macedonia

Today we are in Macedonia, and honestly I must say that I expected something a whole lot different that what we are getting. I don't know what the typical American thinks about Macedonia, but I have been pleasantly suprised with our experience so far here. When we arrived, I first noticed that there appeared to be a lot of Islamic influence here. I was right. The pastor here told us that Macedonia is the most Islamic country in Europe. Not only are they the most Islamic country, but they are not content to remain at the levels they are at. "Somewhere" is pouring huge amounts of money into Europe and especially into Macedonia to further the Islamic religion. Here is a striking and scary statistic. Look at how small Macedonia is and then consider that in the last year, the muslims have built 164 new mosques in Macedonia alone.

Then he told us something that was painful to hear, but perhaps it is worth passing along. This pastor is in charge of one of the biggest and most influential relief agencies in this part of the world. During the word in Kosovo, his organization was the only organization that managed to work with both the Serbs and the Albanians--although some people hated them for this. He told us that most of the aid that was sent to Indonesia after the Tsunami came from Christian churches. The people were obviously in great need, so this was wonderful that so many Christians gave to this need. The problem is... while Christians were giving so heavily to help the devastated people of Indonesia, the government of Indonesia built a enormously expensive mosque in Sarajevo. The pastor said it is a beautiful mosque in downtown Sarajevo and it is a greenish color. I said it sounds to me like it's the color of money..

The pastor we are staying with is president of the Evangelical church here in Macedonia. In the last 20 or so years, they are averaging about 2 new churches a year. It's not that they aren't trying, but the Islamic countries are literally pouring all their resources into the spread of their faith.

When I thought of Macedonia, I thought of dirt roads, donkeys and hay wagons, people working in fields and basically a lot of what I saw in Romania or Moldova. Frankly, I thought it would be worse than what we saw there. Instead, I have seen very little of these things. The roads are nice compared to Romania and we were in on interstate type highway part of the way here today. Although we did see some of the rural way of life, here in the capital city of Skopje, it is a fairly modern city. It has even more of the feel of an eastern or Turkish type of city than even Bulgaria. I guess the presence of so many muslims makes it seem more like the middle east also.

When we arrived, we were greeted by very friendly people and went out to eat at a restauant with some great (although somewhat unusual) items. We were stuffed and then the pastor said we were going out to another restaurant for dessert. We enjoyed kiwi ice cream which none of us had ever had before. Macedonia grows lots of kiwis and sells them by the kilogram in the markets. I thought kiwis were only grown in Australia and New Zealand--dumb American again!

Although there is a very modern city, we see here again the anomaly of cities that we have seen so often here--wealth and western stores, restaurants, and business and abject poverty on the other side of the street. In our directions to the capital city here, the pastor had given us specific directions to go around one city and not to go into it. We obeyed his directions and quickly saw why. As we pulled on to the bypass of the city, I glanced to the side and saw horrific housing like I haven't seen in a very long time if ever. The houses were decrepit pieces of junk piled together and people were living in garbage all over the place. I could only see it for a few seconds because the government had conveniently built a wall to hide it from the view of the main road.

When we got to Skopje, we never saw any housing like we saw in other places, but there were still plenty of people begging. At one traffic light, children came out and got in front of our van and beside it, calling to us and wanting money or food. When the traffic light changed, they moved and we went on. I would guess the oldest child to have been 8-10 years old. At another stop light in the city, a gypsy man came up and began to wash our windows as they commonly do here when they get a chance. Rick shook his head no, but he continued to wash, hoping we would pay him. The lady with us told us to ignore him and drive on. As we drove away, he spit on our windows! Later in a parking lot, children surrounded us asking for money. We walked on because there was no way in the world we could ever do anything for these children. They persisted for a while and then left. When we came back, the air was out of our van tire. Some things just look very suspicious once in a while!

Nodding in Bulgaria

For the last two days, we have been in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is not a country with very many dramatic sights to see or too many unusual historical events that took place. Being there, however, was a little disconcerting at times because it was like getting our first taste of Eastern culture as Bulgaria has a lot of Turkish influence.

I was not in Bulgaria very long until I felt like I had missed something very important way back in kindergarten. Had I really learned the alphabet? Everywhere I looked were signs I couldn't read, and I got a small taste of what life must be like to be illiterate. Even when we are in other countries, I could still often read the words and can often get an idea of what they say just by looking at similar words or root words. However, in Bulgaria, they use the cyrillic alphabet so I felt like I was operating on the level of a three year old. It is very humbling to not know the letters of the alphabet or how to even write the simplest letters or words.

Another thing that was very disconcerting is an unusual custom that Bulgaria has kept for hundreds of years. The story that we heard was that a long time ago under the occupation of the Turks, the Bulgarians decided to resist this occupation by confusing the Turks so they changed the way they nod their heads when saying yes or no. They began nodding their heads "yes" for "no" and vice versa. This piece of resistance stuck with them, and now Bulgaria is one of the few countries if not the only country that nods their heads the opposite of the rest of the world.
Now this may not seem so difficult to you, and I honestly thought it was a cute little anomaly, but the way it works in ordinary life makes one realize how often we Americans nod our heads without ever realizing it. For example, last night we were in a church there in the capital city of Bulgaria. The church leader was in front doing the preliminares and leading the songs, and I noticed all of the sudden that I had been slightly nodding "yes" and smiling while the leader was speaking as I often do as a guest in churches. It struck me that I was communicating "no" to everything the speaker was saying. Try smiling at the preacher and nodding "no"--it's very hard to do!

A short time later, Rick experienced the same thing. He got up and began speaking as usual on the topic of "Redeeming the Time." Before long, he noticed that the congregation was nodding, "no" at him. Fortunately, he remembered that they were not ready to throw eggs at him, but were actually agreeing with him. Nevertheless, there is just something psychologically difficult about preaching to a congregation that is nodding, "No"!

Another thing we learned about Bulgaria is that they are very well known for their roses and rose oil. I discovered this after I had gone into several shops and noticed they all had shelves full of rose products--rose oil, rose water, soap, lotion, you name it. I thought, "wait a minute...either all the shops in Sophia got a really good deal on rose based products or there is something to this. I asked the missionary we were with and he told me that Bulgaria grows huge fields of roses and sell the oil to the companies that make the most expensive perfumes in the world. Needless to say, the shops smell wonderful...

Ben Hur in Romania

Have you ever read the book or saw the movie, "Ben Hur"? One of the climax points of this story is where Ben Hur's enemy locks chariot wheels with his him and attempts to wreck his chariot.

This reminds me of the experience we had while driving back from our church service last night here in Romania. We had to speak at a church about three hours away and had gone about half way back on the highway when we met up with a modern Romanian kamikaze driver. Romania has more than their allotment of kamikaze drivers as they seem to almost be the majority here rather than the minority. Basically, they believe that if they can pass another vehicle with more than two seconds left to spare before hitting the oncoming traffic head on, then they are not good drivers.

Well, last night we were happily driving along when one of these kamikazis tried to pass us. Unfortunately, he had less than two seconds left to spare by the time he passed our back left wheel. Very unfortunately for him, an eighteen wheeler was coming the opposite way. Very, very rapidly he found himself with his driver's side mirror being whacked off by the semi truck and his passenger side wheel rubbing against our tire at about 60 miles an hour. Now this is not too comfortable a situation to be in so he rapidly slammed on his brakes and got his damaged car to the side of the road. The semi truck never even stopped and several hours later we got on our way again with just our hubcab polished up to the color of his wheel. The police chewed him out very well and he went shaking on his way with a tract in his hand in case he should think of his very impending death while he was falling asleep that night.

In my case, I thought of the song, "Holy Ground" that says, "and I believe that there are angels all around." The Bible indicates that children each have at least one angel apiece, so last night we kept at least ten angels busy. How many angels does it require to control these types of situations? Who knows? Maybe it took one hundred, or maybe it just took one very strong angel just stretching out his arm a little bit to keep our vehicles separated. What does it matter how many angels it took--God always watches over His children and He only allows the circumstances that fit in His perfect plan. The fact that we are in Romania makes no difference to God--He is not limited by borders of countries. This situation could have just as easily happened in the U.S. The only difference is that the kids had to go to the bathroom at the Romanian police station and they only had an outhouse. That just made it a little more interesting--especially when they never could find it in the dark. That's the fun part about being in another country--you just never know what might happen, but it doesn't matter because God is always there.

Life in Moldova

Our time in Moldova was an educational experience for the children that hopefully they will never forget. Most of the people there speak Russian and the billboards, etc were written in Russian. Moldova is one of the last remaining communist countries and it was obvious as soon as we got to the border.

As soon as we pulled up to the checkpoint, a very cocky looking young man in full regalia including communist looking hat came out. I have been to China before so I am familiar with their ways of intimidation and need to "boss" people around. He and his "comrade" proceeded to try some intimidation by staring in our faces when they checked our passports and giving little commands that were not necessary in order to establish their authority. For example, they told us that Paul was too hot in his car seat and to take him out and give him a drink. If I had not been wanting to get in his country, I probably would have said, "Yes, he's hot because you have spent so long staring at our passports while we sit here and bake in the sun because you don't want our engine idling. If you would kindly just let us by, he'll get cool right away." By the look of his cocky hat, I didn't think he would appreciate my little speech so I took Paul out and gave him a drink. He and his "comrade" thought they were the president of the United Nations or some similar organization, but he didn't know that we were getting a lot of enjoyment out of his strutting around. One young guard we saw was actually walking so similar to a turkey that the kids just burst out laughing.

After we got through the border we continued to have incidents with the police. I guess there is a reason that a communist state is called a police state--it seems like everywhere we looked, there were police there watching and observing and pulling people over. Whenever we drove into the city, we just had to plan on being pulled over once or twice because all along the roads, there were police with little wooden signs, and they just randomly held them out to passing motorists who had to pull over for "checks." We got pulled over often because we were driving a right hand van from England. We were very careful however to keep all traffic laws so it would be more difficult for them to fine us.

We did end up with one fine, however. One of the random police men pulled us over and we quickly did. When we got to the side of the road, he walked up and said there was a big problem. Now we had already met this guy before earlier in our stay so I knew his name. Earlier when he had pulled us over, he basically just wanted to practice his English. When he approached our window the first time, I asked him if he knew English, and he said, "of course" like he was horribly insulted to think that I thought that a policeman in Moldova would not know English. The kids got a big laugh out of this cocky policeman saying, "Hello, my name is Vladimir." Anyway, here he was again with a big problem. Basically, it boiled down to the fact that we pulled over too quickly. He said that when he flags us over, he wants us to keep going a little while and gradually work our way through traffic to get to the side of the road. This was safer he explained. Well, fortunately my sarcastic tongue can remain under control at times, because I felt like say, " Oh, I get it Comrade Vladimir. You want us to continue travelling after you flag us over and gradually work our way through the traffic so that we won't cause an accident. Then when we get way down the road, you want us to back all the way up since it is safer to back up on the side of the road than it is to cross lanes of traffic. Once we back all the way up, then you would have a wonderful opportunity to fine us for waiting too long to pull us over!" We paid him his fine of about five dollars and went snickering on our way. He said that he had to fine us because just when he pulled us over, his big boss drove by so he would know if he didn't fine us. Sounds like a fine excuse to me. After he left our window and walked on his way, I told him to enjoy his Big Mac. Good thing he didn't hear me--I would have got a fine for something no doubt.

During our time in Moldova, we saw hungry people and children. We were told that some parents actually maim their children shortly after birth so that they can use them as beggars the rest of their lives. Some of the people though just looked hungry and we knew they needed something to eat. For example, right outside Moldova in Romania, we came out of the grocery store with our purchases and a little boy just followed us. He didn't ask for anything, but we could tell he was hungry. We gave him one our ice cream bars and he was so excited that he went and showed it to everyone coming out of the grocery store.

One interesting event took place while we went in a Greek Orthodox church. We wanted to see how the people were worshipping and what the inside looked like. It was very quiet in there where people were going in and out to pray and burn candles to the icon. Paul, however, was intrigued by all the glittering gold, candles and beautiful stained glass windows and he could not keep quiet about it so the lady that was with us said she would take him out while we finished looking around. She took him in his stroller out to the front steps and stood there with him. We found out later that someone came by and gave the lady a dollar for him. She explained that he did not need it, but they insisted. We found out that the place where she was standing was the place where all the beggars gather at church time to try to get money. They assumed she was begging for Paul so he got his first Moldovan lei given to him by a stranger.

During our time in Moldova, we spent a lot of time with a doctor and her husband who was a deacon in the church there. She is a cardiologist and makes $300 a month. I was shocked when she told me what she made, but her wages are about all that any doctor makes. She was just as intelligent and skilled as any cardiologist in the states, but she is just practicing in a poor country.

If you consider the common person makes $30 a month, then she still makes ten times what they do so perhaps that is equivalent to our own economy. She studied nine years to make these kind of wages so it's really a pitiful economic situation.

During our time with her, she told us several shocking stories about the health situation in Moldova. She said that one of her most difficult problems is trying to convince people that what their grandmothers did is not necessarily the best way. She said that especially those in the village just will not listen to her if she tries to convince them any differently than the old grandmothers say.

One example is in the care of babies. Because of the extremely high cost of baby food (I saw one jar for $2), mothers chew whatever food the baby needs, then they feed it what they just chewed. The babies get lots of infections and diseases being fed this way.

Another superstition that they hold is that a stomach ache comes because the stomach some how twisted while they were sleeping and now it needs to be straightened out. She said they lay the person on the floor and someone else gets on them and roughly puts their thumb on the persons belly button and twists their thumb around until the person's stomach is straightened out, the person is hospitalized or otherwise gets better.

She also told us that one in twelve people have some form of hepatitis and they have a firmly held belief for how to get rid of it. The cure for hepatitis is to find a very fat dog and to eat the fat of this dog. The doctor said the she had a nice little dog herself and had gotten fat from being so well cared for. Well, it disappeared, and she found out the rest of the story.

Now don't continue reading if you have a weak stomach. Don't blame me if you get sick because I have forewarned you...The doctor told us that there is a lot of tuberculosis in Moldova and here again, they have some sure methods for curing it. She said that they believe that if a person eats a prescribed number of lice for several days, fixed in a prescribed manner, that their tuberculosis will be cured. This was hard enough for me to digest (literally!) but then it got worse. She said that some parents actually let lice grow in their children's hair to sell for "medicinal purposes." I could hardly believe this was true so I questioned her further. It is true and it's easier to believe these things when you see the poverty of these people. The way they think is that if those bugs are on their hair, why should they destroy this source for getting money for those who don't have these bugs? After all, if you are only making $30 a month, life is already so tough that it can't get much worse for many of them. In our time here, I have passed many beggars, but I think I have not turned away any child--that's just too hard to do.

Now if you don't recognize this last picture, I'll let you know. This was the bathroom at the Moldovan border. One thing we learned right away--you don't have to ask where the bathrooms are...just follow your nose.