Life-Pt. 2

I shared some of what I'd heard about the tragedy of abortions with a group this evening. As we discussed it, one woman shared that at one point 90% of pregnancies were terminated by abortion. As I was searching trying to find statistics accurate for now, I came across this chart. It breaks my heart to see these statistics. It's a clear indication that this is a group of people who need the love and hope of Jesus...not to make everything better and offer a picture-perfect life, but to rescue their souls and to bind up the broken-hearted.

Abortions in Romania after 1989

Year	Abortions	Per 1000 live-births
1990	992,265	3,158.4
1991	866,934	3,156.6
1992	691,863	2,663.0
1993	585,761	2,348.4
1994	530,191	2,153.5
1995	502,840	2,129.5
1996	455,340	1,971.9
1997	346,468	1,465.6
1998	270,930	1,144.0
1999	259,266	1,107.5
2000	257,267	1,099.5
2001	253,426	1,153.3
2002	246,714	1,174.9
2003	223,914	1,056.5
2004	189,683	879.5
2005	162,087	735.1
2006	149,598	683.5

(http://www.insse.ro/cms/files/pdf/ro/cap2.pdf )

Life

I'm so thankful for the many women who choose life for their children.

I recently traveled west three hours to Craiova to visit two other ReachGlobal families. While there, I enjoyed playing games, homemade pizza, good conversation, and homemade ice cream (after taking my turn cranking).

I joined these families for church on Sunday morning before my train back to Bucharest. Since I've visited previously, one of the young women in the church sat down and struck up a conversation with me. I learned she was nearing the end of her medical degree. As a part of her studies, she spent some time surveying women who were waiting to have abortions. To the question asking how many abortions she already had, one woman resonded 42. Another chimed in with 36. I nearly fell of my chair. One woman, 42 abortions. How horrible! How tragic! As a missionary friend joined the conversation she mentioned another woman who has one child and can't remember how many times she's been pregnant. What a travesty! Her hope is to open a clinic that will begin to change these staggering statistics. I believe that her dream is a gift from God and pray that God will bring people alongside her to help see it become a reality.

Life is too precious to throw away.

Unforgettable Teacher

My class worked on writing biographies over the past couple weeks. They picked who they wanted to write about. One of my ESL students, Eu Jin, chose to write about me. While the paper below isn't error-free, it was fun to work with her on. We worked together on writing titles for each student's paper. The first title suggested was 'Everlasting Teacher'. I just didn't want to be everlasting:)

In August 2003, Ms. Westrum followed God. She came to Romania and became a teacher. She loves to teach kids and watch them learn.
Ms. Westrum grew up in a Christian family. She worked hard throughout college to become a teacher, and to be able to serve God. She has been here six years. This year she teaches 4th and 5th grade. Ms. Westrum teach very well. Every single day she helps her students and makes things simple for them to understand. She helps our minds to be clever. She is a funny teachers.
Ms. Westrum wawnts to help us become great students. She is strict and hopes we will play and work hard. She helps us not to fight. Because of this, Ms. Westrum's class will become great and clever students.

Winter Wonderland

Snow fell once again in Bucharest today. I love how it lands on the trees. They seem to sparkle and shine. It's beautiful to watch snow fall--drifting, silently landing beside you.I haven't often seen snowplows of any sort in Bucharest. It made me smile to see tractors equipped with plows roaming the streets today.

Parking

It might not be a sign we'd recognize, but the windshield wipers on this car are telling a message...

It seems that standard procedure when someone parks in your spot, blocks you in, or does something otherwise annoying with the location of their car is to flip their windshield wipers up. Seems like a very gracious way of sending a message.

Birthday Wishes from Around the World

As I was cleaning my apartment this afternoon, I came across the stack of birthday cards I'd received for my 30th birthday in November. As I flipped through them again, I realized they really did come from around the world:

-United States (from all parts)
-Romania
-UK
-New Zeland
-Burkina Faso
-Czech Republic

Kind of fun:)

Great Expectations

I've started a list of some things I'm looking forward to about my time in the US. I thought I'd share some of them with you...they might be different than what you expected :)

-at the top of my list--people--being able to visit leisurely and more than once a year, celebrating holidays and birthdays together, meeting my niece
-simplicity of grocery shopping with a car
-milk that I enjoy drinking
-the cereal aisle
-being back in school
-being in a closer time zone

I started thinking too of the things I'll miss from Romania...

-again at the top of the list is people--students, colleagues (at school and within ReachGlobal), small group, friends
-church--I've grown very fond of the church I've attended these past two years. I'll miss worshiping in Romanian and the joy of a service that is 2+ hours long
-walking everywhere or being able to take public transportation
-my apartment
-simplicity of life
-a schedule--my life next year will be much less structured than it is right now
-BCA and teaching (although I expect there will be many opportunities for teaching in MN, but it won't be the same)

Christmas 2009

Because I knew my time in Bucharest would be short, I decorated my tree shortly after Thanksgiving. It was wonderful to enjoy it before traveling to Prague to be with my parents.It was neat to be with family during my vacation! I enjoyed celebrating with them and many others during my time.
My dad and I worked to install new ceiling lights in their office. The vacuum is to help keep the inevitable dust to a minimum.













Doing puzzles is one of our Christmas traditions.












It's been a long time since we've played Monopoly. I remember as a kid that my dad always won. The three of us battled it out one night until my mom was declared the winner.

















We enjoyed having others join us for a Christmas meal and some games and crafts into the afternoon!

Poland Pottery

We started our time in Poland with a tour of one of the factories where the pottery is made. It was neat to see the many stages the pottery goes through before it reaches the shelves of stores around the world (recently seen in JC Pennys catalog). The pottery shrinks 10% in the first firing and an additional 20% in the second one. Once the items are removed from the molds they go through a number of steps before even reaching the kiln the first time.
Many of the patterns are done with stamps made of sponges. It was amazing to watch these women work! The pottery items are placed on turning platforms and they work with amazing agility and speed.
The display rooms/stores were overwhelming! These shelves are arranged with all items of one pattern grouped together, but some stores were arranged by item (ie all teapots together).I was excited about the huge variety of patterns and thought it'd be fun to have a set of dessert plates. I also found some mugs for gifts and some large serving bowls. The colors are stunning and it's wonderful to see the intricacies.

Cereal

I'm not sure I realized how much I took the cereal aisle for granted. It's full of an amazing amount of options--overwhelming before I moved to Romania, but even more so now. But, I'm a big fan of cereal. For my birthday I received some frosted mini-shredded wheat (a favorite of mine). From Christmas, I brought home a box of toasted almond crunch which has made breakfast more exciting the past few days. And in a Christmas package I opened this afternoon--some life cereal. It's going to be a great couple of weeks. :)