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Online Journal - December, 2007 Archive
December 23, 2007 - Sunday -
Two days until Christmas…
 There is much going on here in
Romania. The stores are crowded with people and the ladies
are baking like crazy to be ready for their family
celebrations. Lydia and I spent a good part of the weekend
doing some baking ourselves. We decided to treat ourselves
to some of our favorite cookies…buckeyes, snickerdoodles,
and the classic chocolate chip cookies. Our shopping is
complete and now all that remains is to wrap some gifts and
make sure I have everything for our Christmas dinner. This
is our first year to not be with extended family (since the
year Stephen was expected nearly 16 years ago) and the first
year to be without my sister. We are feeling it, but we are
also glad to be staying home and not dealing with a long
trip to “grandma's house”. (It would be more than over the
river and through the woods…)
  This past Saturday was a busy day. We were
invited to celebrate Christmas with all of the children and
staff from Oaza. A very generous donor paid for everyone to
have a delicious restaurant dinner. Everyone dressed up…it
was a lot of fun!
Then in the evening, we had a community
performance for our community clubs. Each club made a
presentation to the families that attended. There was
dancing, singing, recitations, puppet skits, a play, and art
work to decorate the facility. The Orthodox priest of the
neighborhood allowed us to use their “community center” for
our program. We are very thankful. All of the children did a
great job…everyone had a lot of fun. The clubs will be
taking a break for the holidays and begin again in January.
  Scott
shared the sermon today in church and Stephen and Lydia
graciously played the part of Mary and Joseph in a
modern-type Christmas drama by the teenagers. The children
also sang and shared puppet performances. Click on the
following to hear a couple of clips from the special music
today.
Tomorrow, we and the Oaza children will share
carols and treats at a new drop-in shelter for street kids
(run by another organization here in Arad). We are glad to
see the cooperation between organizations. Later, we will
gather with church kids and teens for some evening caroling.
I just hope it isn’t too cold!
  We
are thankful for our warm house but the windows and doors
leak a lot of cold air. Our gas bill last month was
outrageous! So, we’ve decided to try something new for us.
We have a ceramic-tile heater in the corner of our front
room (which serves as the entrance to our house and our
dining room). We decided to build a fire in it tonight and
see if it will help get rid of some of the 60-65F chill and
drafts. The fire heats up the tiles which then emit heat to
the room. Scott did a great job of building the fire…we just
have to figure out how to get it to smolder longer… We’ll
let you know how it works out…
We haven’t watched my favorite Christmas
children’s cartoon yet…Charlie Brown Christmas. If you
haven’t seen it for a while, you should watch it. It has
such a clear message about the real blessing of
Christmas…our Savior, which is Christ the Lord. We celebrate
with you…with thankfulness and joy in our hearts!
Crǎciun Fericit! (Merry Christmas!) Paula
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December 19, 2007 - Wednesday -
I (Scott) spent Monday at an old copper
smelting factory in
Zlatna that is now owned by a member of our church here.
He bought the closed factory a few years ago with the
intention of selling off anything of value for profit. He
has sold all of the old equipment and a lot of scrap metal,
but the item of biggest value was the copper ore that was
left in the old "oven," the facility where copper ore was
melted to separate the copper from the ore. Now he is down
to digging up copper slag (leftovers from the smelting
process--it still contains a lower percentage of copper)
from around the property, grinding and enriching it, then
selling the resulting "copper concentrate" (a powder
substance with a minimum 15% copper) to other processing
plants in Europe.
Zlatna is located in the Apuseni Mountains, a
region long known for its rich deposits of copper, gold,
silver and other valuable metals. The property has been used
for copper smelting for at least 270 years. Of course it has
been rebuilt and modernized many times over that long
history. Unfortunately Zlatna has also become known as one
of the most heavily polluted regions areas in Eastern Europe
due to its long history of processing copper (toxic levels
of lead and sulfur/"acid rain" are by-products). The
state-run plant closed not long after communism fell here in 1989/90,
leaving most of the village unemployed (3000 jobs lost).
Today private investors are trying to reclaim the old
factory lands and turned them into a new industrial park.
One new, small factory has already opened on part of the
former copper factory site. Scott
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December 16, 2007 - Sunday -
 I'm
an uncle (again)! Yesterday evening my youngest sister,
Katy, and her husband, Mike, gave birth to their
firstborn, Levi Owen. We're all just a bit excited since it
has been a while since there were babies in our immediate
family (my siblings)...14 years since Lydia was born. We
wish we could be there to hold him, but for now pictures
will have to do. Congrats, Katy & Mike!
 Friday
we took a
family day off and drove to Budapest. We ate lunch with our
friends and colleagues,
Larry & Katie Winckles, at a really good
Mexican
restaurant (imagine, good Mexican food in Budapest,
Hungary). The Dunn family really enjoyed it since it was our
first good Mexican food in over two years!
 After
lunch we then went to the Budapest Christmas market, an
annual event that some think eclipses event eh famous
Christmas market in Vienna (Austria). It was cooold, and the
Christmas atmosphere was enhanced by a light snowfall. But
there were lots of handmade craft items to look at and some
even worthy of buying :-). Mostly it was just a good day off
from our routine in Romania (picture at the right includes
the American Embassy in the background).
Tomorrow I'm traveling with a young
businessman from our church to his primary business site
more towards the center of the country (Zlanta, near
Alba Iulia). He is processing copper ore there, so it
should be quite interesting. I've been told to dress
warmly...it is mostly outdoor work, and we will be closer to
the mountains, thus more cold and snow. Scott
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December 10, 2007 - Monday -
Paula and I traveled this weekend about 260 kilometers
(approx. 160 miles, 4 hours drive time) south to a city on
the Danube River called
Drobeta-Turnu-Severin. The city is perhaps most famous
for being the place where the Roman Emperor,
Trajan,
built a bridge over the Danube River to first enter and
conquer the native
Dacian lands in 103 AD (yes, that is early 2nd
century...really old). We came in contact with a new
 church
plant there about one year ago when a musician from our
church in Arad was invited to help them train a worship
leader. Since then we have enjoyed a developing relationship
with the church and the founding pastor, Ionuţ
(say EE-o-noots), his wife, Jenny, and their two girls.
Please pray for Ionuţ and Jenny as they lead this new
church, "Smirna"
(like the church mentioned in Revelation 2, Smyrna). Their
vision is to be a new kind of church for a
new generation of Romanians. Amen!
Cole slaw,
anyone? There is a very active market on the same street
where the church meets. Cabbage was the primary vegetable of
the day. This trailer was one of several vehicles loaded
with cabbage ready to be pickled for use throughout the
winter and spring of next year.
The trip to
Severin takes us through some of the lower mountains of the
southern stretch of the Carpathians. There was no snow
on the roads (thankfully), but the nearby higher elevations
had snow and were absolutely beautiful. We snapped some
pictures from the car, and you can click on this album if
you're interested in seeing some of Romania's beauty.
Scott
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December 5, 2007 - Wednesday -
Tonight is a big night for Romanian children...Moş (say "mosh")
Nicolae (Old Man Nicholas) visits tonight with gifts for all
the children who have been good. Children are also making
sure their shoes are cleaned and placed by the front door
before they go to bed. Clean shoes promise to be filled with
candy and other small gifts (like the stockings tradition in the US);
dirty shoes may get filled with onions or potatoes, though!
Children will also receive most of their Christmas gifts
tomorrow, Dec. 6, which is Moş Nicolae Day. What will the
Dunn kids receive? Well, we're preserving our gift giving
for Christmas Day as is our custom in the US, but "Mrs. Nicolae" (aka Paula) is in our kitchen right now baking some
fresh cookies for the Dunn kids to enjoy on Moş Nicolae Day.
I took some updated pictures of the exterior
finish progress on the Oaza New Shalom House where I am
overseeing construction. Click on the following picture to
see a slide show.
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December 4, 2007 - Tuesday -
We've just posted our November/December newsletter. Click on
the "Newsletters" tab above to download it in pdf format.
And now for some fun. Click on the following
picture to enjoy a holiday greeting from our family:
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