Day of relaxation and tourist stuff

Today, Saturday, was sort of an off day for us. We once again all meet at 11:00am but today we took a tour of Timisoara. We visited the building were the revolution began on December 15, 1989. If you are like me, when you here revolution you think maybe 100, 200 years ago not 21 years ago. The revolution was against the communists (sorry can't spell the communist leaders name). At this time the people had to stand in line for hours just for 1 liter of milk, if you wanted 2 liters you had to get one and then stand in line again. So anytime there was a crowd or line of people, other would join because they thought they could get something.

Marius explained to us that the revolution started when the communist soldiers come to remove a Pastor from the city but people from his church said NO! There was a crowd of around 100 people, this cause others to show up. The soldiers threatened to shot into the crowd, but the people did not budge. By this time the crowd was a lot larger, maybe in the thousands. The communist leader instructed them to kill all the people in the crowd, when they shot some of the people others rose up against the soldiers. After a day or two of this, the soldiers said "why are we killing our own family members/friends/neighbors" and they turned against the communist leader. And they chased the communists out of the town.

I did not tell that as well as Marius did, but I hope you got the point. Timisoara was the starting spot for a large revolution against the communists and neighboring cities, towns and villages followed in suit.

We then toured the Timisoara square, where their had been other large gatherings during the revolution (there are still bullet holes in a few buildings from that time). We saw the Timisoara Opera house, the beautiful garden and a Catholic cathedral. The Catholic cathedral was a wonderfully looking building, but no spiritual life. People come and pray to statues of saints and bones of saints passed away. It is kind of sad. We then did some souvenir shopping in the center square. Marius also took us to a Romanian Christian bookstore to shop.

We then went and visited a few parks. One had an apotheator, which Tabita has sung at. We also visited the Rose park and the Botanical Garden, we saw several wedding parties having their pictures being taken. I offered anyone in our group 5 lai (currency) to jump into one of the photos, but got no takers. Kidding, I wouldn't let that happen.

We also went to the Timisoara Mall. I know, 'You go all the way to Romania to go to a mall?' but you have to remember this is still new to them and not like around us were there is 4-5 malls in close driving distance. We did some more souvenir shopping. And in the mist of all that, we had lunch in the food court. There was German, Chinese, Serbian, Greek and Italian foods. There was also a Falofal (spelling?) stand and of course Marius' favorite, KFC.

We than went to a pool, not just any pool but a natural hot spring pool. It rained as we got there, so the weather cooled a bit for us and the hot spring water felt great. As long as you can get past the solpher smell of the hot spring, it felt good. We were here for a few hours and when it started to rain again, we decided to return to the homes we are staying at.

Like the title says, it was a relaxing day. The big push starts tomorrow with three church service. Pray for us as we will be the main focus at all these services. We will be singing songs, preforming a skit, doing testimonies and Ed will be giving a talk. Pray that the Lord works through us and will inspire/encourage the Romanian people.

Till tomorrow,
Doug