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Tamyra Crossley's
Romanian Report
April 2003
Hello everyone! This has literally been the first opportunity I have
had to sit long enough to type, for several weeks. (Not that it really
mattered because I couldn’t have gotten on-line anyway). I know my family
has been worried; we are all fine, just pulling our hair out!
I hardly know where to start. To say the visa process has been a
nightmare is a bit of an understatement. I have been dumbfounded, frustrated,
cried my eyes out and been so angry I wanted to string some bureaucracies up
by their toes (I know, not a very Christian attitude but I am human) and finally
ended up just feeling numb. With all the new laws, no one knew what anyone
else needed and cooperating with each other is unheard of! We would spend
all day, day after and day, running from one office to another, begging for
someone to tell us what they wanted and got the same answer over and over again.
I don’t know! Try this, we would and it would be rejected. Then
they would suggest something else, we would try that and again, rejection.
We finally had to hire a lawyer who apparently pulled some strings and got the
approval we needed from the Department of Sanitation. We still had to
take everything to the Police Department (which is where they process visas)
and the officer had his own list to add to everything else. We got all
the papers together, rushed down to the Police Department to avoid going over
another month only to find out this particular department not only took the
week off for Easter but the Friday before too. This meant they could charge
us an additional month’s late fees (even though the reason we were late in the
first place was their fault!). Ever feel like beating your head against a brick
wall? As I stood in line at the Police station I could hear all the comments,
at least we are not alone, and all the foreigners are as frustrated as we are!
At this time the papers are now in (along with their fines) and we have been
told to come down on the 15th to get our visas. The good news
is our children can breath a sigh of relief (they have been very worried
and were asking questions like, what is going to happen to us if they make you
leave?) the bad news is we have to start the process all over again in about
4 months. Please pray the Lord would smooth out this process for all the
missionaries involved and that he would grant us all sanity as we got through
this insane process!
Now for some great news!!!!!!! We bought a house! We spent
weeks looking and were starting to feel like we were never going to find something
we could afford that would be suited to our needs. We realized that anything
we bought would need lots of remodeling but hoped for something we could live
with (preferably with at least a toilet) until the remodeling process was completed.
Most of the places we looked at (in our price range), not only had no toilet
(or indoor plumbing), but had only 1-2 rooms in the whole house! All of
them had out buildings, basements, barns, animal stalls, etc., but that would
hardly work to house the children (even if they do act like animals sometimes).
This one has 3 rooms (one will be used for the kitchen, dining, one to house
all the kids and one that will act as living-master bedroom, office, temporarily.
There is one bath (with a toilet, yeah and even an outhouse for back up!) and
a pantry. It does have a full basement (which is needed here for food
storage) and a small downstairs room (that we will use for laundry). The
property is large with 40 fruit trees, flowers, garden area and best of all,
lots of room for the kids to run and play. It backs a forested area, which
the children will also be able to use for those Robin Hood days. We have
been frantically working to get the walls patched, re-mudded and painted before
we move in. The bath is just a shell right now with no hot water and the
kitchen is an empty room, (we will need to put in a temporary sink and stove).
We plan on doing the remodel work in stages. Hopefully by the end of summer
we would like to use the attic space to put in 4 bedrooms (allowing the temporary
bedrooms to become living room and study-office-library room), add another bath
and square off the house (which is now kind of a L shape) which would add a
dining room, indoor stairway, entry (closing in the laundry space for indoor
access, which would be really nice before the snows hit!). In a year or
two (depending on funds) we hope to push out the back, adding more bedrooms,
another bath, and an adequate kitchen and enlarging the dining space.
With the plans we have drawn up the final stage should hold 30 --- 35 children.
Those of you who have know us for years, know this is house #9 we have
either remodeled or built. I keep telling myself, I must be crazy to do
this over and over again but in all honesty it feels great to work on something
you know will benefit so many and be something permanent (NO MORE MOVING, PRAISE
THE LORD!!!!
I would love your prayers in several areas. Please appeal to the Lord
to give me the grace to accept things beyond my control (in other words, not
to worry), to give me the strength to get everything done, packing, working
on the house, full household chores, etc. (we have had to let the girl go that
was helping me) and that the children would adjust to all the changes with a
minimal amount of setbacks. I know you will and do pray for me and I really
appreciate it all.
Love to all,
Tamyra
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