This month has been one of those months that you rush till you drop. We have been fighting against a time limit to get all our internal regulations finished and this booklet turned into Bucharest. Also in complying with the new laws we had to renovate some of the apartment in Zalau. We only had 5 days to get this work accomplished and with no extra funds for this project only God could supernaturally bring this about. So what do you do when the ox is in the ditch so to speak and no teams scheduled to help make this possible? You do it yourself. Ms. Lyn and I left Friday night after our very first children’s program so that we could start work early Saturday morning. When we got there and saw all the work that was before us, it was overwhelming and looked impossible but we pressed into it full force. Before our arrival Barbara had started removing the wallpaper that was old, torn, and hazardous to the children. Not long into the project she let us know that the removal of this paper was just short of impossible.

When we got there we realized what she meant. It looked to be one big mess and entirely hopeless. There were layers and layers of paper on top of old paint and the bottom layer had art designs painted on it that had been painted with oil paint. Only God could transform this project and make this apartment look good once again. It was something like we either sit in the boat and sink (which would mean losing the children) or step out in faith on the water and trust that Jesus would carry us through. Which indeed was what HE did! I pulled out my super-duper sander and off we went head long into the task set before us. Lyn started by scraping by hand the old wallpaper that had not been removed before we got there. Our goal that day was to get the walls plastered by bedtime.

We had major setbacks. We had sanded the walls and put the plaster on in hopes that the next morning the walls could be painted. When I started painting the walls all the plaster started coming off. It was like “Oh no, what are we going to do?” However, God has reasons for everything! So we decided instead of losing our vision and allowing ourselves to get down right discouraged that we should move on to something else. What more fun than to paint a child’s room? With a new vision we turned our focus to the girls’ room and allowed ourselves time to seek God’s wisdom regarding our “problem room”. We wanted something very bright and joyful for Alex and Sarah so we decided on yellow. As I was mixing the paint, Ms. Lyn said, “God, please let it be as bright as it can be to shine Your glory.” When we had purchased the colorant, a man at the store had told us that it would take all the bottle of color we bought for the 5 liters of paint. So I poured it all in the container as I was told. When we started painting the wall, it wasn’t long before I told Lyn, “Well, I think God heard your prayer!” Sure enough, we have color radiating out of the children’s room that glows all the way to the front entrance. One thing about this color, it brings forth the joy of the Lord. I noticed that every time I looked at the room I couldn’t help but laugh. That is exactly what we wanted - laughter to spring forth from every corner of the place. That room went very quickly and by bedtime we had finished painting Alex and Sarah’s room and we were setting in place our plans for the next day.

We decided to chip off the problem areas of the dining room, reapply more plaster, and let it get good and dry. While Lyn worked on this, I worked on painting the living room. It took only one hour in the living room but thank God for this because the dining room of opportunity still was waiting. It wasn’t long before we learned why God had allowed the setback. While I was in the kitchen getting water, I suddenly heard, “Look around. The health department will not approve this.” So I looked more closely. Sure enough it was as GOD had said. The kitchen would not be approved under its present condition. I had not realized that there was so much that needed improving in the kitchen. We decided to go right in there but first the walls had to be washed down. So as Lyn cleaned the kitchen, I started painting the dining “room of opportunity”. It was totally amazing to me after we had changed our remodeling plans; or should I say, after we listened to what was on God’s heart, the painting in the “room of opportunity” suddenly became the room “with opportunity”. Amazingly everything started falling into place and the wall began to take shape. In no time I had the dining room walls painted and ready to start the kitchen - which was good because we only had one more day to work and the linoleum was yet to be laid, the apartment cleaned and decorated, and appointments scheduled for the next day with the health and fire departments, and the engineer that was drawing up the fire evacuation plans. Wow!

Corina arrived by bus from Cluj to meet with me and off we ran to the appointments leaving Lyn behind to clean and arrange things so that we could get started on the floor and lay the linoleum. Around 2:00 p.m. all appointments were over and I rushed back to put on my work clothes. At 10:00 o’clock that night Lyn and I started to lay the linoleum. That was certainly frightening to me because I had never in my life laid linoleum and on top of everything we had a great big cement beam right in the middle of the dining room floor in a diamond shape. No funds were available to hire someone and no time to find someone to do the job. We had already spent over $100.00 in purchasing just the flooring. Needless to say, it was another one of those opportunities of either stay in the boat and sink or get out and walk. So off we went sink or swim. We prayed again and gave our hands to God and asked for HIS Divine Wisdom to be in us. Sure enough, to our amazement the cement pole was not that big of an ordeal. In fact, God’s wisdom just simply flooded that place and HE accomplished through our hands the work that had been set before us. Of course with Him using amateurs as His workers, it might not be the best of all jobs but it looks pretty good considering.