November 9, 2009

A couple of cute stories about Nina and Kati that will give you an idea of how they are doing here in Portugal.

On Friday night Kati went to an unusual birthday party for her friend Tori who just turned eleven. The party was a sleepover...I know that is not unusual for eleven year old girls but this was not only a sleepover for the girls but also for their pet hampsters. So, there they were, three little girls Kati, Tori and Sunny with their hampster cages and their pets Jessa, Lilly (should be Billy) and Gina. A great night and the next day of fun was had by all.

On Saturday Nina and two of her friends, Leah and Louisa decided to get their hair cut explaining what they wanted all in Portugese. They walked down the hill to the salon, explained what they wanted (Nina admitted they used a lot of hand signals along with their broken Portugese) and got their hair cut, washed and styled. Word has it all the girls were pleased with the results. After lunch at Louisa's house they walked back up the hill for some bonding time and dessert at our house...we were gone to Sintra so they had the whole house to themselves.
Nina mentioned she wanted to try an outing with friends taking the subway into old Lisboa for their next adventure...I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.

Yesterday after church we were invited to eat lunch with a young Romanian couple from our church in Loures (pronounced Lor-ish) named Cornell and Eunice. Both of them speak great English as well as Portugese and Romanian. They immigrated here to work nine years ago.

What a meal Eunice prepared! There was enough food to feed twenty instead of just the six of us. She said she just really cooking. We had mashed potatoes, rice, a meat loaf dish with a hard boiled egg baked into the center of it, egg-roll type pastry filled with meat and peppers and onions, a cauliflour dish in cream sauce, salad, fish muffins that tasted a little like salmond patties, bread and a carmel pudding cake that was wonderful. They were so warm and hospitable and made us feel very welcome. We ended up staying at their house until around 5:00 visiting and asking them all kinds of questions about Romania. They told us if we decide to visit Romania while we are here we can stay with Eunice's parents who have plenty of room and will be happy to take us and show us around their country. When we first met Eunice and Cornell we found it amazing that they were from the same town in Romania where Kati's biological brother, Flavius is still living.
The Lord works in mysterious ways indeed! N