Elder
Curtis Pugh
Missionary
to Romania
sent
by the
Berea
Baptist Church
P.O.
Box 39
Mantachie,
Mississippi 38855
(601)
282-7794
PRAYER LETTER FOR
THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY, 2001
Wednesday, March 21,
2001
Dear Pastors and Churches:
“Grace be
to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians
1:3).
May
this letter find all of you doing well in all things!
It is good to be back in Romania, although we miss the great fellowship
we enjoyed while in the States with our home Church folk and with others
of you with whom we were able to visit. I am not sure that we are
really adapted, mentally, to being back in a third world country yet.
It is frustrating to try to get anything done quickly here. While
we were in the States we became accustomed to people doing their jobs well
and productively. The old communist attitude still prevails in many
places here as far as dealing with firms, stores, government offices, and
the like.
Our third day back in Romania I began the process of ordering the new vehicle.
Finally the next day I met the manager of the dealership at their bank.
I opened an account there, deposited dollars which were
converted to Romanian
Lei in the amount of the price of the car (in Deutsch Marks) and then transferred
from my new account to the account of the dealership. Then these
funds, or at least a part of them, had to be transferred to Nissan in Hungary
where the car is to be brought from. That was, I believe, the 27th
of February. The vehicle is supposed to arrive in Romania (somewhere)
day after tomorrow, we hope! I may have to travel to Bucharest to
drive the car home – a 13 hour drive in a fast car! The saleslady
is in the capitol, Bucharest, ready to pay the customs charges as soon
as the transport truck arrives at the
Romanian border.
She must also give some “gifts” to certain government personnel and to
the police in
order to get them
to do their jobs quickly as there is other paperwork to be done and a license
tag to be
issued. (In
third world countries, it seems, you give “tips” ahead of time to get people
to do their jobs
properly. Here
a “bribe” is something given by someone to get something dishonest done
– or something
not supposed to be
done.) I relate this situation to you as an illustration of the daily
situations we face
here. Probably
this is the case with all missionaries in third world countries as well.
Pray for us all!
In the few weeks back, we have been able to distribute C.D. Cole’s ELECTION
to some village churches and to Brother Tinco’s homiletics class.
He has 17 men enrolled. Next Saturday, Lord willing, I am to speak
to this class for an hour on the subject of “preaching.” THE TRAIL
OF BLOOD is complete in Romanian except for the special Romanian “Introduction.”
I expect to take it to Arad to the printer next week. Slava Domunului!
(Praise the Lord!)
Janet still suffers from weakness and dizziness, but I believe she is improving,
though every so slowly. She has less problems swallowing now and
hears a bit in her right ear. We have two ladies each coming from
Bocs’a 3 mornings each week – a total of six days. They wash clothes,
clean the house a bit, and prepare a meal. This has taken a great
burden off Janet and me: a burden off me because of the time required and
my inability in cooking, etc. - and off Janet because she was concerned
and trying to help. Now she just prepares a ladies course, studies
Romanian language and speaks Romanian with the ladies – and puts away clothes
from the laundry, etc., etc. I have arranged with some Brothers to
make and install a metal banister on the stairs because the washer is upstairs.
This has helped some, but I have elicited a promise from Janet that she
will not venture upstairs without me! The stairs are uneven, some
slope a bit, and are of slick wood. She has the strength and going
up is not nearly the problem as is coming down – what with her dizziness
and partial loss of vision. I don't think the banister provides enough
safety at the present time and don't want her to fall.
I have been looking at some one floor houses – smaller than where we are
now – in the city of Boc’sa – about 5 miles distant from Berzovia.
One in particular is strongly built and the price is “ieftin” – cheap.
It has three rooms, a hall, bath, pantry, kitchen, small “sun porch”, and
a smallish workroom which with some work will do for my office. It
has a well, garage and garden as well as a good woodshed. It
has gas at the gate and can be installed at a nominal price and city water
is not too far distant, but city water is provided only twice a day for
about 2 or 3 hours each time right now. It is priced at $12,500.
The owner and builder was a carpenter and has moved to Germany to be with
his grown children. He will let me know in two weeks as to whether
I can buy it and pay it out in the same manner as we are paying rent now.
I have been preaching regularly on Sundays and am to preach Thursday night,
this week. I am attending Brother Tinco’s homiletics class as an
“auditor” quite literally – to listen to Romanian language uses - as was
suggested by our language teacher. We expect to attend two or three
Romanian language class sessions each month to enhance our Romanian language
usage. We have many questions and run into many problems in farming
sentences – and in learning to use expressions. (Because the language
has relatively few words, some words have more than one meaning, depending
on how used. The classic is, as some of your know, “Ma doare in cot’”
which means either “My elbow hurts” or “I don't care!”
My best interpreter, Raul Enyedi, (pronounced EN eh dee – almost like Kennedy)
is working with us as much as his university schedule will allow.
He has already translated some tracts, etc., for publication and has completed
two chapters of Tom Ross’s ABANDONED TRUTH. Every 7 weeks he has
2 weeks off from university classes and coming up next month has 3 weeks
off due to this policy combined with “Easter.” He is in agreement
with us doctrinally on salvation by grace and church truth as well as matters
of separation. He has made known his call to preach – so it is now a joy
to not only work with him as an interpreter, but also to share preaching
with him. He is very devout and a good Bible student. He has
shared with us his heartache and concern over the spiritual decline he
sees here due to the invasion of all sorts of “Christianity” from the U.S
and other places since the revolution in 1989. Pray for Raul – and
for Romania!
Thank you for “holding the rope” for us and enabling us to carry on the
work here! We appreciate your concern and prayers as well as your
faithful financial support. We have “jumped in again” and are
“swimming against
the current” and outside the camp here in Romania.
In the cause of God
and truth,
Curtis and Janet Pugh
curtis@rdslink.ro
CURTIS PUGH
str. Tudor Vladimirescu nr. 376
1742 Berzovia, jud. Caras-Severin
Romania
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