I was planning on writing my own blog about this exciting afternoon of “normal” world race life, but since Ashley had already written a great post about it I figured I’d just copy hers! So here it is:
Today was our free day so we decided to go out and buy as much food as we could buy with the money we had and plan out how to get the most for our money. But, on the way to the grocery store, we had a reminder of just how much God provides.
Once we got into town, we realized that there was not an ATM for us to get out money or enough food in the little markets for us to buy what we had planned out. So, Kaitlyn and Amanda went to a grocery store in the city and the rest of us stayed behind to explore the town.
Lauren suggested we check out this Catholic church but once we got inside the gate and found out that the church was locked, we just decided to continue exploring. We were all about to walk out of the gate when a man came running up yelling something that sounded like “wait.” I yelled to the rest of the girls that the man wanted us to stay so they all came back.
The man only spoke Hungarian and Romanian and a little bit of broken English but from the little words he knew, we discovered he was the Priest of the church and wanted to show us around. After spending about twenty minutes in the church and an intense charades game, we figured out he wanted us to come to his house (which was right around the corner of the church) At first we were a little hesitant (watching Taken will do that to you) But, we decided to follow him.
When we arrived at his house, he held his finger up to me, motioning for me to stay and then he balled his hand up into a fist and acted as if he was going to eat it. I didn’t know what he was trying to say, but I figured it had something to do with food. I told the girls to wait while he went into his basement. When he came back, not only did he have a box of apples for us, he took us into his home where his mother lived with him and made us the biggest lunch I have eaten in the past three months.
Our first course was a round of apples, followed by bread and some kind of pastries that tasted like cookie dough covered in coffee…fabulous! The second course was potato and vegetable soup served with a side of peppers. Then, for dessert, we had more pastries, bread and juice. His mother, Elizabeth was more than happy to serve us more than we were even prepared for. She reminded me a lot of my grandmother in the sense that even if we said we were full, she still kept bringing us food and would not sit down until we all had already started eating and she could tell we liked what she served us.
When we were finished, we sang them a couple songs and then they sang us a song, we washed some dishes and got a grand tour of their property, chickens and everything. On our way to leave, Elizabeth brought us a bucket of walnuts and acorns to eat. She showed us how to crack them with a hammer and then let us crack some for ourselves.
When we were done, she still continued cracking them until we literally had to take the bucket away from her. I’m sure if we hadn’t, she would have given us the whole bucket. She made sure to stuff our pockets full of walnuts to take with us before we left, even the butt pocket of Alysa’s pants were stuffed with walnuts.
It was just one great example of how God provides just what we need at just the right time. Obviously, we are not starving, but cutting down on our budget is requiring us to eat less so we are hungry more often. We had eaten a little bit for breakfast and now did not have to worry about what we would eat for lunch because God had already provided lunch for us. So, even when you might be struggling to get by, God will always provide you with your own pocket full of walnuts.
