Our anniversary dinner photos and other crazy news

Hi All,

Two weeks ago, we wrote to let you know about our sudden change of plans to stay longer here in Romania. This was to be only the start of a very crazy week.

just that following monday Joel came down with a fever which lasted all week and was finally diagnosed as a viral infection. On top of that, the following Saturday we had to take a day trip to Bulgaria (just for stamps on Joel's passport and a new visa to Romania) . On the way we got in an accident in our friend's car (she was driving) and so sorting that out took about 5 hours (four or so at the police station). No one was seriously hurt though (thank God) but both cars were damaged beyond drivability (is that a word?) . Anyway, Dana's father drove down from Bucharest to lend us his car to cross the border. Unfortunately when we got there, we were told that we couldn't use the car to cross on the Bulgarian side because the registration had to be in one of our names, which it wasn't and Tata (dad) didn't have a passport :( They said we couldn't cross by foot either! So we had to ask someone to drive us in their car, drop us off in the nearest town to the border. We spent about 40 minutes there and then hitched a ride back to Romania.

The trip ended up taking the whole day, when it could have taken only 3 hours!!!

We are happy to let you all know that everything has worked out now and we're also picking up our visas to India this afternoon!

Joel got over the fever some 4-5 days ago and we're ready to get back to India! :-) We'll get to Delhi the morning of September 10th.

Thank you all for keeping us in your 'thoughts' even in the absence of communication.
That's about it for now.

Shanti (peace) to all...

Good Afternoon,

Just here checking out the news and what not so I figured I'd write something.

Things are going fairly well here, though yesterday when Dana and I went up to the Indian Embassy to apply for our India visas we found out that my (Joel's) visa will have to be approved by the Indian Embassy in Washington which will take a minimum of five days.

(We've never run into anything like this before as I used to have a 10 year visa until it was stolen and Dana has been able to get visas without this particular hastle when she applied before at least 4 countries various times)

Of course with our tickets to fly on the 23rd and the fact that there are two holidays this week, chances are almost nil for us to get the visa before our flight. So we had to postpone it...

arrrrrrrrrrgggg!!!!!!

well, now that that's out of me, One nice thing is that we'll be able to spend the extra week with family :-) Can't complain about that.

Once we do get back to India we will be pretty busy with some projects there with the School of Hindu Studies. There we'll be working on some new projects such as: ideas for a website. We'll also be continuing our monthly 'Movie Night' with a group of college age people, where we pick a socially and spiritually concious film, watch it, and have discussion.

For now though, not much is happening here - But A LOT is happening in the world.

Of course the Israeli/Lebanese peace deal is dominating CNN international as well as the BBC. But in other news: This past month (July) in Darfur, Sudan (where incidentally - an ENORMOUS amount of suffering is going on - Warring factions, Refugees, Genocide, etc.) has been the worst month for aid worker killings, attacks, and threats.
This is a place where 'Three and a half million people... are dependent on humanitarian aid.' and where 'The UN estimates that at least 70,000 people have died since the start of the conflict'
The irony is that, although this conflict, no, GENOCIDE, has been going on for several years now, it's like it's not even happening - if you only watch the mainstream news.
It's like, NOBODY CARES nearly as much about this as they do about what is happening in Israel and Lebanon (which is also important, but...)
It's absolutely crazy!
And we think we don't have double standards...

Sorry for the political commentary but it's just insane and I feel we're all just so apathetic about it.

We'll keep you updated as we go.

PEACE,

Joel (and Dana)

Family

Joel, Dana, and Parents at the Park just after sundown

Castle Rishnov seen from the town

Beautiful View

From Joel and Gabe's 'Beach Work Out' video
Order Yours Today, and we'll send you the Calendar, for Free...

An Eye Opening Perspective

Read This Powerful Article by Martin Accad, accademic dean of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary.
He wrote this while stranded in the US because of Israel's invasion of his home: Lebanon.

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"If we have the courage to honestly look at ourselves through the eyes of others who are strange and foreign to us or who have been injured and ignored by us, then I believe our hearts will open and the whispering of God’s still, small voice will begin to ring loud and clear in our ears."

-How Does God Speak in a Pluralistic Society?

Time with Family

Hey All,

Just wanted to update you all on what's going on here.
We had a good month - Especially with our (Joel's) family coming.

We had a great time. My parents were able to take two weeks off this year and come to visit us here after two years apart. We spent a total of 10 days together with them as well as my youngest brother Gabe and Grandma (dad's mom).
We had a great time together and were pretty busy most of the time. We visited two castles in the Carpathian mountains (Transylvania) and spent some days at the Black Sea. :-)
We had some great discussions, went cool places, and ate a lot of really good food. (Romanian food is some of my favorite in the world - with such nice bread, soups, cheeses, etc). We were also blessed with a new camera so we took A LOT of pictures (which of course we will share and have already shared below).
But the best part was finally being able to talk and spend time together regardless of where we were and what we did. It was so nice to finally be together again.

Since they left last Friday we've also been able to spend some time with Dana's family as well - especially with her aunt Claudia and cousin Jennifer before they went back to Germany.
Over all it's been really great.

Gotta run now but we'll share more photos as we go so check out our blog again.

Peace,
Joel and Dana

Ask Philosophers

We've recently discovered a very interesting website and are posting a link here to share it with you all.

Ask Philosophers

Check it out. It's cool.

Finally together after two years!

The Boyers and the Dinus - party for Grandma's birthday

We took a trip to Bran Castle (aka Dracula's Castle) but we didn't see much of Dracula himself :-[