Arrived in Bucharest

Received Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 12:55 PM Pacific Time

From Rick Pummel, OAMC singer, 2nd Tenor

Sent from Bucharest

We have all now safely arrived at the Rin Grand Hotel in Bucharest. Those who arrived today came in four separate groups this afternoon. All went well on the trip, except that all of Gerard McLane’s checked luggage was lost by the airline! Please pray for its return. Dave Wyman was missing one of his checked bags as well, but it turned out that it somehow arrived with one of the earlier groups.

There were some rather droopy faces this evening (after a long day of travel), but all seem to be in good spirits.

Romania is definitely much different than America. At this point, most of the group has had rather little interaction with the people.

The countryside around Bucharest is one thing so far that stands out in my mind as markedly different from home. I thought it was odd to see totally unimproved grounds around most of even the fancy buildings. Not just grounds with no lawn but grounds that look like the construction crew just drove away and left the pits and bumps and all, with just sidewalks around the buildings. It is certainly not this way everywhere here, but I guess the poor condition of the road we drove in on, combined with all the trash along the roadway and the lack of groomed areas around buildings left an impression on me.

A group of us went directly from the airport to the seminary for supper. It is a very nice facility, the food was good and, of course, the people were very kind.

As I understand it, we will be spending the next couple of days rehearsing at the seminary before heading off on tour around the country.

We all thank you for your prayers!