Travel to and concert in Bacau

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By Denny Nutter
Friday, April 17, 2009, at 9:38 p.m. Pacific

Today was another beautiful, but very busy day.

After an early breakfast, we left Galati and headed north to Bacau. On the way, our bus drivers were kind enough to take us through the Gypsy town of Ivesti, which had very fascinating architecture. We observed many horse-drawn wagons and brightly-dressed Gypsy women.

We arrived at the Moldova Conference Office about 2 p.m. and walked a few blocks to the church closest to the Conference Office where we were treated to a feast of cabbage rolls, potato salad, fresh bread, corn-meal mush and a variety of desserts – lemon bars being one of the favorites. Apples have been made available to those that prefer fresh fruit or choose to use it for a toothbrush.

Tonight the group is staying at the Hotel Moldova right across from a mammoth Orthodox church under construction.

We were within easy walking distance (about five blocks) of our evening concert, which was held in the Ateneu Concert Hall. Again, nearly every seat was filled by a very enthusiastic audience. As they did last night, the audience responded very enthusiastically to OAMC’s attempt at singing the second verse of “Nearer, Still Nearer” in Romanian. The Romanian men we sing with are always very complimentary and say that our pronunciation is very good and that they can understand every word.

The concert was broadcast live tonight [on the Internet] and some in our chorus were able to get the church website address last minute to some of our friends and family back in the states, who were able to watch it online. [Editor's note: Saturday and Sunday concerts may also be broadcast, but it's not definite. Go here for details.]

The audience lustily joined us on the second chorus of “We Have This Hope” and was so touched by grandness of the men and the orchestra that we sang it a second time as an encore.

Everyday one can observe the friendship grow among the men of both choruses. Truly we getting a small taste of what heaven will be like.