First two days in Moldova

We left for LHR at 06.00 Thursday morning and flew Austrian Airlines to Vienna and from there Air Moldova to Chisinau, (kish-in-ow) the capital of Moldova.  Matthew picked us up from the airport around 16.00 Moldovan time (2.00 pm in UK) and took us to his home.  The Skirton family (Matthew & Helen, Hannah10, Lydia 9, Rachel 7, David 5, James 3 and two dogs, have a good sized house within walking distance of the two OM properties, one with accommodation for the team members and several offices and the other, where we are staying, is the fairly new OM Missions Centre, where Matthew has his office. Helen home schools the five children.  We have a room with two sets of bunk beds and are sleeping on the two bottom bunks.  But it does have an on-suite toilet & shower.  It has been lovely and sunny high 20s C.   Had a meeting with Matthew and Michaela from the personnel department.  Have pretty full programme worked out for the two weeks.Then we had a tour of the two offices and met everyone who works in the OM Moldova team, too many to mention and too many names to remember!   This afternoon we went we went into the city with the Skirton family and booked places for the circus Sat. afternoon and went to a restaurant for dinner.  Interesting eating Moldovan cuisine, a bit different to anything we have eaten anywhere else- a cheese pie, sort of cabbage dolmas, soft sheeps cheese, a sort of long thin sausage but the fench fries and potato wedges with ketchup and the salad were the same as in the UK.    We are staying in a more expensive area of Chisinau, where there are some very large houses, but the roads are dreadful- so full of potholes or unmade. The Skirtons have a land rover but most of the cars have to have their suspension changed quite regularly!  Moldova has two main evangelical groups the Baptists and the Pentecostals. They can be quite conservative and legalistic compared to UK but in a land where there are many people who drink to get drunk and where alcohol is even more of a social problem than in the UK, most Christians are teetotal and do not conform to this world.  We had some induction time this morning learning about the culture here, what to expect especially in the more rural areas we will be visiting.  Tomorrow we go shopping to a large supermarket and go to the circus and....