Portland group arrives at JFK in New York

Rune Saur reported from JFK airport in New York at 7:30 a.m. Pacific on Sunday their group had arrived and sent these photos:

Paul Johnson, Laban Quimby, Rune Saur, Lowell Dunston, Bruce Schmidt

Iasi Concert Day is a Busy, Satisfying Day

Denny Nutter shared this report about the Sabbath, June 3, concert day:

Riser set-up on stage, preparing for morning rehearsal, Sabbath, June 3

Sleepy Americans try to recover from jet lag on Reunion Concert Day, some more successful than others. Ron Oliver stated that he didn't even realize he had drifted off while singing during the concert until his Romanian neighbor turned the page on him.

Breakfast at Little Texas

It was a busy day starting with breakfast at the Little Texas outdoor restaurant, then shuttle to the concert hall for stage setup, sorting songs for concert order. and rehearsal. During the morning rehearsal, Steve Chapman, Bob and Trudi Cotterman, Ron & Virginia Oliver, and Denny Nutter, all received word that their lost luggage had arrived at the airport. After a lengthy process, they were able to obtain their luggage later that afternoon just in time to change into concert attire for the 5 pm concert.

One of the bunkhouses at the Little Texas Inn

Little Texas Restaurant Garden

Lunch followed morning rehearsal at Alin's sister's restaurant with a beautiful buffet spread.

Remnants of lunch

After lunch, the combined chorus had their first opportunity to practice with the orchestra, with about a 15 minute break before the concert started at 5:00 p.m. God blessed despite some Americans reading Romanian for the first time for certain songs, or attempting to keep from dozing off while standing! Thank you, Alin and Ben! Terrific job!

Afternoon rehearsal with the orchestra before the concert

Sunday is a travel day for most to Ukraine.

See more photos on our Facebook page.

More Travelers Depart for Kiev June 3

As travelers in Romania were departing for Kiev by bus, others were flying out of PDX in Portland bound for Kiev.

Departing late Saturday evening from PDX for Kiev via JFK International in New York are (L to R): Rune Saur, Laban Quimby, Bruce Schmidt, Lowell Dunston and Paul Johnson.

Heading to Kiev

The next morning after the concert, our travelers boarded the bus for the ride to Kiev.

Sorin, from Romania and Bert Logan on the bus headed to Ukraine.

Farewell, Little Texas!

Romanian Concert Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary

Rehearsal for the Sabbath evening concert in Iasi, Romania

Bert Logan reports:

The concert in Iasi, Romania, to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Romanian Adventist men's chorus was held at 5 p.m. Sabbath evening (local time).

The concert was well attended. It was an amazing orchestra!! The concert was co-conducted by Alin Apostol and Ben Purvis. Ben honored Alin in front of audience for his work with RAMC all these years and gifted him a coffee table book about Arizona and Grand Canyon where Ben lives. Connie Smith gave Alin a huge beautiful floral arrangement as gift. The concert went well in spite of Americans not getting much rehearsal in their language and God still blessed!!

Rehearsal included a break for a season of prayer.

Mirella, Romanian chorus "choir mom" and Bert Logan.

This photo of Mirella with Bert deserves a bit of explanation. 

Mirella is known as the Romanian chorus' "choir mom," patterned after OAMC's "choir mom" role.

The choir mom is an all-around problem solver, taking care of issues such as sewing on buttons on jackets that have come loose, or attaching the men's chorus pocket patch to the jacket.

Mirella's husband, Ruben, and son, Lorel, sing in the Romanian chorus. 

Sabbath morning overlooking Iasi

Here's the view from our balcony overlooking Iasi. Weather is hot and a bit muggy on Sabbath, but beautiful.

Only a few of the Romanians will be able to participate in the Ukraine portion of the trip. Was so fun to reunite with old Romanian friends from 2009 and 2014 trips!!

See more photos on our Facebook page.

More Travel Adventures from the US to Romania

OAMC Chorus member Denny Nutter sent this travel note on Friday, June 2:

Delta's City in the Air

OAMC's Mission to Romania and Ukraine has officially begun. An enthusiastic beginning certainly has the devil's attention as our trip began. For those of us on Delta's flight from Portland to Amsterdam, the adventure began early!

Our initial flight was delayed 45 minutes due to the cleaning necessary, thanks to the passengers just arriving from Amsterdam. That was our first hint of a challenge as we knew there was a long walk from Delta's terminal to KLM's flight from Amsterdam to Bucharest with an original one-hour turn around time.

Boarding in Bucharest

Whew! We made it just in time with sweat dripping from the foreheads and necks of some of the harried sprinters. We quickly settled into a very warm plane anxious to get moving and have the plane's air conditioning kick on. Instead, we hung our heads from an announcement stating that the crew had determined that there was a problem with the plane that needed to be fixed before flight. They then announced that we should gather our belongings and deplane and return to Gate D23 to re-board in two hours. Doing so gave the airlines the time needed and we were on our way to Bucharest.

What was to have been a nice little break in Bucharest to find the plane that would take some of us on a 50-minute domestic flight from Bucharest to Iasi, where our Romanian Reunion Concert is to be, now made us wonder if we would make it to THAT flight at all. That concern grew even greater as we discovered after waiting and watching luggage belts go round and round for 45 minutes that our baggage had evidently not made the same flight as we had, and therefore we would have to notify lost and found where to direct it once it was located.

We looked at our watches. The current time was also the boarding time for the Blue Air flight that was supposed take some of us from Bucharest to Iasi. Dave Schmidt was the only one fortunate to catch that 5 o'clock flight. Cotterman''s and I (Denny) found each other and were able to purchase tickets for the 8 p.m. flight, as the one we missed was "non-refundable" and did not qualify for rebooking.

Transportation to Iasi

Ben Purvis, our Director, had the same misfortune as he was making his way from Phoenix, but was certainly glad when he found some familiar faces that could show him the ropes for rebooking the plane that he had also missed. What an adventure!

Then it was "hurry up and wait" as we waited to board buses that would shuttle us out to the far reaches of a secondary domestic flights runway.

Whether it was the devil in the details or Murphy's law, we knew that we had arrived when Alin's cousin met us at the Iasi airport to take us to the familiar surrounding of the Old West, where​​​​​​ we were welcomed to the Little Texas hotel.

After 36 hours of travel, and more for some, we had finally arrived to join our Romanian brothers to celebrate the Romanian Adventist Men's Chorus 10-year anniversary with praise in the Iasi Concert Hall.

See more photos on our Facebook page.

Arrived at Little Texas - Finally!

A brief report from Bert Logan from - of course you'd name it this in the heart of Eastern Europe - Little Texas:

Finally arrived about midnight to The Little Texas hotel. Pretty nice actually.

Denny Nutter writes up a couple of notes for the blog before hitting the hay.

We'll get notes from Denny Nutter up on the blog Friday evening.