Dateline: 17 January, 2019; Telenești, Moldova — By God’s grace the hiatus is over. I cannot remember when I wrote my last travelogue, but it has been five years. I had three main “cheerleaders” for my posts. One was my oldest sister, Kathy. She shared them with her coworkers at work in Sacramento, California. She died in July of ’15 and that kicked much of the wind out of my sails. I miss my big sister.

My second “cheerleader” is my mother. Her cognition has slipped to the point she may or may not even know who I am. I miss that vibrant, open-hearted woman who sought to brighten every life within reach. The Bible says, “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” I pray people whose lives she touched will at least remember to pray for her. She will be 96 in June and lives in a nursing home in Butler, Kentucky.

My third “cheerleader” was my dear Aunt Winnie, my mother’s baby sister. She fell asleep on December 4, 2017, in Maryland. She kept a notebook of my blogs and would write me often. So much like my mother in personality, in love, in caring.

I will not with this post seek to resurrect the twists and turns of my last few years, although some points need to be highlighted. Traveling has continued to be my main occupation. It seems my life has settled into a pattern. Winter/Spring will be Eastern Europe. I have such great friends over here. Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, along with trips to Italy and other EU countries. Summer I will be in Alabama for at least three weeks. August - October finds me in Japan and November in South America, mainly Bolivia.

Since the last post I have moved from Alabama to Kentucky, back to my old stomping grounds. I now live less than an hour from my college alma mater, Campbellsville. Many of my college friends still live in Kentucky and I am able to get together with them every once in a while which is always a blessing. But not much else has changed. I travel seven plus months in a normal year. When I am home I work on finishing my home in the woods. It is a simple home, a pole barn actually, with 16 windows, two outside doors and five inside doors. It is totally off-grid. I cook and heat with woods, but also have a propane stove for the hot weather. I have a solar system with a 4000 watt inverter ready to power my LED lights and whatever else I choose to plug in. Frankly, it is the way I prefer living.

I began this blog two weeks ago and now its February 1 and I am no longer in Telenesti. I did a week of meetings in Moldova at two different venues each night, which is rather taxing. The weather was very cold and snowy which I usually enjoy. But I became chilled traveling to my Moldovan home base and from there to Ivesti, Romania, where I did three meetings and then consulted on the opening of a sanitarium there this summer. I was invited back in June to train the sanitarium workers. That will be an intense month.

I am now back in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvanian area of Romania where I am recovering from the bad cold I developed as a result of the chilling. It is a good place to “chill” here as I have good friends, a comfortable room, beautiful scenery. Sunday I travel to Podis, near Bacau to begin 3+ weeks of lectures.  More to come.

God bless,

Don Miller