First Week Of School

Before our first week of ministry we took a day trip to the mountains of Transylvania to see some castles. First we stopped at Bran Castle, which is a medieval fortress originally built in 1377. When you think of Transylvania this is the type of castle that comes to mind, and although this is fabled to be Dracula's castle, the character he is based on, Vlad Tepes, never actually stayed there.

We enjoyed the castle tour and walking around the surrounding area. It is in a very beautiful place. We also enjoyed some gogosi, which are small freshly made doughnuts with chocolate topping.

After lunch we traveled just down the road to another fortress, this one even bigger, called Rasnov. It was built in 1215 and is mostly in ruins, although it is in the process of being restored. Walking amongst the ruins was a neat feeling knowing that this has been around for almost 800 years.

This visit to the country was also a celebration of our 7th wedding anniversary. We really enjoyed the time we spent there and are so happy that God has blessed us with such a great marriage.

The town around the citadel still has a medieval feel.

The Carpathian Mountains are always a sight to behold, very beautiful.

We spent the week going to our classes and meeting with orphanage directors to finalise our plans. We met the students, most of whom we know already. We held a few intro classes where we mostly went over classroom procedures. One class in particular was really crazy, we had over 20 1-4th graders for an hour and a half. Next week they will be split into three groups but for this time we had to try and keep some sort of control, which didn't go very well. The first weeks of programing are always difficult because schedules are still being worked out.

We had several youth groups which went very well. We will be focusing on relationships and self worth and will be including bible study when and where we can. There is lots of potential for lives to be changed through these groups as many of these kids are searching for truth.

Please continue to pray for our scheduling and classes as we enter into our second week and try to figure out how to work with each different group of kids.