September - October Newsletter

September brought many changes for us as we started our second year here in Romania. Being done with language lessons we were ready to start our full time ministry. We were put into teaching teams: Rebecca with Sanda and Mark with Mariana and an intern, either Shannon or Krysten. We started September by coming up with class outlines, syllabuses, and classroom management plans. We also managed to go to the baby hospital a few times to see our cuties.

How precious these babies are, we love loving them.

We are always thankful for the time we get to spend with the babies, they are so fun.

We also went to different orphanages to play with the kids there and continue building on our relationships with them.

We saw our girl Elena again and were very happy to find out that we would be working where she lives every week. We know many of the kids there from camps that we've been and we wanted to work more with them.

We moved from our apartment in the city to a house in the country, and it was a big adjustment. The girls transition program is usually in this house but this year we didn't have enough girls for the program. We moved there with the interns and Mariana in order to take care of the house. It has been nice there, quiet and not in the hustle and bustle of the city, but at the same time it is farther away from everything.

We have a yard and garden again which is nice because that is something we really enjoyed back home.

At the beginning of October we started teaching classes at the orphanages. Rebecca started her science classes. She teaches through hands on experiments, something that isn't common here at all. The kids are always so excited to see what she has to show them.

Rebecca teaches at three different orphanages and the classes have been going really well. Translating her lessons into Romanian is very hard because of all the science terminology.

Mark started teaching english classes at the orphanages. For the little ones we are learning the alphabet with pictures and for the older ones we are learning conversational english.

Being teachers is something neither of us thought we would ever do. Now that we are though we are enjoying it very much. Of course the overall purpose of the classes is to build relationships with the kids, and that has been going very well.

At the end of these two months we are beginning to get settled into everything that has gone on. We are looking forward to many more great months as we continue to share our hearts with the kids we work with.

It's hard to believe but Christmas is right around the corner. Last year many of you asked how you could send us a Christmas gift, so we wanted to tell you in advance. If you send H2H a check made out to Mark and Rebecca Essenburg it will be put in our account that we have access to here in Romania. The gift won't be tax deductable, but if you make it out to H2H and get the tax deduction it will go into our general expenses account which we don't have access to.

Also, one of our friends makes handmade soaps and is donating a portion of the sales to our ministry. They would make good Christmas presents, the ones labeled Essenburg Fundraiser are here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/AmarahEve.

As we go forward please pray for us and our ministry. Please pray that God gives us strength, endurance, and wisdom so that we can be effective at reaching these kids for Christ. Please pray for the kids, for protection and for open hearts and minds. We have several youth groups where we are seeing changes in kids lives, please continue to pray for all of them. Please pray for health for all of us that are working with the kids and for the babies and kids too.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support, we appreciate you all so much!