FairHaven Team!

Last week we had the incredible pleasure of working with a group of people from FairHaven Ministries, our home church!  We have been praying for a group of people to come and work with us her from our church for a long time, and our prayers were finally answered.

The McCrum family came along with Howard and Genny.  They all have awesome stories of how God provided for them to come.  Howard is the only one who had been here before, in fact, he was with us on our very first trip in 2007.

Each day we went to one of the orphanages and did the same VBS program that they did at our church this summer.  The kids absolutely loved the singing and making motions with the songs!  After singing we did crafts like paper plate fish, painted sun catchers and bracelets.

After crafts we went outside to play on the playground and always had a blast.

 

There are many new kids at this orphanage so even we don't know them all since we normally don't work there.  It was fun getting to know more kids.

The girls had their nails panted many times.

The guys carried lots of kids around.

And we had lots of fun playing around.

 

More nail painting...

...and lots of sidewalk chalk drawings.  Usually after the orphanage the team would go to the baby hospital and love on the many babies there.

We had a really great time working with this wonderful group of people (here the other couples on staff are with us, Steven & Haley and Josh & Missy)!  It was a big encouragement for us to have people from home come here to work along side of us.  They all had a great time too, building lasting relationships with the kids that they worked with for the whole week.  A big thank you to those who supported them and helped them come.  

We would love to have more people come from home!  Next year another group from our church will be coming so please start thinking and praying about whether God is calling you to do this too.  We will keep you informed of the details as they come.  Of course, you don't have to be from FairHaven to come, you can come with them or with one of the many other groups.  The main thing is that the more people that come to help us out the better, there are so many kids who need love!!!

On another happy note, our car is finally fixed and running great!  Earlier this summer we were driving and a stone somehow got into the engine compartment.  It hit the radiator and caused the coolant to leak out quickly, which caused the engine to overheat rapidly.  That caused the head gasket to rupture.  So we had that all replaced and now it is back to normal.  Thanks for your prayers as we went through trying to figuring it all out and waiting for it to be done.  Please pray that something like that doesn't happen again!

Boys Camp...the best for last

After day camps we had two boys camps.  Boys from four of the orphanages we work with came and spent three days and two nights out at Nenciulesti.  The location is in the middle of a small village so we are always trying to be creative in the activities we choose.

 

One of our longer activities was a compass course through the village.

We had three guys from Kansas that stayed the entire summer and were a big help.

It was quite hot, upper 90's, so we played water games. This is water balloon baseball.

Tug of war on the slip and slide

Ultimate Frisbee

The first group of boys

The first day of the second group of boys ended up a little different than we planned.  We had rain with high winds and the tents the boys were going to sleep in got flooded...but if there is one thing we have learned while being here in Romania, it is to be flexible because plans will change!

 

The wind blew the gate open!

The next day was beautiful!

A different kind of human pyramid :)

And of course, lots of soccer!  The older boys love to play and several of them have a lot of talent!

Singing at the campfire

Obstacle course

 The second group

I hope you are still reading, because the important things are coming now ;)  One of the best parts of having the oldest kids at camp is the level of conversation you can have.  The same curriculum was used from the backpacking trip, from the book of James and about the life of David.  And after the lessons there were many good questions and conversations that occurred.  There are many different reasons why some of these boys are choosing to not follow God, and it is a privilege to be able to openly talk about and discuss the questions they have.  And while we may not have seen anyone change the way they thought, we have the hope that one day God will use our words and bring them to him.  So please join us in praying for these kids, for God to soften their hearts and reveal himself to him, to open their eyes and give them the faith and life they need.  It is a blessing that God has choose us to be a part of these kids lives and that he uses us to show them his love.