Prayer Requests

Since we've been back (over two weeks now) we've resumed many of our normal activities. Going to the orphanage and hanging out with the kids (they just started school this week), going to the baby hospital and time with the transition graduates. Our programs will be starting up again around October and there are many things to pray for.

Pray for staff unity in all we do. One way satan loves to attack us is through disunity. Also pray for the financial hardships H2H is going through. Romania has increased taxes by 5% and now has 24% sales tax. This plus lower donations due to economic hardship in the US has made funding a bit tricky.

Us with Catalina

Pray for the visa situation of our interns. We currently have three interns, Krysten, Shannon and Dorothy. Krysten has already used up her visitors visa (the passport stamp for 90 days) so she currently is an illegal alien. The problem is because they are changing the volunteer visa laws so they do not want to accept any new applicants. Costel and Jen and busy trying to resolve these issues, hopefully even today.

Vali

Pray for the talks we have with orphanage directors and teachers. Our programs are at their mercy, pray for favor and acceptance of our school classes. Pray for good relationships and open doors.

Vio, Catalina, Nicu and Georgiana

Pray for our the planning of our school programming. This year Mark is going to teach math, computers and English language. Rebecca is going to teach science and a social survival/cooking class. We have a staff partner (Mariana and Sanda respectively) and we have begun planning the syllabus for the year. Pray for wisdom and direction.

Rebecca and Matlida playing war

Pray for confidence in our responsibilities. Many of us on staff have either never taught before or are teaching different things this year. Pray for our teaching abilities and that we wouldn't doubt the fact that God will give us the strength and words to speak. Pray also for us as we will be teaching in Romanian, some for the first time, others for the first time on their own. Pray that God helps us to remember what we have learned and opens our minds to the language.

Mark with some cute baby girls

Pray for the kids. That they would be eager to come to our classes and learn. That we could establish good relationships with them that will lead to discussions about our personal savior, Jesus Christ. Pray that those who have made a decision to accept Christ would grow in their relationship with him this year.

Another baby girl

Pray for our involvement with the youth this year. We are going to have some youth group type activities. They will vary on spiritual depth according to the kids and what we feel we are allowed to do. Pray that these groups are meaningful and impact the kids lives positively and increase their desire to know God.

Nicusor

Pray for the new moms group-first steps that will be started. Two new babies are due soon in the H2H family. Pray for the parents to learn how to instruct their kids in a Christ like manner. Also pray for the babies in the hospital. Many have colds and some nurses do not allow us to go in the infant room. Pray for health and good development.

Baby boy

Pray for safety. We will be doing a lot of traveling this year. We are moving out to Snagov (girls transition house- no girls program this year) and will be working around us, in Rosiori and at the boys transition house. Pray for traveling mercies, and the cars to stay in working order. Pray also for our health, spiritual health, and emotional well being. Pray that this year will be another year where we see God moving and changing the lives of these precious kids.

Thank-you for all your prayers, it is only through prayer and by God's strength that we are able to do this ministry!

A bit of everything

This past week we did a bit of everything. We helped prepare for summer camps, went to the baby hospital, helped get the Girl's House ready, and visited the kids from the orphanage. This is the last week before summer craziness begins. To have an idea of what summer is like, we had a staff meeting and devotion over the summer plans, and it took 2 hours to get through our schedule until the beginning of August. So much will be going on and we will need lots of prayers!

Making pinatas with our interns, Krysten and Amanda

Painting flowers for girl's camp decorations

Florica

Mark with a little girl

Krysten with Andreea

Ryan

Another precious girl

Mila

See the big cherry (Mark)? We picked 3 buckets full!

Rebecca and Lola (after brushing her for a long time!)

Where are we going to visit the kids? We passed sheep on the way....

And Alina found a snail there...

The Black Sea...on a nice rainy day

Venturing out on the pier. We decided although we'd have liked to see the sea on a nice day, it was best for the kids to have extra entertainment on a rainy day. It seems it is less about having your plans be met, but more about your attitude that matters! Stay tuned for a post of summer prayer requests.

January Fun

Since the large part of the Holiday Team left and school has begun again for the kids we have restarted our normal schedules. Besides going to class and studying we have continued to go to the orphanage once or twice a week. The baby hospital is closed again because of a confirmed case of the H1N1 flu, we haven't been there for two months so we miss our babies. Thankfully the holiday team was able to go for a couple weeks to care for the babies.

Each time we go to the orphanage we do crafts with the kids and they always love it!

Alina is almost always all smiles!

We went to the boys transition house for lunch and they were very excited to have us spend some time with them. Mark asked Mihai what they had in the workshop and he showed each room with pride, plus his new bike and the dogs and the soccer field they made in the yard, he is so happy to be there.

We went to the orphanage in the south to give out clothes to the kids there. Ionut was very excited to see us as he remembered us from camp.

We gave each orphan at least one complete outfit plus a coat. We had them come up one at a time so we did crafts with the rest to keep it under control. The kids all had so much fun and loved their new outfits. Our new intern Ryan (left), JT (soon to be full time staff, middle), and Rob (short term team member, right) handed out the clothes.

Back at the orphanage we normally work in, Vic is always bouncing around. For a little while I enjoyed having him sit on my lap playing some games. Our other new intern, Danielle (married to Ryan) joined in the game.

I also had fun wrestling with some boys on the mats in the gym where we do our programs.

Also this week it snowed a lot so we have enjoyed the beauty of it and have been trudging through it everywhere we go.

Christmas Time In Romania!

Experiencing Christmas time in Romania has been a wonderful experience for us. Caroling is a big part of Christmas here, there were carolers in our apartment building, on the streets, and we even went with the boys and girls from the transition houses. The carols we sang at church were beautiful and we really love them. Many of them have tunes that we're used to but have different words, usually more centered on Christ and that is a great thing. The Romanian originals are so melodic and we really like them.

Craciun Fericit!

There were parades all over the city at all different times and on different days. Most of them involved banging drums and blowing whistles, and dancing bears and traditionally dressed Romanians.

This is our neighborhood Orthodox Church. We walk past this every day and it is a reminder of the Christian heritage of this country. We just long to see more people here come to personal relationships with Christ, for a revival here.

Here we are dressed in some of our new clothes that we got from each other and some of the staff for Christmas. We also received some Christmas gifts from family and other supporters and we thank you so much for them!

We had a Christmas party and about 30 of the transition house graduates came. They had a great time, we ate traditional sarmale, basically cabbage rolls, and lots of other great food. We are these kid's family, as most of them would have no where else to go for special occasions like this. We did a gift exchange where gifts could be picked from under the tree or taken from someone else. Mark ended up with a brand new Romanian Bible and it is a brand new translation so we will actually be able to read and understand it. What a blessing, we really wanted a Romanian Bible!

Sunday the holiday team arrived and we spent all day Saturday preparing for their arrival. We shopped, cleaned, and fixed anything that needed it. That night we went into town to see the lights that were all around. Most of the main intersections and streets in town were decorated wonderfully.

Many parks are really decked out as well, we walked through this park and had some fresh gogosi, which are awesome doughnuts. There was an ice skating rink there and it was really packed.

Our last activity before the team came was to put a 1000 piece puzzle together. Now the team is here and we are starting our holiday team activities. We will be going to all of the orphanages and giving the kids their Christmas presents, which they have been waiting for for a long time. This is our first full team so we will be learning how this goes while we are working with them and the kids. We will probably even be doing some translation so it will be great practice since we are off from lecture for two weeks. We are also excited because our friend Amanda is on this trip! We are so happy to have her here and are hoping that this will be a wonderful experience for her as well.

Please pray that this trip has a great impact on the kids and on those who came here to serve. Also please continue to pray for our language learning as we have hit the halfway mark already! Even though it's after Christmas already we just want to wish you a Merry Christmas and also a Happy New Year!

H2H Staff Training Week

Last week was a very special week for all of the Heart 2 Heart staff. We all gathered at the team house and spent the week there for the annual staff training. All of the H2H American staff flew in and we also welcomed our main speakers, Jim and Roe Dodgen. The main topic of the training was being wholly surrendered to God, and the second main focus was on finding our strengths and how we can best work together. Each day we started with a quiet time and then the rest of the day was spent learning about our strengths and spending time doing team building activities. The entire H2H Staff is shown in the picture below, notice that the weather was very nice!

We also had several fun activities each evening. One night we decorated masks with crate paper. We didn't know what we would be using them for but we were pretty suspicious that something was up. Another night we found out what we would be using the masks for a contest in the city. The goal was to get pictures at as many famous landmarks as we could, while wearing the masks.

Our team in front of the Pipera Metro

The Arc de Triumph is in the background

The week was filled with learning, fun, and time to grow closer together and closer to God. It was a nice break from the regular routine (although we still had to study a little for our next language lesson).