Ziua Recunostintei - Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week is always a time of reflecting on our blessings and giving thanks to God for what He has done for us. This year our hearts are especially overflowing with thankfulness and we wanted to share with you what we are thankful for. One year ago we had just put our house up for sale and started fund raising so that we could come to Romania as missionaries. Praise God that even in the down economy He miraculously sold our house and raised up many faithful people to support our ministry here. We are so thankful for our supportive family and great friends who continue to pray for us and stay in contact with us.

We are very thankful for our financial and prayer supporters and want to let them know how much they mean to us. We could not be doing this without their support. We are thankful for the call God placed in our lives to minister in Romania. We thank God for giving us a great family here in the staff of H2H and our friends from our church here. We have been blessed with a smooth transition and have been learning the language quickly. Our faith and bond with the Lord has been tremendously strengthened over this last year as we learned many lessons about patience and looking to God as our sole provider. His guidance is precious to us and we thank Him so much for all these things.

We celebrated Thanksgiving here by having most of the graduates of the H2H Transition Programs over for dinner. We had a wonderful feast and after dinner there were several skits and songs. It was a really fun time and it was great to see so many young adults that have changed lives because of the work that H2H did with them.

Nearly 60 people came, everyone did a wonderful job preparing everything for this huge get together.

Of course what we are most thankful for is the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us on the cross. He has given us the gift of eternal life and has called us to a life of service to Him. It is still amazing to think of how much He loves us and that He longs to call us His children.

After reading this I hope that your heart is overflowing with thankfulness to God. We have all been greatly blessed and we usually take it for granted. We would love to hear what you are thankful for, please comment so that we can share in share in rejoicing with you.

One Last Week

Since we got back from California we have been keeping busy seeing family and friends before we leave and working on wrapping everything up here. Everything has gone so smoothly and we have really enjoyed everyones company.

We had a potluck with our small group from church, it was really fun seeing everyone and playing with all the kids.

Sunday we had our commissioning at church. We got to tell about how we've come to this point and what we will be doing once we get to Romania. Then our pastor called people down to lay hands on us and pray for our journey. Many of our family and friends came which was great, they have been so supportive. Afterwards we had a get together and had a light lunch that we put on. The cake had red, blue, and yellow flowers, which are the colors of the Romanian flag.

We had buns, ham & turkey, cheese, coleslaw, watermellon, chips, and cake. It turned out to be a very nice meal. Over 100 people came to this event, wow! Thanks all for coming!

This is us with Rebecca's parents.

This is us with Mark's Dad & Stepmom.

This is us with Mark's Mom.

During the week we visited lots of people too. This is us with Mark's sister and brother-in-law.

These are our adopted parents, they live close to where we lived and we have been getting together with them regularly for a long time. They have been a very big part of our lives and we have really enjoyed getting to know them.

These are our friends Scott & Kayleen and kids Sam & Lexi. We have become great friends with them in the last few years too and will miss them a lot.

Same goes for our friends Jonah & Jes and their daughter Precious.

We will surely miss all of our family and friends and are hoping to stay in touch over e-mail and online chatting, especially with programs like skype. If you have skype you can search for us and our user name will come up.

This week we also sold both of our cars and tied up any loose ends that we could think of. Everything has gone great and we are really relieved to have everything taken care of. We are even finished packing now and are all ready to go. We will be at the Kent County airport at 3:00 today and will fly out at 4:50.

It has been quite a journey getting to this point, it seems a bit unreal that we're leaving in a few hours and we'll be gone for so long. God has been so faithful and we've just been amazed at how he has worked. Thank you all for your continued prayers, we know that they have helped and we continue to ask for them on a daily basis.

Let The Travels Begin!

So many things have been going on lately that we've been extremely busy. It has already been two weeks since we closed on our house, and it has been great living with Rebecca's parents. We can't even describe how nice it feels to have that whole deal behind us. Now we have no debt at all and we're still amazed by God's providence in our lives. Getting together with family and friends has kept us busy but it's been nice to see everybody. Last week we lead a small group of kids in VBS at our church, which was really fun. It was a great week of sharing the gospel with these kids and it was nice to be able to do one last thing with the children at our church.

Mark had been keeping busy at work trying to finish up a big project before we leave for all of our travels. Thankfully he got done a couple days early so he could relax a bit and recuperate from the long hours at work and being constantly on the go. The people at work were all great to work with and it was a little sad saying farewell to everyone, the've all been so supportive of what we're doing. We'll look forward to updating them on what we've been doing when we come back on furlough.

Tomorrow we leave for Ottawa Ontario, the capital of Canada. We will visit Rebecca's sister there since otherwise we wouldn't be able to see her before we leave for Romania. We will do some sight seeing there and will also eat out at some ethnic restaurants. Next Monday we will drive to Brampton Ontario, to visit Rebecca's Oma who is 100 years old. It is pretty much on the way back so we thought it would be nice to see Oma again. Then we'll drive to Detroit and stay at a hotel there for the night.

Tuesday morning we'll fly out to San Diego California. We'll spend some time with Jim & Jodi Sorrels at the Heart 2 Heart office in Ramona. We'll have some orientation and training and there will also be some fun stuff mixed in there too. When we're done there we will fly to Sacramento to visit some friends we met at summer camp and we'll see some sights around there too.

After we get back from California we'll have about a week and a half before we leave for Romania, which is on September 6 (note the date changed from previous posts). We will be commissioned at our church on August 30 and we'll give more info on this and our departure in a later post.

With all of this traveling going on please pray that everything goes smoothly and that we have strength to enjoy it. Please pray that all the details continue to fall into place as we prepare to leave the country for two years. Pray that God continues to work in our hearts and prepares us for the transitions we will be going through. Thanks so much for your prayers!

Next Steps

We are continuing to make progress towards our move to Romania. This past Saturday we moved out of our house and into Rebecca's parents basement with the help of many friends and family. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we close on our house. In the middle of August we will go to California to have more training and visit a few friends. Then, before we all know it, we'll be off to Romania! Our departure date is September 5. Here are some pictures showing where we now live (Caledonia).

The flower garden at the front of the house.

The view out of our slider downstairs.

There is a hummingbird hiding in this picture, feasting on the bee balm.

Robin taking a bath in the fountain.

Our bedroom.

Our mini kitchen.

The living area portion of our room.

Big Week Ahead, Lots To Pray About

Next week we have a lot going on as we continue to work toward leaving for Romania on September 5. We will be closing on our house early in the week as long as the bank paperwork gets done on time. Please pray that this goes smoothly and that it doesn't get pushed back any longer. We'll be moving out next weekend as it is the last one in July and we don't want to wait until August. So far many people have volunteered to help us and for that we are very grateful. Would you please pray that the move goes well and that we survive the packing/unpacking blitz?

For the last few weeks things have really been picking up with our support and partnerships. We will be meeting with the missions coordinator at Evergreen Ministries on Monday and Corinth Reformed Church on Wednesday. We are very excited about the doors that God has been opening. Please pray that these meetings go well and that God will work on establishing partnerships between us and these churches. We are also talking with at least two more churches and are praying that God continues to open doors for more prayer and support partnerships.

This is a time of transition for us and our lives seem to be in constant flux right now. There are still many unknowns as far as timing and planning, and our departure is right around the corner. Time seems to be really flying as we're busy busy busy. We are trying to stay strong in the knowledge that God is in control of all of this but the stresses we're feeling are becoming more intense. Would you please pray with extra zeal for us in these coming weeks and months? Please pray for strength and protection against the evil one's attacks, we can tell he's ramping them up already. Please pray for patience and peace as we face so much uncertainty and so many changes.

Thank you so much for your support, we couldn't do this without you and we are so comforted knowing that we have a large prayer warrior force standing behind us.

Departure Date And Excited Home Buyers

Things have been rolling along nicely with the sale of the house, our inspections went well, the buyers financing is going through, and we're already starting to move some things out. We talked with Heart 2 Heart last week and we both thought that it would be great to pick a departure date. We will be leaving on September 5 to go to Romania and start our ministry there. We are so excited! We will have a few weeks to settle in, then we'll go through the annual staff training and then we'll begin our language lessons. Sometime in mid August we will go to California to get everything set up and for more training. We will probalby spend some time in Cali visiting some friends, we're excited to see them too! Time will fly between now and then especially since Mark will be busy at work until we leave. Praise God for so many things coming together and for His rich blessings in our lives.

Last night we met the people who will be buying our house and it was great. They came over to see the items we fixed from the inspection, and we got a chance to tell them what we're doing and that they're the answer to our prayers. They seemed very excited about our house and told us some of the things they liked about it: the spacious kitchen, the beautifully finished basement, the big lot and country setting, and the already planted garden, among others. We showed them the garden and told them what the plants were and how we make compost in our compost box. Their 5 year old daughter was really excited to see her room in the basement, she loved how big it was. They truly are the ones God had in mind because everything about the house fits what they wanted. It ended up being really fun meeting them and showing them around, and we look forward to seeing them again at closing.

It is so exciting to see how God's plan for us is unfolding. Things are becoming more clear to us as far as God's timing and what He has been teaching us through this. Thanks so much for praying for us thank you for your continued prayers.

More Great News And A Quick Update

God is continuing to move and is answering lots of prayers lately. This week Mark got a call from Extol where he was working until being laid off this spring. They said that a big order that they've been waiting for has finally come in. That means that Mark will be able to work on contract there for about a month. This will greatly help our finances as we prepare to go to Romania. This is definitely an answer to prayer and will be such a huge blessing.

Things are moving along on the sale of our house as well. We will have the inspection tomorrow which we figure will go well since our house is so young. We don't yet know when our closing will be but the offer we accepted said it would be no later than July 11. Our for sale sign looks a lot better now that it says sold instead of for sale.

Once we have a closing date we will probably also pick a departure date for Romania. The last major thing that needs to happen before we go is to complete our support raising. We are doing very well in this area and are hoping that some new monthly supporters will rise up so that we can begin our ministry. We'll have more details on this in another post once we figure out exactly where we're at.

We would appreciate if you would pray that our house sale goes smoothly, our support will be completed soon, and all the preparation and moving will go well. Thanks so much for praying with us!

Great Weekend Update

Sunday was a big day for us. We started out by driving up to Kent City to visit Red Pine Bible Church to present about our ministry. After some singing pastor Rick introduced us and gave us the floor. Rebecca opened by talking about how we came to this point; our previous trips and our call from God to go to Romania as full time missionaries. Mark then gave a bit of background on Romania and how it has been ravaged by communism and corruption. We then showed the H2H ministry video (which you can watch too, it is the "Orphans of Romania" video on the right sidebar of the blog). Then Mark explained what we will be doing once we're there and talked about some of the relationships we formed at summer camp last year. He read Elena's first letter to us after camp, where she thanked us for everything we did, like sitting with her for dinner, taking pictures with her, and letting her carry our backpack.

After church we talked with people and felt very warmly welcomed by many friendly people. Lots of people were interested and wanted to hear more about what we're doing. It was a great experience to be able to share our passion with them and it was great to see that they were excited about it too.

We then went to Mark's aunt's house for dinner and had a great time of fellowship with family. They prepared a great meal and had lots of snacks afterwards. We talked more about what we will be doing and showed more pictures of our previous trips. It was a lot of fun and we are very grateful for their hospitality.

Later that night after we had gone home the deacons along with Pastor Rick met to talk about what we had shared with them. They were very excited about our ministry and decided that they would like to partner in supporting us! They will be recommending this to the church and they will decide for sure by the end of the month. God is definitely at work here and this is an answer to prayers! Let's continue to pray that the recommendation goes through and that we can form a great partnership with the body of Christ at Red Pine Bible Church.

We had an open house while all this was going on and one couple came to look through our house. They said they really liked it and liked the lot and the country feel that we have here. They are just starting looking and are trying to decide if they want to invest this much into a house. Please pray with us that God will speak powerfully and clearly into their lives to lead them to buy our house. What a wonderful thing that would be!

Thanks so much for praying for and with us in these things. Your prayers are making a huge difference and we are so appreciative for your prayer partnership.

Church Partnership & Open House Prayer Requests

This weekend we have a couple of things going on that we would like to ask you to pray for with us.  On Sunday we will be sharing about our ministry at Red Pine Bible Church in Kent City. Mark's cousin Rick is the pastor there and we have been talking with him about partnering with his church.  We will have 25 minutes of the church service to share our vision with the congregation, what an honor!  We will first show a video of what H2H does and then we'll talk about our previous trips and what we'll be doing in our ministry.  We are very excited about this opportunity and are eagerly waiting to see how God will use it.  Would you please pray that:

-The Holy Spirit will anoint us and speak powerfully through us.

-God will speak to the hearts of the people there, firing up their passion for advancing His kingdom.

-For a close partnership to develop with this church body.

-For God to raise up people to be prayer and support partners.

Also this weekend we will be having an open house.  Would you please pray that God will send a buyer soon?

As we pray these things I would like to encourage you to meditate on one of my favorite Bible passages.  It is very reassuring for us since so many things are up in the air in our lives right now.  I hope that it will be an encouragement to you as well.

Phillipians 4:6-7  Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.  Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

House Update...

Wow, it's hard to believe that it is May already.  Recently we have had more activity on our house and even though it hasn't sold yet we are very hopeful that it will soon.  We had an open house last weekend and it was on a beautiful day.  Two couples came through and one liked our house very much.  They are just starting their search for a house so we can pray that they decide on our house.  Besides that there have been some other people interested and looking.  We don't yet know what all of them are thinking, but that's OK.

We would really appreciate if you would join us in asking God to sell our house soon.  We are still hoping that the house will sell soon so that we can start working in Romania in the summer.

Could They Be The Ones?

There are two big goals left in our journey towards becoming missionaries to orphans in Romania; raising the rest of our funding and selling our house.  We put our house up for sale at the end of September.  Since then there has been some interest but not as much as we had hoped for.  We have been learning patience and reliance on God as only He knows the right timing for our house to sell.

Two weeks ago we had an open house and the only person to come was another realtor who was having an open house near by.  He stopped in because he has a customer who will soon be looking for a house in this area.  We recently found out a little more about these potential buyers, and we were greatly encouraged and excited.  First of all, they are relocating to the area for a job they already have.  Since many people around are losing their jobs it is pretty amazing that they are coming here for a new job.  Secondly, they are looking for a country setting and a house with a large lot, both of which our house has.  Our house is in their price range too, and it sounds like they're approved on a loan already.

Could these people be the ones God will use to buy our house and get us one step closer to starting our ministry in Romania?  We certainly hope so and are praying that God works in their hearts and leads them to buy our house.  They are supposed to be coming to look at houses around the first week of May, so we would like to mobilize many prayer partners to bathe this issue in prayer.  Would you please join us in praying?

Perspectives Class Fires Us Up

We have been taking a missions class since the beginning of the year called "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement."  It has been a great class and we have been learning a lot that will help us better serve God in Romania.  This week had the opportunity to share with the class about our upcoming ministry to the orphans in Romania.  We talked about the orphans there and the great needs that they have for love and to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  We shared how we will be working with them, how God has called us to this ministry, and where we are in our support raising journey.

To wrap up we shared prayer requests and then led an open prayer.  The response from the class was awesome, many people offered up heart felt prayers and we really felt God's presence in the room.  It was an incredible affirmation and encouragement to us to know that so many people are behind us and that God's Holy Spirit was at work in so many people's lives.  

Even our guest instructor, the founder of Mission India, prayed for us and the orphans.  He has a heart especially for the minority Gypsies in Romania, because India is where all of the Gypsies are from and he has worked with them there quite a bit.  The lesson he presented was very challenging and stretching, and it was very applicable to the ministry we'll be doing in Romania.

We left class very energetic and excited about the work that God has yet to do in our lives. We're excited to see how he provides for getting us from here to Romania and about the ministry He'll have us doing there.  We're praying that he'll use us to transform not only the orphans but all the Romanians that we interact with.  

Cookbooks For Sale!

We are excited to announce that we are selling cookbooks as a fundraiser for our mission to the orphans in Romania.  Several of our friends from our original LifeGroup at church came up with the idea and are doing all the work and donating all the profit to us!  The recipes are being collected from members of our church and we will have a few of our favorites in there as well.

We are selling these cookbooks for only $12, what a great deal!  This will be a great addition to your cookbook collection, after all, can you really have too many cookbooks?  They also make great gifts, and they will be ready before Mothers Day!  The best part is that the profit goes to support our ministry and will help get us to Romania sooner.

To order please send your check (made out to Fair Haven Ministries) to our friend Angie Hordyk: 620 Broadview St, Grand Rapids, MI 49507.  Please include how many cookbooks you want, your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address.  Please have your orders in by March 22, which is less than two weeks away.  If you send your order out and don't think it will make it in time please e-mail us so we can make sure it gets put in.  The cookbooks will be ready just before Mothers Day, either for pickup at our church or we can send them to you or arrange for pickup.

Thanks in advance for your order, we are looking forward to seeing how God will use this fundraiser to support us as missionaries to the orphans in Romania.

God Is Good, ALL The Time

This week we got some great and not so great news. Lets start with the great news because it is so really really great that we just can't even contain ourselves! Our Church will be providing our ministry with twice as much monthly support as we had originally anticipated, and that is a huge answer to prayer! We have been praying hard for God to provide our monthly funding and this is a big step ahead. Normally missionaries get a certain amount per year if they're with an independent organization, but they get twice as much if they are partnered with the Reformed Church of America's mission agency. We are working on partnering with the RCA but it is a long process and there's a lot to be worked out so we were only planning the base amount. This week, however, our pastor of mission and multiplication met with the Romania team and they decided to give us the full amount!

God has definitely been at work here, working in people's hearts to increase their passion for the ministry we will be doing. There are so many people from church behind us and supportive of our mission, it is just wonderful. We are so thankful for this extra support, to God and to our church and all those that were involved in this. It is yet another affirmation that this is what God wants us to do.

The not so great news is that Mark will be laid off again starting next week. Many other people at work are still laid off so much prayer is needed for all of us. The comforting thing in this is that we know that God is in control, and we know He is good all the time. We are learning more and more to depend on Him, through the mission preparations and the roller coaster of being laid off. We have hope that He will keep his promises and that He cares for us deeply. Isn't it great knowing that we don't have to worry about a thing because God has a greater plan than we know? We think it is, and we are clinging to that.

Romania Progress Update

Just this week we reached a big milestone in our journey to becoming missionaries in Romania. The start up fund that we needed to raise was completed, praise God! This $12,350 fund will pay for our travel to Romania, our language classes, visas, and housing set up. This is definitely an answer to prayer, and there were some specific prayers answered to complete it. One such prayer was that my company, Extol Inc, would help supporting us. Even though at first it didn't look like they would be able to, they came through with an unexpected $5,000 donation! Also thank you for your generous donations, this puts us one step closer to Romania!

We are still working on raising our monthly support and are at around 30% right now. We need to raise $3,580 per month in the form of monthly commitments. That means we have just under $2,500 to go. Wow, it seems like a lot, but we know that God has a plan for this. Our goal is to leave around April, but we can't go until we are fully funded. Thanks so much to those of you who have already committed to supporting our ministry! If you are interested in making a monthly commitment please let us (616-895-1603) or Heart 2 Heart (877-590-4051) know. Even if you don't plan to start your support until we leave it will help us to know where we're at, so please let us know as soon as you decide. Monthly support can be started any time, funds that come in before we leave will be spread out over the whole two year term which reduces the amount of commitments we need.

We are still gladly accepting one time donations, as they will reduce the amount of monthly support we need to raise. There is a new button on the upper right hand side of the blog that links to H2H's secure website, so donations can be made online. Donations can also be sent to H2H at P.O. BOX 1832 Ramona, CA 92065, make the check out to H2H International and include a separate note designating the gift for us.

Our house is still for sale and we need to sell it before we leave. We lowered the price this week and are having an open house on March 8. The spring is coming and with it hopefully the spring housing market picks up. Typically the spring market is the best of the year, so we really need to sell the house sometime this spring. Even though we hear so many bad things about the housing market we still have hope because all it takes is one person that really likes the house, location, lot, etc. Plus we know that God has a plan for this too, and he knows exactly what he's doing.

Would you please pray with us that God will provide our funding and sell our house so we can begin our ministry in Romania? Would you consider being a prayer partner or supporting our ministry with a monthly commitment? If you want to know more about what we will be doing we would love to talk to you. You can also read more in past posts and watch the "Orphans of Romania (part 1 & 2)" video on the sidebar of the blog.

Mulţumesc!!! (Thank you in Romanian)

Our Fund Raising Dinner

Last Sunday was our big dinner at church to raise funding for our missionary journey to Romania. We prepared a traditional Romanian meal, which was a lot of work. We spent most of the day Saturday chopping up veggies and grilling chicken. Then we cooked the rest of the food on Sunday a few hours before the dinner was supposed to start. It was a real whirlwind but it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures so I had to find pictures on the Internet that look similar to what we made. Here is the menu we had:

We started with European hearth style bread that we bought at a bakery in Allendale, The Great Bread Company. It was delicious. Bread is one of the main parts of all Romanian meals, and it is called Paine.

Next we had soup with dumplings, our favorite soup that we had at summer camp. Soup is an everyday meal in Romania. This one is called Supa De Galuste.

Next we had Sarmale, which are basically meatballs wrapped in a cabbage leaves with saur kraut and tomato sauce on top. They are one of our favorite dishes from Romania.

The last part of the meal was build your own Shawarma, basically a chicken wrap. They are unique because they have french fries inside, along with pickles, cabbage, mayo and catsup.

To wash everything down we had ice cream, coffee, and juice.

The meal came together nicely, especially since we were planning on at least 100 people and we've never cooked for that many before. Thankfully we had help from some of our family and some friends who went to Romania with us on previous trips.

During the meal we showed pictures from our previous trips, and then Mark explained a little of what we had done there and what some of the pictures were about. Then he told the story of Elena, the girl at camp who had the greatest impact on us. You can read more abut her here: Elena. We then showed a video that tells about Heart 2 Heart and their ministry to the orphans. That video is linked in the sidebar of our blog so if you haven't seen it you should check it out. It is a powerful and emotional video that really pulls on your heart strings. After the video Rebecca told about how we came to this point in our lives where we are taking a leap of faith and following God's call. Maybe we'll write more on that one sometime. At the end Mark talked about the needs we have financially and asked people to prayerfully consider supporting us monthly, something that we ask you to do as well. If you feel lead to do so you can download the forms here, and indicate on the card that you would like to make a monthly commitment. These commitments are what we really need before we can go and start our ministry. They will sustain us while we are there and enable us to be used by God to do his work in these orphan's lives. Before people left we answered some questions and tried to clarify what we'll be doing the best that we could.

Everyone who came to the dinner seemed very interested and supportive. Around 65 people showed up, including some of our family. We had planned on at least 100 so we had tons of food left. We were initially disappointed that more people didn't come but we figured that we just have to trust that God knows what he's doing. He can make great things happen with very few people. We are praying that God used this to work in people's hearts and ignite some passion for our ministry. We are also praying that those who were there will decide to support us monthly and tell others about our ministry also.

Ultimately we are very thankful to God for helping us pull this off, and we are very thankful for everyone who helped and everyone who came. We know this is all part of His plan and he will provide for all of our needs.

Our Missionary Fund Raiser Dinner

We are really excited!  Soon we will be having a fund raiser dinner for our ministry to Romanian orphans.  We will be having a traditional Romanian meal and telling all about what we will be doing as missionaries.  We will show pictures from our previous mission trips and a video of what Heart 2 Heart does.  We'll also talk about the options for short term mission trips and hopefully find some people interested in those.

The main goal of the dinner is to raise up monthly supporters and to tell about our ministry to the Romanian orphans.  We also need prayer partners who will commit to praying for us and our ministry.  Lastly we have a little way to go on our startup fund that we need to raise before we can leave for Romania.  Everyone is invited, even if you can't offer support, you can find out how to best pray for our ministry.  If you do decide to come it would be great if you let us know, but it's not a requirement to come to the dinner.

We ask that you bathe this dinner in prayer and ask God to provide financial and prayer supporters for our ministry.  Without either of these we will not be able to succeed at reaching the orphans in Romania and bringing glory to God through them.

The dinner will be at our church, Fair Haven Ministries in Hudsonville on February 15, at 12:15 PM.

Supporting Our Ministry...You Can Make A Difference!

We are very excited about following God's call to Romania to minister to abandoned orphans there. Our goal is to start our ministry around April, and in order to do that we need to raise funding to support our ministry. Our start up fund that will pay for things like airfare, language classes, visas, and housing set up is coming along wonderfully, praise God! Thank you so much to those of you who have contributed to this, we are so thankful that you have chosen to be our partners in this ministry.

We also need to raise monthly support commitments that will sustain our ministry while we are there. Would you please pray about this and ask God how He would like you to participate in this area? To those of you who have already committed we thank you very much!

Below is our letter explaining what our ministry will be about and why we are following this call. There is also a card that you can print out and send in so that your support will be tax deductible. If God leads you to a monthy committment you can set it up by using this card. Thank you so much for partnering with us in this ministry, God will use your support to change the lives of many hopeless and abandoned kids.

You can click on the pictures to bring up the full sized copies.

One more thing to ask, would you please pray that God raises up people to support us monthly? We know he will but the more people that pray for this the better. Thanks!

More Hope For Selling Our House

Since our house went up for sale in October it has been shown to three couples. The last people who looked liked it very much and had said they were going to start deciding after Thanksgiving. Then we didn't hear anything from them for a month, which left us wondering what they were up to. Our realitor called us last week to let us know that they are now planning on deciding shortly after the beginning of the year, and that our house is still on their list.

This is great news becuase it means that after looking at many houses they are still interested in ours. Hopefully they will want to look through it again and then decide that ours is the one they want to buy. So we need to pray doubly hard that God will lead them to buy our house, and we ask you to join us again in praying for this. Even in this down market and rough financial time God is in control and we trust that he will provide for the sale of our house. It would be so great to sell it soon so that we would be one step closer to beginning our work with the orphans in Romania!

Where God Guides, He Provides!

The title of this post is something that Mary Geegh said in her book "God Guides." She was a missionary in India in the middle of the 20th century. She had many experiences where she was guided to do something extraordinary and God came through with his providence. This Monday we received some surprising news that shows how God is providing for our missionary journey.

One of the owners of the company where I work, Extol Inc, came up to me and told me that they just ran the numbers and found out that for the last fiscal year we turned a profit. This was a surprise because I had talked to him before and it sounded like we would just break even for the year. Thankfully the fiscal year ended before some not so good months, so for that time period there was a profit. Since Extol is a Christian company they give a tithe on any profit, so they decided to support us with a financial gift.

When he told me how much I was floored! They are going to contribute $5,000!!! WOW! This will cover a pretty big chunk of our start up funds that we have to raise before we leave. I have been praying for miracles lately, and this is certainly is an answer to prayer. All Glory to God, he continues to show us that it is indeed his will for us to go on this journey. He will provide everything we need to make this happen. Amazing, isn't it?

I have to say a huge thank you to Extol for donating this money, it will enable us to minister to the orphans in Romania. What an awesome group of people we have at this company, that they would make a donation like this is really outstanding. Above all, thanks to God for providing this for us. We continue to pray for more miracles like selling our house and raising the rest of the start up fund and monthly commitments. God is so faithfull and we are looking forward to more surprises!