An Eventful Week!

This week has been a flurry of activity and it has been a really fun time. It all started last Friday night when we got a message from one of the Romanians we worked with at summer camp. George has been in the states for a while and he decided to come to Michigan, so he asked us if he could stay with us. So Sunday night we went and picked him up from the train station in Holland. Then Monday afternoon we went to the airport to lend my car to one of the Heart 2 Heart missionaries who's visiting family and friends in the area. Monday night we started taking a class called Perspectives on the world Christian movement. We are going to be learning about global missions each Monday night for the next few months.

Wednesday was another busy day. Rebecca took George to Grand Haven and they walked on the pier. It was really beautiful and they got some great pictures. Wednesday night we took George to KICK, the kids program we volunteer in every Wednesday night at church. Only half of our group of kindergarden & first graders was there but oh were they hyper. They thought that their names sounded really funny in Romanian and George enjoyed helping with the crafts and games.

Usually we walk underneath the arches that are up to Rebecca's waist here. There must be at least 3 feet of ice and snow built up on the pier.

Here is our Romanian friend George enjoying the beautiful day.

This ice is just cool (no pun intended)!

Tomorrow we will have a getogether with Angela the H2H missionary and our Romania missions team. Then we will hang out with Angela until she has to go visit other friends. Talk about an action packed week!

Oma's 100th Birthday Celebration

We spent the week of Christmas 2008 in Brampton, Canada celebrating our Oma's 100th birthday. December 24 was the big day so there was a big open house for lots of friends and family. All of Oma's 8 children came out to visit, which was great because one uncle lives all the way in Saskatchewan. Below is a picture of us with Oma on her birthday.

Besides the fact that she's 100 years old, the amazing thing is how sharp she still is. She remembers little details of things that happened in peoples lives years ago. She still lives on her own in an apartment and for the most part takes care of herself on her 0wn.

Oma's favorite pastime is knitting, and she is still incredibly fast. We have many slippers and blankets from her and they are all really nice.

This is a picture of the whole family with their spouses. Rebecca's parents are on the far right.

We spent the rest of the week hanging out at Oma's apartment visiting with family. For exercise we walked around the entire apartment complex, which was fun because there are several buildings connected by underground tunnels. We played hide and go seek once which was really fun. We had a great week and were sad when the vacation was over.

Top 10 Happenings Of 2008

Happy New Year! 2008 was a year of big happenings in our lives so we decided to put together a top 10 list. I added a link to previous posts if there were any so you can read about the event. These are in order of occurrence because it was too hard to rank them by significance.

1. My sister Sandi got married to Jay and we were in the wedding.

2. We finished our basement with the help of family & friends.

3. Our friends Dave & Holly & their son Jaden lived with us for a while.

4. We went to Romania to help with summer camp for orphans for 5 weeks.

5. We celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary.

6. We put our house up for sale.

7. We were accepted to be full time missionaries to orphans in Romania.

8. We went to California to vacation, go to a wedding, and plan for Romania.

9. We joined techies everywhere by starting a blog, getting on Facebook, and buying a Macbook.

10. We went to Canada over Christmas to celebrate Rebecca's Oma's 100th birthday.


Links:
1. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/05/sandi-jays-wedding.html

2. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/06/wrapping-things-up.html

3. See above.

4. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/06/our-upcoming-romania-mission-trip.html (+ 26 other posts!)

5. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/10/very-memorable-5-year-anniversary.html

6. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/09/missionary-application-selling-our.html

7. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/11/it-is-official-we-are-going-to-romania.html

8. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/11/our-trip-to-california-part-1.html & http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2008/11/our-trip-to-california-part-2.html

9. None really.

10. http://weloveorphans.blogspot.com/2009/01/omas-100th-birthday-celebration.html

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!

Snow Galore

Wow, have we gotten a lot of snow in the last few days! Last Friday we got nearly 14 inches and then this morning there was another 10 inches in the driveway. It is a lot of snow to get all at once and it just keeps on coming. The next few days are supposed to bring more, so it's sure to be a white Christmas around here. I just wanted to share some pictures of the snow to show how deep it is.

It's been blowing like crazy which is why our wreath is full of snow.

There is a bush in there somewhere.

Our mailbox isn't doing so well. This morning the street plow didn't even come close to the mailbox so Rebecca had to dig it out so we can still get mail.

This is the back of our car after we went to church yesterday. Ours was one of the only churches not canceled, so we braved the weather to get there. It was a great service with the full orchestra and everything, but it was pretty treacherous getting there and back.

Holiday Gettogether With Our Lifegroup

Tis the season for holiday gettogethers! Isn't it great to be able to get together with friends and family and enjoy food and fellowship together? We recently had such a time with our LifeGroup from church. We all brought part of the meal and one couple provided the turkey and hosted the group at their house.

Mark enjoyed carving up this massive turkey. He had to improvise to get it out of the crock pot with a fork and ice cream scoop because we couldn't find the tongs and needed something sturdy to get it out with. Whatever works, right?

This great feast included the turkey, sweet potato casserole, broccoli casserole, herb bread, poppy seed blueberry salad, cranberry sauce, jello, and pumpkin pie bars. It was all wonderful! After the feast was done we spent the rest of the evening talking and catching up, we were going to play some games but we never got to them because there was so much to talk about.

This is our group, minus a few who couldn't make it. We always enjoy the fellowship we have with them. Our group has grown from three couples a few years ago to two groups with around six couples each. We aren't in both of the groups now but we still enjoy seeing the other group at church on Sundays.

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!

All The Latest Happenings

Wow, a lot has been happening with us recently, and it's been a while since the last post. Let's back up to Thanksgiving. We had a great time spending the day with our family, eating wonderful food and hanging out having some fun. We watched the classic Home Alone and played a great game of Scrabble.

On Black Friday we did something really stupid, we went shopping. This was something we had said we would never do but there was a terrific sale on a laptop computer at Best Buy, so we went with a friend at MIDNIGHT and waited to get a ticket for the computer we wanted. The whole thing was very badly managed and the first 15-20 people in line ended up getting all the best deals, so before the store even opened we left knowing that there wasn't a chance that we would get what we want. It was really frustrating, but now we know to NEVER get sucked in by what seems to be such a good deal.

The rest of the long weekend was fun, we went hot-tubing with a friend, Mark went to the Grand Valley football game (unfortunately they lost, it was a really bad game), and we had dinner and played Wii with some other friends.

We haven't heard anything from the last people that looked at our house, so we are still praying that they will buy it even though they said they would start deciding last week. We are still trusting that God has a plan so even if they don't buy the house someone else will come along at the right time. We had our meeting with the RCA about partnering with them in our mission, and that went well. There is still a lot to figure out there but we are praying that God will open the doors for this to work as well. Our fund raising started by sending out our support letters to friends and family. God is in control of sll three of these areas and we continue to ask for your prayers.

The kitties helped Rebecca decorate recently. They also had fun helping un-decorate by constantly playing with the decorations and pulling down the blankets and tablecloth.

They also liked playing in the snow on the deck.

Rebecca took some great closeup shots of snowflakes.

The snow is really beautiful, just don't ask how fun it is to drive in it.