Fun Day At The Zoo

This was my third week being laid off and the weather was finally a little warmer so we decided it would be fun to go to the zoo.  We invited our friends Scott and Kayleen since Scott is also laid off, and our friend Jess.  So we headed out to the John Ball Zoo and had a great time.

Scott & Kayleen's son Sam liked the fish, someday he'll probably be catching them like his dad.  Sam had a ball seeing all the different animals.

This is Lexi, Scott & Kayleen's daughter.  She liked the monkeys and the penguins.

Precious enjoyed watching the wolverine and just about anything that moved.  She is Jess & Jonah's daughter.  Jonah was working so he couldn't make it to the zoo.

Pelicans.

We saw lions...

And tigers...

And bears, oh my!

An iguana just hanging out.

 This small alligator didn't even blink for the picture.

Colorful chameleon.

After the zoo we went to Scott & Kayleen's house and hung out the rest of the day.  We had black bean chili with rice and tortillas and Filipino beef for dinner.  Then we had a chocolate cake roll for dessert.  Even though it isn't good being laid off it was nice to be able to get out of the house and hang out with our friends.  Next we would like to go to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, we just need some free tickets :-)

The Great Up North

Each year around this time some of Rebecca's family goes to their cabin in the upper peninsula for a snowmobiling trip.  This year since I (Mark) wasn't working I got the chance to go too, and I really had a blast.  Rebecca's dad, uncle, cousin, and I left on Thursday morning.  We had lunch in Mackinaw city and then headed over the bridge.

The Mackinaw bridge as seen from St. Ignace in the UP.

The road that the cabin is on doesn't get plowed so we had to park the truck and ride the snowmobiles the rest of the way.  This is the one I drove the most, it's a classic, 1979 or so.  Even though it's so old it still hauls and I really enjoyed driving it.

This is the family cabin that we stayed in.  Throughout the weekend we shoveled all the snow off the roof.  

The cabin is one room with a loft and a few sets of bunk beds.  The cabin came with "Fred the Dead Deer Head", mounted above the fireplace.

This is the view from the cabin.  There is a creek down there which you can hardly see because the snow is so deep.  There was about 6 inches of fresh powder which made the scenery very beautiful.  We snowshoed and cross country skied through the forrest and it was great to be in such a wonderful setting.

We rode our snowmobiles to Tahquamenon Falls, which was really flowing due to recent rain and some thawing.  The ice all around was spectacular and it was a beautiful day out.  Notice the rainbow created from the sunshine reflecting in the mist from the falls.

This is me standing by a massive icicle.  We walked up to the falls as far as we could but we couldn't go behind them because there was too much ice.

There were lots of really cool ice formations all over around the falls.  On our way back to the cabin from the falls we rode our snowmobiles on the river, which was a little scary, but Dad said that there was probably 3 feet of ice on there so it was OK.  It still was a little nerve wracking especially because some of the snow on top was melting and forming puddles.

We saw some cattails in a beaver pond that we skied to.

On our way home on Monday we went through Hulbert, the nearest town to the cabin.  There were lots of deer there feeding, right in town.

This was a great vacation, lots of time to relax and also lots of fun activities.  The best part of it all was being in the wilderness and being able to appreciate God's great creation.

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.

The Open House

Last weekend was our first try at having an open house since we put our house up for sale.  You may recall that we are trying to sell our house so that we can go and be missionaries to orphans in Romania.  We spent most of the weekend cleaning up, straightening, and preparing for the open house.  We took our cats for a ride during the open house so that they wouldn't be a hindrance for potential buyers.  We lit some nice candles and cooked hot fruit salad to fill the house with wonderful smells.  

Unfortunately for us the weather was not good, it was cloudy and rainy, not the type of day that most people go looking at open houses.  So only one person ended up coming, and it was someone that our realtor invited.  It did sound like they liked our house and neighborhood, and they were here for 30-45 minutes, which is great.  They are waiting for their qualification from the bank, so they don't know how much they will be able to get.  We are praying that God will allow them to qualify for enough that they can buy our house, and that He increases their desire to do so.

We will have another open house in a couple weeks, and hopefully the weather will be better.  We are increasingly praying for this house to sell and ask for your prayers as well.  Thank you for covering this in prayer!

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)

Back To Work

Praise God, after being temporarily laid off for two weeks Mark was called back to work this week. This is definitely an answer to prayer, thank you to all of you who prayed for us during the layoff.

Besides not making enough money to pay the bills it was actually nice having the time off from work. We got ahead on our homework for our Perspectives class, and we planned for our fundraiser that I wrote about last time. It was nice to relax and catch up on sleep and not have a schedule. The time went by amazingly fast and Mark gained new insight into what it is like to stay at home during the day.

That said it is good to be back at work again knowing that we can cover our payments now. We're very thankful to God that the people at Extol are so supportive of our ministry and that they are letting Mark continue to work even though we're going to be leaving the country soon.

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.