School Kits And Lesson Plans

Last week was another eventful one as we expected. We started off by putting together hundreds of school kits for the kids. We made bags with notepads, pens, pencils, crayons, toothpaste, toothbrush, erasers, and a pencil sharpener. On Tuesday we went to the orphan apartments at Rosiori, a town about 2 and a half hours drive from Bucharesti where we are staying. There are several apartments spread all around where the orphans live so that the government doesn't have to count them as orphans. This was our first time there but we knew some of the kids from summer camp last year.

Andrea loved her school kit and was very excited to receive it. At camp we called her Punky Brewster because she has such a spitfire attitude. She's so cute though and loves attention.

We then went on to an actual orphanage in another nearby town. This is Corny, one of the H2H staff who grew up as an orphan that H2H worked with. Now she is a great help and is our guide around the city since she lives nearby. She is also the main worker in the baby hospital.

Miki found us right away, she was on our team at camp last year. She is a sweetheart.

There weren't very many kids we knew so we met lots of new ones. This girl really wanted her picture taken with Mark.

Krista, one of the H2H missionaries met some new girls too.

Here we are handing out the school kits. Our director Jen is handing them out and her church helped supply most of the items. The next day we went to the main orphanage in Peris to hand out school kits to the kids there. We had fun playing games with the kids as usual.

The end of the week was a little more laid back. We spent more time working on lesson plans for this school year for the kids. We also spent time with the rest of the staff getting to know them and hanging out. We went shopping again and finished off our list of things we needed. We have been so blessed to be able buy furnishings and kitchen supplies at IKEA and some of the other big stores around the city. We are very thankful that God has supplied us with everything we needed through generous gifts from supporters.

We also went exploring around our area in town. We are starting to get a good feel for our immediate area but this city is so huge that we will have a lot more to do before we know our way around. We went to the park next to our apartment, it is very large with a small lake in the middle. It is nice to have a place to walk that feels a little more like the country. We are enjoying being here and are looking forward to starting our language lessons this week Thursday. Would you please pray that God opens our minds and gives us the ability to learn quickly? We would really appreciate your prayers, thanks!

First Week In Romania

The past week has been very busy with planning and adapting. We went to IKEA and bought all the kitchen furnishings we needed, which was basically everything. We also bought a new mattress because the one here was in really bad shape and we wanted to be kind to our backs. The refrigerator was not working so we delayed moving in until it was replaced. We also spent time during the week starting to plan out the curriculum for this school year with the kids. We are doing a hero theme and trying to teach the kids how to be heros themselves.

Friday we went to the Peris orphanage to see the kids and hang out with them. We were greeted by many of them who we knew from camp and they remembered us. Many of them would say "sunt de la tabara?" meaning "you were at camp?" It was great to see them and we had a great time playing games with them.

Of course Claudiu remembered us and was mightily happy to see us and to hug us. He's on our prayer card from last year. He is usually a trouble maker and keeps his distance from people but he seems like a different kid around us.

Catalina loves to put our rings together and is so fascinated with us, she loves to be hugged by both of us. She is very sweet.

Flori gave Rebecca some new earrings, well actually stickers but they did look nice.

We joined in the soccer game and had fun, although these kids are so good at soccer that they really didn't need our help, they just wanted us to play with them for fun.

School starts this week for the kids so we will be starting the more structured programs, although our language classes will be the top priority for us.

Sunday we went to church at AlphaOmega, the same one we had been to on each of our previous trips. We saw many people that we knew and met lots of new people too. It was a great day to go there because there were two baptisms of young adults who decided to identify themselves with Jesus Christ. It was neat hearing their testimonies of how they came to this point in their lives.

After church we moved into our apartment and spent the evening arranging things and unpacking. This morning we went to the market and bought food for lunch and then Corny and Mariana came over to show us around a bit. Then we took the subway over to the team house for a meeting to discuss our curriculum. Our apartment is in a great location close to the subway, market, and park. It is really easy to get around and we are already learning our area.

Please continue to pray for strength and guidance as we learn how to do things here. Please pray for guidance and wisdom for us and the team as we continue to work on programing. We will start language next week so please pray that God prepares us for that and allows us to learn well. Thanks so much for your prayers!

We're In Romania!

We made it to Romania! We left from the Grand Rapids airport on Sunday afternoon, and were sent off by some family and a few of our closest friends. It was a great sendoff and we were so glad they came to support us. Our kids Sam, Lexi, & Precious were there too, it was so great to see them. Everyone laid hands on us and prayed for our journey and then we went through security, with Sam following saying he wanted to come with us. Awww! We'll dearly miss everyone but knowing that they're so supportive is a big help.

Lexi offering her drink to Mark before we left. All of our flights went really well, were on time, and all of our luggage made it here! Thanks for the prayers, we heard that we may be the first ones to fly over on British Air and get all of our luggage right away.

Today we went to see our apartment so we can figure out what we need to buy for it. This is us in the elevator. We are on the 8th floor.

This is the living room, Mariana and Corny were at the apartment cleaning it out.

Jen brought us there and Linuta was also there. Beyond the window there is a balcony that goes along the entire length of the apartment.

This is the spare bedroom which we will probably use as an office. The bed is actually a pull out so people can come and stay with us (hint, hint).

This is our bedroom, pretty good size and lots of storage.

The kitchen is small and very retro, the stove is also very small but we'll have to adapt to it.

The rest of the kitchen with the dining table.

And finally the bathroom, can you count how many shades of blue there are in here? All in all the apartment is pretty nice, there is lots of storage space too. Next step is to buy all the stuff we need, mostly kitchen furnishings. We'll run to IKEA sometime this week to get that.

So far we are doing pretty well on energy, jet lag doesn't even seem that bad. Continued prayers for energy would be appreciated. Everything is different as we expected, so we have lots of learning to do. We won't start our language classes until late September so we'll have a couple weeks to figure out how to get around and buy things here. We'll keep the blog updated as often as we can, especially at the beginning there will be so many new things to talk about!

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.

Last Days In California

After visiting the San Diego Zoo we flew up to Sacramento to visit our friends Sarah & Marci, who we met at camp in Romania last year. We always have fun hanging out with them so we figured since we would be in California already it would be great to see them again. Sunday we went to their church and met their pastors, and one prayed for us during church which was really nice. Many people from their church have gone to Romania with H2H so there was a get together that night for them to share their experiences. We really enjoyed meeting them and hearing their stories and it worked out great because we were able to share what we are doing with them. Talk about God's timing that there would be a Romania team get together right when we were there.

We toured around the Sacramento area and looked at a large cathedral there. It was huge and very beautiful.

The inside looks bigger than you would think from looking at the outside.

We went and saw the old part of Sacramento which is still in the style of the old west gold rush town. It was very neat and had a totally different feel from the rest of the city.

Lastly we went to see some really big trees at the Calaveras State Park. Seeing the giant sequoias has been one thing that we really wanted to do for a long time so it was great that we got the chance this time.

Sarah, Marci, and Rebecca liked the river running through the park, talk about pristine nature.

If the pine-cones are this big then how big must the trees be?!?

Yeah, that's big, these trees are so amazing!

This is the biggest tree in the park. It was worth the 5 mile round trip hike to see it. This tree may be around 2000 years old, is 250 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter! It is hard to even imagine but as you can see it is real and is very impressive.

Our trip to California was awesome, we learned a lot about what to expect in Romania and had a great time with friends. We are now looking forward to our commissioning at church tomorrow (Sunday August 30) and the get together we are having afterwards. Please come if you can, we'd love to see you there. Our commissioning will happen at the 9:00 and 10:45 services and the get together will be at 12:00 at FairHaven Ministries, 2900 Baldwin St, Hudsonville, MI.

San Diego Zoo

Continuing on from the last post about our orientation with Heart 2 Heart in San Diego, California... We met with Roe, one of H2H's advisors and board members. She is a great woman who asked us all sorts of deep, hard questions. She will be a great person to talk to if we're going through hard times because she is very insightful and has worked with all of the H2H missionaries to date. We enjoyed talking with her and will look forward to seeing her when she comes for the staff training in October.

We met by the beach and took a walk down one of the piers.

This pigeon must have been thirsty!

After orientation was finished we headed to the San Diego Zoo which was huge and had lots and lots of animals. We walked around there for nearly 6 hours to see everything and boy were our feet tired. It was worth it though, as the zoo was very nice and we really enjoyed seeing all of the animals there.

This elephant was demonstrating how to cool down on a hot day by throwing dust on itself.

This Macaw is one of Mark's favorite birds, it is so beautiful and full of color.

This Meerkat was on the lookout.

This bamboo forest was pretty neat too, there were lots of exotic plants at the zoo too.

We had a great time being in and around San Diego. The Sorrel's, the founders of H2H, are amazingly hospitable, they really made us feel at home. We had lots of fun sightseeing and trying new things, and as always the time with them went way too fast.

Final Stateside Update

Hi everyone! This past month has been a busy one and we know that will be the new norm for a while for us. We successfully closed on our house and became 100% debt free, what a great feeling and an amazing answer to prayer! We have been living in the basement of Rebecca's parents house which has been going great because it is like our own apartment. Our fundraising also picked up to the point that we are nearly fully funded with just a little left to raise. We lead a small group of second and third graders at VBS at church which was a really fun experience. The message was centered around the gospel so we were able to share much about Jesus with them.

Mark finished up a big project at work and then we left to visit family in Canada. Now we're in Ramona California going through our orientation with Heart 2 Heart. We have been learning more about what we will be experiencing once we get to Romania. We have been having a great time hanging out with the Sorrels family and have enjoyed kayaking on the ocean and touring around San Diego.

We will be commissioned at our church (Fair Haven Ministries | 2900 Baldwin Street | Hudsonville, MI 49426) on Sunday August 30, at the 9:00 and 10:45 am services. At 12:00 we will have a light lunch in the gym of the church. We would love it if you came to see us off and to share this time with us. We will leave for Romania the following Sunday, August 6 in the late afternoon.

As we go forward please pray for us and our mission in Romania. Here are some requests:

- for a smooth transition into Romanian culture

- for quick learning of the Romanian language

- for new friendships with kids and other missionaries in the country

- for our families as they adjust to our decision to serve overseas

- for the remainder of our support to come in

- for the orphans, that they will come to relationship with Christ

- for strength in all things and especially in our marriage

Thanks so much for your prayers and your support, it really does mean a lot to us and we couldn't do this without it.

In Christ,

Mark & Rebecca