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.

Winter 2010

This past week was very full. We went to the orphanage on Monday and Saturday, and had language lessons on Wednesday and Friday. The big holiday team left on Wednesday, now there is a smaller (7 people) team until Sunday. We are beginning to adjust back to our "normal" life of class and studying, and working with the team when our schedule allows.

A wintery view of the orphanage

The team playing games with the kids

Marius is always playing with any sort of gadget he can find (yes, he, don't be fooled by the vest ;)

Rob and Bogdan

Here are some things you can pray with us in 2010

-That the doors would remain open to work in the orphanages and baby hospital. One orphanage director in particular has been making our work difficult. And the baby hospital may be closed again due to the babies having colds.

-Health of the staff, team members, and the kids we work with

-Support raising, for long term staff and for those coming on short term trips (We personally have been doing very well, Thank-you God!)

-For wisdom and direction of how we can best work with the kids

-For 2010 to be a year when Christ our Savior is revealed to our kids, and that they would come to personally know him

-Language learning, it is a long process even after you complete the 6 months of class

Holiday Team Fun

For the past week and a half we have been enjoying working with our first full size team since we've been on staff. We've been off from language and we have spent all of our time with the team which has been a great time. Right away last week the team split in two and we went with the smaller part of the team out of Bucharest to one of the orphanages there. It was a jam packed time, we went to apartments of the orphans there and had Christmas parties at each of them. At the parties we gave Christmas presents, played games, and read a Christmas story. The children were so excited and had a ton of fun!

Our team with the kids from one apartment.

We played a game where the kids had to open a present that was wrapped in lots of layers, and they had to wear oven mits. At this apartment the phone rang and it was for us! Some of the kids we were close to at camp had heard that we were coming but they were with relatives for the holidays so they called to talk to us. It was a nice surprise! The best part was that we could understand most of what they said to us, they said they missed us so hopefully we will be able to see them again soon.

The kids had a ball with the balloon stuffing game!

At the first apartment Mihaela immediately attached to us. Rebecca told her that we were married and she said that she already knew, and we hadn't even met her before! Apparently she and a sister were just dropped off a week before with only their birth certificates and a phone number. She was so affectionate and it was wonderful to hold her tight.

We got to meet again many kids that we knew from summer camp and many of the older ones remembered us. Lili on the left even remembered beating Mark at card games at camp.

We finally got to see Elena again and talk with her in person! We met her at camp and she had one of the biggest impacts on us because of the wonderful relationship we built. We have kept in touch with her through letters until now and we were really looking forward to seeing eachother. She is so kind and soft hearted and caring and we love her so much.

Halfway through the week the teams reunited and we went to the orphanages around Bucharest to play and hand out more gifts. We had fun coloring with Ana are glad to see her making progress since she came to the orphanage. When she came to the orphanage she barely spoke or smiled at all and now she is quite vocal and smiles a lot. She loves to be held and to sit on laps and she is very sweet.

This is Mark's new favorite picture, we love spending time with Alina, she is always beaming and wanting to be held and talks up a storm, she has made a big place for herself in our hearts.

It was also great to have our friend Amanda on the team. We caught up and spent time with her and it was fun working with her. It was wonderful seeing someone from home in person and we thank her so much for coming to check out what we're doing and to help these kids out.

We have had a great time with this team. They have been friendly and hard working and have been a blast to hang out with. We have learned a lot from this about how we can help to serve teams when they come, as this will be one of our main responsibilities here. We look forward to more teams coming and would be especially thrilled if more people we knew came like Amanda did.

Tomorrow we start language classes again as this team is leaving. Please pray that we will be able to get back into learning and our studying rhythm. Please pray that God continues to give us the ability to learn the language as we start the second half of the lessons. Please also pray for safety in travels for the team and for some new people who are coming for a second team. Please pray that this trip has a big impact on the team and that it helps each person to draw closer to God's plan for their lives. Please also continue to pray that God works in the lives of the kids that we work with and all the others who don't have anyone helping them through life. They are what this mission is about, we long for God to change their lives and make them followers of Him. Thanks so much for your part in our mission, prayer and support are what God uses to change lives!

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!

More Christmas Activities And A Birthday

This past Thursday was the Peris kid's Christmas program. They preformed plays, sang songs and even had a dance. It was fun to watch them preform and they had so much fun doing it.

The first play, about Santa Claus.

The second play, about Christmas trees.

One of the programs we've done at the orphanage this year is the dance class. This was the debut and the kids did great!

Us with Cladiu, who made sure to sit between us for the shows.

After the program at Peris, we had our staff Christmas party. We had an awesome spread of food and dessert. We played some games and exchanged gifts.

Yumm!

Heidi, our intern (who just returned home), read her awesome rap about all the staff.

The Staff at the party, we all had such a good time.

Saturday was Rebecca's birthday. We celebrated with some of the staff at Pipera. Krista made awesome stuffed french toast.

Jen and Krista shoveling snow. We got around 10 inches over the course of the week which Jen thinks is the total amount they got last year. We spent some time shoveling and then Krista and Heidi made a snow gnome. The week ended with a wonderful church service where we sang traditional Romanian Christmas carols and heard (and mostly understood) a nice Christmas message.

Christmas Parties

Everywhere we look we see the signs of Christmas here in Romania. Lights and decorations are up all over town, stores and vendors have stocked up on holiday items, and we've heard carolers in a subway station and in our apartment building. It is a fun time and it is celebrated much the same here as it is at home. This is also a time filled with lots of hustle and bustle making it is easy to lose focus of the real reason for the season: the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Since the focus of our lives is to glorify God we felt privileged to help with some Christmas parties that put the focus of the season where it should be, on Jesus.

We had a great time serving along with our H2H family. We started the party's out by telling the story of Jesus' birth. Then we had the kids guess who each of us was in the story by asking questions about the story.

We played a word scramble game and then a candy game that taught that it is better to give than to receive, although some of the kids didn't really agree with that :-) We also had a snowball fight with paper snowballs.

We helped the older kids to make gingerbread houses. They really enjoyed this activity and especially enjoyed eating the houses when they were done building them.

It is always great to see the kids smiling like this, it is wonderful to be involved in their lives and to brighten up their lives.

Later in the week we drove to Rosiori and Alexandria where there are separate schools for boys and girls. We watched the boys Christmas program and later handed out gift bags to them for Christmas.

At Alexandria the girls were really excited and overjoyed to receive presents from us. It is a big deal for them to have presents because they have so few possessions of their own.

One more thing that happened that had nothing to do with Christmas was that Mark had an accident with the computer. While plugging the computer in it slipped out of his had and the screen hit the corner of the coffee table. Ouch. Mark ordered a new screen and will try to replace it on his own, because to have it repaired by Apple would cost the same as the entire computer. Thankfully we're still able to use the computer, we just can't see very much.

Preparing for Christmas

This past week the kids at Periş decorated the club room for Christmas. We made snowflakes, snowman mobiles, and ornaments. Later that week they decorated an artificial tree. They kids really enjoyed making these crafts and were very excited. This time of year is busy, but a fun time to be working with the kids.

Making snowflakes

Mark and I with Lorenzo and Catalina

Excitement (and crafts) in the air

This past week we also decorated our apartment for Christmas. We went to Carrefour and bought a small artificial tree and decorated it. We also put on display the glass ornaments and table cloth we bought in Sinaia.

Our apartment

Yet in this time of business, shopping and activities sometimes we forget what we are celebrating, or lack the joy we should have. Do the gifts really matter? Do we really need all homemade goodies? Or is what we need some excitement like the kids have. Not excitement for presents, toys, and candy, but excitement in remembering our Savior's coming to earth. This Christmas we are telling (again) the true Christmas story to the kids. Will you join us in praying for these kid's hearts, that they will be able to know who Christ really is and have eternal joy? It is the best gift of all!