Fall Fun

What a wonderful week. Everything went so well with our kids this week. They were excited to be with us in our classes and the schedule worked out well for the first time so far. We're getting to know the nearly 100 kids from at least 5 different orphanages better and are building some great relationships. It feels so great to have kids run into our arms when we arrive to the orphanages, we know we're becoming people in their lives that they can trust and love.

Rebecca with Adrian, who likes to pretend he's car.

Listening to a story ready by Shannon and Mariana at the boys school.

We also enjoyed some beautiful fall weather. Rebecca and Dorothy raked up leaves and walnuts into a massive pile. Of course jumping in and playing around followed.

We also planted wheat in the garden which I tilled up last week. The hope is that the wheat will grow a bit before the ground freezes in order to overwinter the garden. Then in the spring after it grows to full maturity it will get tilled in to improve the clay.

Mila came and joined us playing in the leaf pile.

We grew a few pumpkins in the garden and it was time to carve one for Halloween.

Next year we're planning on growing more so that we can each have one.

After our fun with carving the pumpkin we cut it up, skinned it, and boiled it for about an hour. Thanksgiving is coming up and that means we need some pumpkin pie. Unfortunately canned pumpkin isn't available so we have to make our own. Just this one pumpkin made enough for 11 pies, so there will at least be enough for our Thanksgiving feast with the transition house graduates.

Thanks for your prayers for us and the kids here. We are starting to get into the swing of things and God is blessing our ministry. Please continue to pray for strength and wisdom and against attacks from the enemy.

Beginning of School

We have been teaching in school for about three weeks now. We have been keeping busy and also we haven't had much internet access (we now have internet in the house) so we hadn't much chance to keep up the blog.

Rebecca and Sanda have been teaching science- hands on with experiments and cooking/life skills class. Mark, Mariana and Shannon have been teaching english language and are starting some math and computer classes with the boys transition house. Classes have been going well, we have had to make (and still are making) minor schedule adjustments, but that is fairly common and the beginning of the year.

Our basic schedule is:

Sunday late afternoon- leave for Rosiori (2-3 hour drive)

Monday- Mark- Boys transition house, english at kids apartments

-Rebecca- Boys school, youth group (Mark is there too)

Tuesday- Mark- Boys school, Rebecca- Boys transition house

- evening return to Bucuresti/Snagov

Wednesday- Mark- afternoon: V. orphanage, youth group (Rebecca has day off)

Thursday- Mark- V. orphanage morning, rest of day off

- Rebecca- V. orphange, P. orphanage, youth group (yes a very full day)

Friday- Staff Bible study, evening AlphaOmega Bible study

Sanda and Rebecca teaching science

Rebecca with the bag of mystery contents

Rebecca with Florin and his picture of the 5 senses

Sanda showing the kids how to properly brush their teeth

Shannon (an intern) with the kids coloring alphabet pages

English class

Mark coloring with the kids

Mark with kids from boys school

Mark teaching english

Mariana checking over the kid's papers

Shoes! We gave out shoes to all the orphanages we currently work in. Thanks to a 14 year old boy, Andrei, who was adopted from Romania to an American family. He raised all the money to help out the kids and came on a short term team with his mom.

Mark hanging out kids while we handed out shoes

Rebecca and Aurelia

Fall is here and the leaves are changing!

Prayer Requests:

For H2H to receive the funding they need so we can continue to impact lives

Safety in all our travels

Health and energy

Wisdom and guidance in planning

For the youth groups to be a productive way of reaching the kids for Christ

Continued Romanian learning

For our ministry to be for God's glory and after His will

Thank you for your prayers and interest in our ministry! It is a blessing to be working with God's precious children here in Romania.

First Week Of School

Before our first week of ministry we took a day trip to the mountains of Transylvania to see some castles. First we stopped at Bran Castle, which is a medieval fortress originally built in 1377. When you think of Transylvania this is the type of castle that comes to mind, and although this is fabled to be Dracula's castle, the character he is based on, Vlad Tepes, never actually stayed there.

We enjoyed the castle tour and walking around the surrounding area. It is in a very beautiful place. We also enjoyed some gogosi, which are small freshly made doughnuts with chocolate topping.

After lunch we traveled just down the road to another fortress, this one even bigger, called Rasnov. It was built in 1215 and is mostly in ruins, although it is in the process of being restored. Walking amongst the ruins was a neat feeling knowing that this has been around for almost 800 years.

This visit to the country was also a celebration of our 7th wedding anniversary. We really enjoyed the time we spent there and are so happy that God has blessed us with such a great marriage.

The town around the citadel still has a medieval feel.

The Carpathian Mountains are always a sight to behold, very beautiful.

We spent the week going to our classes and meeting with orphanage directors to finalise our plans. We met the students, most of whom we know already. We held a few intro classes where we mostly went over classroom procedures. One class in particular was really crazy, we had over 20 1-4th graders for an hour and a half. Next week they will be split into three groups but for this time we had to try and keep some sort of control, which didn't go very well. The first weeks of programing are always difficult because schedules are still being worked out.

We had several youth groups which went very well. We will be focusing on relationships and self worth and will be including bible study when and where we can. There is lots of potential for lives to be changed through these groups as many of these kids are searching for truth.

Please continue to pray for our scheduling and classes as we enter into our second week and try to figure out how to work with each different group of kids.

School's In

The last couple weeks we have been very busy preparing for the new school year. We worked on our plans for the classes we will be teaching and found out what our schedules will be for the year. We will be teaching and tutoring at three orphanages and at the boys transition house. We will also be leading several youth groups in each place.

We had a get together with the older kids in the south when we went there to deliver school kits. H2H has an apartment there and it is where we will stay for two days while we are teaching there.

We went to one of the girl's 18th birthday party. We were treated like guests of honor there, given the best seats at the table, the first pieces of cake, and all the girls there were so excited to have us with them.

We got to see our girl Elena, we have kept up our friendship since meeting her at summer camp in 2008. We will be able to see her every week now that we will be having the youth group in her town. We are very excited to be able to build up relationships there with the many kids that we know but haven't been able to see much so far.

We went to the baby hospital a couple times and Rebecca got to spend time with her boy.

We handed out school kits to all of the orphanages with supplies for the kids in each class.

The kids were excited about their new school supplies and were also eager to show us their school work that they were doing.

We moved into our new home, the former girls transition house. It is a very nice place, with a big living room and kitchen, yard and garden. It is in a small village so we can enjoy the feeling of small town living again. We will be nearer to several ministry locations so our driving times will be cut down a bit.

In our room we created a small sitting area so that we can have a place of our own. We have enjoyed living there so far with the interns and Mariana. We helped other people move too, a whole weekend was taken up by moving, it was quite a production.

Since the last post there have been several answers to the prayer requests. The intern's visa situations were resolved after much work and confusion and stress. God pulled through in the end though and it is all taken care of. The meetings with the orphanage directors went very well, we will be able to do everything that we want to do in the orphanages this year.

Please continue to pray for us and our staff as we start our new programs this Monday. We are excited to be working with so many kids but we need many prayers for wisdom and confidence and strength. Thanks so much for your prayers!

Prayer Requests

Since we've been back (over two weeks now) we've resumed many of our normal activities. Going to the orphanage and hanging out with the kids (they just started school this week), going to the baby hospital and time with the transition graduates. Our programs will be starting up again around October and there are many things to pray for.

Pray for staff unity in all we do. One way satan loves to attack us is through disunity. Also pray for the financial hardships H2H is going through. Romania has increased taxes by 5% and now has 24% sales tax. This plus lower donations due to economic hardship in the US has made funding a bit tricky.

Us with Catalina

Pray for the visa situation of our interns. We currently have three interns, Krysten, Shannon and Dorothy. Krysten has already used up her visitors visa (the passport stamp for 90 days) so she currently is an illegal alien. The problem is because they are changing the volunteer visa laws so they do not want to accept any new applicants. Costel and Jen and busy trying to resolve these issues, hopefully even today.

Vali

Pray for the talks we have with orphanage directors and teachers. Our programs are at their mercy, pray for favor and acceptance of our school classes. Pray for good relationships and open doors.

Vio, Catalina, Nicu and Georgiana

Pray for our the planning of our school programming. This year Mark is going to teach math, computers and English language. Rebecca is going to teach science and a social survival/cooking class. We have a staff partner (Mariana and Sanda respectively) and we have begun planning the syllabus for the year. Pray for wisdom and direction.

Rebecca and Matlida playing war

Pray for confidence in our responsibilities. Many of us on staff have either never taught before or are teaching different things this year. Pray for our teaching abilities and that we wouldn't doubt the fact that God will give us the strength and words to speak. Pray also for us as we will be teaching in Romanian, some for the first time, others for the first time on their own. Pray that God helps us to remember what we have learned and opens our minds to the language.

Mark with some cute baby girls

Pray for the kids. That they would be eager to come to our classes and learn. That we could establish good relationships with them that will lead to discussions about our personal savior, Jesus Christ. Pray that those who have made a decision to accept Christ would grow in their relationship with him this year.

Another baby girl

Pray for our involvement with the youth this year. We are going to have some youth group type activities. They will vary on spiritual depth according to the kids and what we feel we are allowed to do. Pray that these groups are meaningful and impact the kids lives positively and increase their desire to know God.

Nicusor

Pray for the new moms group-first steps that will be started. Two new babies are due soon in the H2H family. Pray for the parents to learn how to instruct their kids in a Christ like manner. Also pray for the babies in the hospital. Many have colds and some nurses do not allow us to go in the infant room. Pray for health and good development.

Baby boy

Pray for safety. We will be doing a lot of traveling this year. We are moving out to Snagov (girls transition house- no girls program this year) and will be working around us, in Rosiori and at the boys transition house. Pray for traveling mercies, and the cars to stay in working order. Pray also for our health, spiritual health, and emotional well being. Pray that this year will be another year where we see God moving and changing the lives of these precious kids.

Thank-you for all your prayers, it is only through prayer and by God's strength that we are able to do this ministry!

One Year Update

It is hard to believe that we've been serving God in Romania for a whole year already. It has been a great year, not without trials and hardships, but full of rewards and confirmations from God that this is what He has called us to do. When we arrived in Romania a year ago we entered into a whole new world; a new culture, new language, different customs and a different way of life. As we got used to the new surroundings we started studying the Romanian language, taking a course for six months from a private professor. It was difficult getting used to new pronunciation and grammar, but God was with us and through much studying we gained a basic proficiency. It was very exciting to be able to understand the people around us and to be able to communicate with them for the first time.


After finishing language lessons we helped in all three areas of our ministry here: the baby hospital, orphanage, and transition house ministries. When babies are abandoned due to poverty or the parents inability to care for them, they go to the baby hospital. There we fed, changed, held and played with the babies, helping them to develop normally. It is so great to walk into a room and see all of the smiling babies who are eager to be picked up and cuddled. When the babies are old enough they go to state run orphanages, where we also helped out. At the orphanages we worked on relationship building with the kids through playing games and teaching classes. Gaining their trust is crucial to sharing the good news about Jesus with them, and we made some great friendships. We also helped out with the young adults in the transition programs, those that age out of the orphanages. We served as models of Christ to them and helped teach them life and job skills.


Summer ministry was our busiest yet most rewarding time of the year. We helped run several camps where we took kids from all of the orphanages we work with to different camp locations. We sang songs, performed skits, had small group times, played games, made crafts, and spent time getting to know the kids better. It is amazing how close we became with some of the kids in such a short amount of time. The kids were very receptive and open to the gospel and many accepted Christ into their hearts. It was such a joy and an honor to lead prayers and to hear the voices following along, praise God! There was also a backpacking trip in the mountains for older boys and two pampering camps for older girls. We heard many of the kids' life stories and built great new relationships. We feel like God used this summer to confirm to us that this is where He wants us. We are excited to see what he has in store for us in the coming year.


We are so thankful that you are part of our ministry through your support and prayers. You can follow along with what we're doing on our blog which we update regularly. If you're not on our e-mail list please send us an e-mail to get our periodic updates. We would love for you to come to Romania as short term trips are an important part of our ministry. Contact us or H2H about coming on a trip here to model the love of Christ to these kids. Please continue to pray as this is what God uses to fuel our ministry. Thank You!