Christmas Celebrations!

This week we had the joy of attending the Christmas Celebrations for many of the kids we work with. Each school had its own program where the kids sang, danced, performed plays and read poetry. We sat in the audience with the feeling of proud parents, these being our kids, and we enjoyed each celebration so much.

The girls sing a song at the girls school.

Here we are with Miki and Veo, they are still our friends from summer camp in 2008!

The boys sing a song and celebrate with sparklers at the boys school. I have to admit when I saw them with lighters and burning sticks I was a little worried, but all went well and they had lots of fun.

Me with Alin, my buddy from summer camp this year.

We got a surprise invite to another orphanages' celebration so we rushed there, leaving our cooking dinner on the stove to see our kids. Thank goodness we did because it was so fun, especially seeing our precious little girls singing and dancing. When they saw us in the audience their faces lit up, knowing that someone they love came to watch them! At some point someone overheard Georgiana asking her supervisor if she could go sit with her mommy, and she came over to sit on Rebecca's lap. How precious they are indeed.

Our team with a couple boys and the director of one of the orphanages. She is so excited to have us working with our kids and she is always encouraging us to work as much as we can with them.

We were going to have a big get together with all of the older kids that have been coming to our youth groups in three different locations. The kids were so excited to see eachother again after they made friends from other orphanages at summer camp. Unfortunately we had some car issues that prevented us from transporting the kids from the Bucharest area so we had to call it off. It was a hard decision but we had to keep the safety of the kids as our top priority. The kids were disappointed but took it well, knowing that we'll reschedule some other time. Most of our part of the team was still in the south in the apartment H2H has there, so I went to pick them up. Some kids came over to hang out as is the usual custom when we're there, we had a fun time talking.

Rebecca with Elena, who kept telling us how much she would miss us while we're on vacation. We pray that all of our kids will have a great Christmas vacation filled with the grace and mercy of Christ.

When we got back to Bucharest we had a surprise birthday party for Rebecca, with the best pizza available (Dominos Pizza - recently in Romania) and a great chocolate dessert with ice cream.

As part of our birthday tradition in the H2H family Rebecca got to wear the birthday crown. The party was a fun way to end a hard day.

We've had some beautiful weather with just enough snow to be pretty and still have decent roads.

Driving back we enjoyed all of the millions of lights in Bucharest, it is really decked out!

Please pray for safety and traveling mercies as we fly out on Thursday - through London where there are major weather issues. We are supposed to arrive home at 6:45 PM Thursday evening on flight BA 5379. We are looking forward to our time home and to seeing our family and friends. Please pray that everything goes well.

One of those weeks

This past week was a bit more difficult than usual. We had freezing rain on Wednesday (Dec 1) and this prohibited us from going to our ministry locations. Thursday we had finally put in our application for our visa renewal. After waiting in line for over three hours, we finished one minute before the office closed! God was watching over us.

Ice on the grass

Little monkeys from the preschool

On Saturday we went down to Rosiori early to see the girls in Alexandria. We ended up having car problems and were stuck on the side of the road (thankfully it happened right near a small parking lot) for a couple hours. God again was watching over us, while we were there a friend drove past with her brother-in-law who is a mechanic. He diagnosed the problem (an air intake hose that wouldn't stay connected) but was unable to fix it. When Doru arrived (he works with the boys transition program), he was able to use rags and tied it together and we made it to our destination.

Rebecca and Adriana

Mark and Stela

When we arrived at the apartment in Rosiori we soon had a problem with the water heater (which also provides heat for the apartment). So we did not have any hot water or heat. Hopefully this will be resolved soon, but again, we were thankful that we brought the space heater that we had just bought.

Teaching about the weather

The boys looking to see if they succeeded in making a tornado

Then we returned to Snagov and did not have water for two days because of the repairs the city was making. But thankfully there is a well outside and we could bring water in the house. On Wednesday Mark brought in the van to fix the part and get it inspected (required biennially), so Mark got the pleasure of driving the Damas. And then on the way to Voluntari, they ran out of gas because the gauge does not work. Thankfully they were on a side street very near a gas station.

Mark driving the Damas

Some of the kids from one of the youth groups

So overall, it was a hard week, but the hand of God was clearly in everything. Our teaching times went well, we were able to accomplish what we needed, and God gave us the strength to get through it all. Please pray that Satan's attacks will be stopped and H2H will be protected. We feel that God is with us, but we also feel like the devil would really like to take us down. But we are thankful to know who is on our side, and who is the ultimate victor. Please also pray for safety, we have a lot of driving to do this next week for all the Christmas programs. Snow is in the forecast, so please be praying for extra safety on the road. We really appreciate and need all your prayers.

Science

Recipe for a science lesson:

1. Cut a red cabbage into small pieces.

2. Boil red cabbage and let sit for 30 mins.

3. Drain juice and keep it in a sealed container.

4. Find household items and place them in test tubes.

5. Add cabbage juice to test tubes.

6. Teach about acids and bases. In this experiment a strong acid will turn red and a strong base will be yellow. Explain the pH scale.

7. Ask which items are acids/bases and have the students rank the items on the pH scale.

It has been interesting to me to find out what things the kids know and what things they have never heard of before (most often they haven't heard of the scientific terms).

Here the kids are amazed at my "magic" magnets. One of the kids asked me "where did you learn this magic?" The young kids are really excited with anything I teach.

Ionut with his science book. Often I have the kids color a picture (this is showing suspensions -water and oil- and solutions- water and vinegar) to help them learn the science concept.

Teaching science in Romanian has been a very stretching task. I have to look up all the science words and often I do not easily find the correct word. (Any one know how to say fault line (referring to earthquake activity) in Romanian?) Another challenge is the kids also have not heard these words before, so combined with my accent, some of the kids do not understand anything I say. Thankfully Sanda is with me to help explain and use easier words for the kids to understand. The joy of working with these kids and their enthusiasm makes it all worth it! I hope to inspire them to have the same awe and wonder of the earth and our Creator that I have.

Thanksgiving and English Lessons

This past Saturday we had our H2H Thanksgiving celebration. There were 62 people there, past graduates, current guys from the transition house, staff, and a few friends. It is a time of great food, being thankful and a time of fun together.

Mark's Cranberry Jello Salad

Waiting for food line to be clear

Mark hanging out with the guys

Rebecca at the girls and Costel table

Us with Cristi and Amy

Mark's english lesson at the boy's transition house

Reviewing the verb: to eat

Mark and Marius

Us with Cili and his Thanksgiving Turkey Drawing

The following video is a short excerpt of an english lesson that Mark taught. Here the boys (Cezar, Adi, Razvan, Catalin and Aurel) are going over questions relating to the verb to eat.

It's been very interesting teaching english, it has forced me to delve deep into our grammar to find out why we talk the way we do. When we talk we don't even think about the why and how of our language, but to someone who's learning it as a second language it is a lot different. English and Romanian don't have a whole lot in common grammatically as the sentence structure is mixed around. Who knows when to use the verb infinitive vs. the verb gerund? How about the difference between the simple and progressive present tenses?

It's a big challenge to teach english to kids at all different levels. In the classes with the younger kids we are going over the alphabet, four letters per week. We have the kids color a sheet with the new letters and pictures of something that starts with that letter. With the older kids we are starting with the most basic present tense verbs and will work our way through the different tenses eventually. The hardest part is getting the kids to remember what they learned already since we only have classes once a week and they don't have time allotted to study. That's okay though, because through the classes we are getting to know them and that's our overall goal. Our prayer is that they come to know Jesus through our actions and testimonies, and along the way hopefully they'll learn some english too.

Bathed In Prayer

It is hard to believe that November is already half over! I guess time does fly when you are having fun! Not that ministry is without kids with bad behaviors, problems with attendance and room availability and bad days. But working with these kids brings joy to our hearts, especially seeing the kids taking real interest in seeking after God.

We ask for continued prayers for the kids to open during our times at youth group.

Prayer that the kids who have started to read their Bible will understand and come to a full knowledge of God their savior.

That we would not be distracted by the busy bodies of the young kids, but be able to focus on building relationships with these kids.

That we would not be distracted by the troubles thrown in our way, but that we'd keep our focus on Jesus and truly be his hands and feet.

Prayer that the faith promise offering at Caledonia CRC this Sunday would help enable us and H2H to serve these kids in every way we wish.

That our friends Josh and Missy who are raising support to come here would be blessed and their church would support them.

That H2H would be overwhelmed by prayer support and the financial support they are in a great need of.

That the boys in the transition house will continue to be appreciative of the program and have the endurance to stay and receive all the benefits of it.

That every child we work with will be eager to learn and kept safe when we are not with them.

That we will continue to have favor with the directors and that our ministry will be able to continue unhindered.

Thank you so much for your prayers, they are the fuel God uses for our ministry here.

September - October Newsletter

September brought many changes for us as we started our second year here in Romania. Being done with language lessons we were ready to start our full time ministry. We were put into teaching teams: Rebecca with Sanda and Mark with Mariana and an intern, either Shannon or Krysten. We started September by coming up with class outlines, syllabuses, and classroom management plans. We also managed to go to the baby hospital a few times to see our cuties.

How precious these babies are, we love loving them.

We are always thankful for the time we get to spend with the babies, they are so fun.

We also went to different orphanages to play with the kids there and continue building on our relationships with them.

We saw our girl Elena again and were very happy to find out that we would be working where she lives every week. We know many of the kids there from camps that we've been and we wanted to work more with them.

We moved from our apartment in the city to a house in the country, and it was a big adjustment. The girls transition program is usually in this house but this year we didn't have enough girls for the program. We moved there with the interns and Mariana in order to take care of the house. It has been nice there, quiet and not in the hustle and bustle of the city, but at the same time it is farther away from everything.

We have a yard and garden again which is nice because that is something we really enjoyed back home.

At the beginning of October we started teaching classes at the orphanages. Rebecca started her science classes. She teaches through hands on experiments, something that isn't common here at all. The kids are always so excited to see what she has to show them.

Rebecca teaches at three different orphanages and the classes have been going really well. Translating her lessons into Romanian is very hard because of all the science terminology.

Mark started teaching english classes at the orphanages. For the little ones we are learning the alphabet with pictures and for the older ones we are learning conversational english.

Being teachers is something neither of us thought we would ever do. Now that we are though we are enjoying it very much. Of course the overall purpose of the classes is to build relationships with the kids, and that has been going very well.

At the end of these two months we are beginning to get settled into everything that has gone on. We are looking forward to many more great months as we continue to share our hearts with the kids we work with.

It's hard to believe but Christmas is right around the corner. Last year many of you asked how you could send us a Christmas gift, so we wanted to tell you in advance. If you send H2H a check made out to Mark and Rebecca Essenburg it will be put in our account that we have access to here in Romania. The gift won't be tax deductable, but if you make it out to H2H and get the tax deduction it will go into our general expenses account which we don't have access to.

Also, one of our friends makes handmade soaps and is donating a portion of the sales to our ministry. They would make good Christmas presents, the ones labeled Essenburg Fundraiser are here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/AmarahEve.

As we go forward please pray for us and our ministry. Please pray that God gives us strength, endurance, and wisdom so that we can be effective at reaching these kids for Christ. Please pray for the kids, for protection and for open hearts and minds. We have several youth groups where we are seeing changes in kids lives, please continue to pray for all of them. Please pray for health for all of us that are working with the kids and for the babies and kids too.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support, we appreciate you all so much!