Pray For Romania Part 1

Last weekend we went to the movie theater to watch a documentary about Romania titled "Hand Held." It is the story of a man who traveled to Romania shortly after the fall of Communism in 1989 and what he found here. It was a very moving film and it made me think about why we are here and what we are doing. Many people wonder: why Romania? Out of all the countries that we could have gone to why did we chose to come here? Aren't there people even in America that need help too, and isn't Romania already a Christian nation? Well yes of course, there are people all over the world who need help, even in America, yet we ended up here. First of all, we know that God called us here, we would have gone anywhere but we felt him calling us to Romania.

It all started when one girl from our church wanted her parents to adopt, but they didn't feel it was the right time for them. Instead they searched for a way they could help children in great need, and found out about mission trips to Romania. We went with them on their second trip and after that we felt God pulling us there more and more, to the point when, after our second trip we felt that he was telling us to leave everything that we knew to work there full time. I'd like to share some of the recent history of Romania so you can have a glimpse of what these people have gone through in the last half century.

Romania has been a largely rural and agricultural country for a long time. They were in fact quite prosperous, their capitol Bucharest was called "Little Paris" because of the prosperity and architecture in similar style to Paris, France.

Then world war two happened and it all went wrong, Romania was originally allied with the Axis powers and it wasn't until near the end of the war that there was a coup that changed the leadership so they changed their alliance to the Allies. It was too late though, as Romania was given over to Russia which led to the rise of communism.

The communists took everything good in the country for themselves and didn't leave much for the rest of the people. They constructed block buildings and forced most of the people to move in so that they would all be equal and so they could build a huge industrial work force.

I've always wondered why the plumbing is always so bad in the block buildings, and I heard the answer in the film: when they were constructed the builders said "If they don't have indoor plumbing in their houses in the country they don't need it here." Imagine living in a 5 to 12 story building with no bathroom and no elevator. The conditions were horrible in the winters especially. It was all really a method of control. Thankfully plumbing was added later and this puts it in perspective: any plumbing is better than no plumbing at all.

Another method of control of the communists was to take over the Orthodox church and install priests who worked for them. Priests who wouldn't agree to be informants and to only talk about approved things were put in jail and badly mistreated. The communists took the truth that faith in Jesus is the only way to be with God and instead said that someone would have to be stupid to believe in God. This lead to a whole generation of lost people who believe that they are OK because they are Orthodox but they don't have a relationship with Jesus or even believe that God exists. The evil one really used this to bring a veil of darkness over this country and to create a place where people are very resistant to the truth and are very oppressed.

So I ask you to really pray for the people of Romania. Pray that God will soften their hearts and prepare them to hear and receive his gospel. Pray for God to bind the evil one so he can no longer oppress these people and that they will revel in their freedom by turning to God. Pray for a true revival here, and pray for the faithful people here to make a big impact on their society. Pray for those working here including us who are trying to bring God's kingdom here by sharing about Jesus Christ and how he died for our sins so that through faith we can come to God.

The last few weeks have been bitterly cold here and there has been lots of snow, up to 12 feet in some remote areas. Please pray for the people who are too poor to heat their homes and are struggling to survive this winter. Many people have died not just here but in many other areas of Europe too. Please pray that God will give some relief from this snow and cold and that when it starts to melt that there aren't floods.

Thanks for your prayers, they are so important! In the next couple weeks I will finish this story by talking about what happened to the kids of Romania under communism and how they and the country are doing today.

Boys Transition House and Boys School

Each week we go to the boys transition house to teach some classes and get to know the boys better. These are boys who either finished high school or aged out of the orphanage system. They come into our program to learn trades like welding and construction and to learn how to live on their own. Our hope is that when they are finished with the program they will be able to get a job and become productive members of society.

Here we are with the boys and our newest intern Talitha. We teach English, math, and science to the boys, they are really starting to get into the science lessons, they love the experiments.

We are also cooking with them to so that when they are living on their own they will be able to make themselves healthy food.

We also go and teach at the special needs school for boys (and a couple of girls).

I (Mark) have a story and craft time with my partner Mariana for the younger kids.

Then we (Rebecca and I) also teach some English classes. The kids always love to draw on the white board so we use that frequently.

It has been a winter wonderland here for the past couple weeks. Up until then we were having a very mild winter, but we knew it would be coming. There have been blizzards, road closures, people stuck in cars on the roads, and extremely cold temperatures. Last week the car wouldn't start because it was so cold, so after much searching we found a repair shop that towed it in and fixed it up. It is a diesel and the glow plugs which are supposed to heat up the fuel so it can start the engine weren't working. So thankfully that was taken care of quickly and the mechanics seemed to be very good and honest.

Please continue to pray for safe traveling and for our ministry to go well, unhindered from any outside forces that would try to stop it.

Classes at the apartments

Each week we teach at the apartments of the kids who go to regular school. Mark and Mariana teach English classes and Sanda and I have a Geography/Science class. We are learning about the culture and the conditions of different countries. It is not only educational, but we have all enjoyed seeing, hearing and tasting unique aspects of each country. We have listened to bagpipe music, eaten Irish bread, looked at pictures, and made crafts representing different countries. We have learned about bog people, climate, endangered animals, and how much we have compared to others. After learning about Kenya, some of the kids wanted to give (and did) their own toys to those kids who use rags to make soccer balls. Our ultimate goal in all our classes is not about information, but building relationships and shaping these kids in a positive way, and helping them to see and know the God who loves them.

Showing them on the map the continent of Africa

Coloring elephants

Teaching the kids and english song

Mark with a few of the kids

Writing in their english notebook

Georgiana and I

Back To School...

With the holidays over we started the new year with a big party for all of the kids who participate in our youth groups. We brought them all together at the team house and had a time of games, worship, and good food.

In this game they had to peel a lemon with gloves on and then eat it, the faces made were hilarious!

This was a popcorn toss into the mouth of the teammates.

The kids love getting together with their friends from the other orphanages. They often form great friendships at summer camp and then are always looking for opportunities to see them again. The party was a reward for consistent attendance at our youth groups.

Part of the worship team from our church alphAOmega came to lead us in worship, it was really nice having them there and they also shared some scriptures and talked about having a relationship with God.

We then started school again, back to teaching english, math, and science! The kids were a little riled up because it was the first week back, hopefully they will settle down a bit this week!

We got to spend Saturday evening with our friends (co-workers) Steven and Haley. We made a meal of tapas, which are Spanish appetizers. We got our inspiration from our favorite restaurant, San Chez Tapas Bistro in Grand Rapids.

I (Mark) made garlic mashed potato empanadas with garlic aioli sauce and sweet potato croquettes. Haley made stuffed mushrooms and bruschetta, with some olives on the side. It was a fun meal to make and to eat. Thankfully there were leftovers so on Sunday our other friends Josh and Missy were able to join in the eating pleasure. We all love to cook and try new things, and thanks to the internet we can find recipes for just about anything!

There are a few things that I wanted to ask for prayers. Thanks again so much for being in prayer constantly for us and the people we work with. We can't win this battle on our own, we need strength and sustenance from God, and we know he honors your prayers!

-Please pray for guidance and peace for us for important decisions that we are facing and as we face attacks from the evil one.

-A new boy came to one of the orphanages last week and was very violent with the other kids and disruptive to our class. Please pray for God to give him peace and a calm spirit, and to guard him against the powers of darkness.

-Pray for the students that will be taking the college entrance exam after they graduate from high school this year. We are tutoring some of them and they aren't used to studying at all - it's not just because they're not in stable homes, the majority of highschoolers are like this here. If they fail this test they can't get into college, so it's really important that they put in the time studying.

-Pray that God will raise up more people to come here, whether for a short or long time, and ask him to speak to you clearly if he is calling you.

Fall 2011 Update

This past fall was a busy time of change and excitement. We started out by welcoming two new couples to our staff: Steven & Haley and Josh & Missy. They are both friends from previous trips here in Romania and we are very excited that they are working full time with us now. We stay with them in Bucharest on the weekends and enjoy spending time with them, it is nice having more couples on our staff now. Our schedule changed a lot too, we started working the whole week in our southern location, RDV. Last year we only worked there two days a week, but there were so many more kids to work with there.

There are three orphanages in RDV with a total of around 300 kids of all ages. We have a youth group there, teach classes and tutor for the college entrance exam. Rebecca teaches biology which is tied in with her Romanian partner’s geography class. She also tutors biology for the college exam. I teach english to the older kids while my partner teaches to the younger ones. I also tutor english and math for the college exam. We also work at the boys transition house doing the same things and also teaching the boys to cook. Our goal with all this is two fold, one to provide education to these kids that will enrich their lives and help them succeed in life, and two, to build relationships so we can point them to Christ our savior. We really enjoy our time with the kids and love them a lot!

Since we are spending the whole week there we had to find an apartment, which wasn’t an easy task. RDV isn’t a very big city, around 30,000 people, but many high school students come there from the surrounding small villages to go to school. They then rent and stay in apartments. After lots of looking God provided us with a very nice, newly renovated apartment that we really like. We had to run to Ikea in Bucharest to furnish it, but it at least came with some appliances. It is also very close to where the kids live so we can easily go to their places and they can come over to our place too. We are so thankful for this and are really happy with how it turned out.

Just after we finished setting up our apartment we left for our yearly vacation at home. We had a truly wonderful time seeing our family and friends and supporters. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas and had many joyous get togethers. We enjoyed speaking at five churches of which four are supporters. We felt very loved and cared for by everyone and want to say thanks for your prayers, support, friendship, love and encouragement. While home we said goodbye to Grandma Adema and friend Adam as they went to be with their savior. Even though it was bitter sweet we were glad that we were home so that we could be there for them at the end. Our time home went fast of course, but we will look forward to returning home again this year around Christmas.

When we got back to Romania we had a very warm welcome by the kids we love so much, we had missed each other. We got to watch our kid’s Christmas programs which we really enjoyed. We also spent some time with the boys in the transition program and had Christmas and New Year’s parties with the transition house graduates.

At that time the holiday team came from the states and Canada and we started working with them. We went to RDV and had Christmas parties with games, presents, and snacks at all of the kid’s places. We also came to Bucharest and worked with the kids in the orphanages around there. We had a great time bonding with the team as well, they were a real blessing to us.

Even though it wasn’t always easy this fall turned out really great in so many ways. Thanks again for all of your support and prayers, please keep them coming!

Please continue to pray:

- For God to continue to be with us, leading us in His will.

- For God to protect us from the spiritual warfare that is going on right now, the evil one knows that our work is glorifying God and he is working overtime to try to thwart us and our team.

- For God’s provision in all things, especially for our and H2H’s support.

- For God to continue to bless us, our team, our family, friends, churches, supporters, and our kids.

- For God to send more workers into the mission field, whether that is at home or abroad.

In His Love, Mark & Rebecca Essenburg - Serving in Romania with H2H International

Click here to download our PDF version of the newsletter: Mark & Rebecca Fall 2011 Update

Christmas Cheer

Even though Christmas was over a week ago we have still been having fun celebrating and enjoying our time with the kids and with the holiday team.

The boys from the transition house program stayed up in Bucharest for a while for their Christmas vacation. We went to the park and played soccer and then went out to check out the lights in the city. We stopped at one of the parks and had some Kürtöskalács which are also called chimney cakes. They are made of a thin dough wrapped around a rolling pin and then roasted over coals, then they get coated with cinnamon and sugar, yum!!

In the city they really go all out in their decorating for Christmas, each one of the main streets is decked out like this, and some of the main parks are really beautiful.

We celebrated Christmas with the boys too and then had a Christmas party with all of the graduates of the transition program.

We went ice skating which was really fun, we got to teach them how to do it since it was their first time. We tried to get fancy by trying to skate with one foot and spinning around.

The rest of the week we spent having Christmas parties with our kids with our holiday team.

We had such a good time at each of their apartments, we played games and had snacks and handed out Christmas presents.

We played Christmas bingo and hot potato with music, and we made ornaments out of paper.

These boys were having fun playing with their new flarp which was part of their present.

The holiday team is really fun because the kids are on vacation from school so we get to work with more of them than usual. We have special parties and have lots of fun.

And of course we enjoyed spending time with "our daughters" at their place.

Seriously, how could my heart not just melt?

We had a really blessed time and are so thankful that we were able to spend this time with our kids. We were happy to bless them with a fun time and presents and we were blessed by their energy and excitedness and love. We have had a great time getting to know the people on the team too, that is always a really special thing for us now that we are on full time staff here.