Bingo!

As the end of the school year has been approaching we have been keeping busy with all of our classes and doing some planning for the summer.  The kids have been asking us all year if and when and what we will be doing for camp, but now they are ramping up their efforts.  They are also getting vacation fever so it has been just the right time for us to change things up a bit.

The younger kids still love coloring so we are having them color sheets with letters and pictures on them that represent the alphabet.

But with the older kids we have been playing English Bingo and they really love it!

I call out words in Romanian and they have to find the corresponding word in English on the Bingo card.  They are always really excited to get a Bingo...

...Especially since they get a candy prize for each Bingo. Playing Bingo has been a great way to help the kids learn English because they are having to translate the Romanian words that they hear and try to find the English word on the card.  We also say the English word so they can hear it too.

The kids have been finding lots of lizards lately, look how pretty this one is.

As always we love spending time with the kids whether at school or just hanging out and playing games.

 

This week we have also heard many new things about the directors here where we work.  This whole year we have had problems with one of them because he wouldn't let us talk about God at all.  So we and our prayer warriors and many others have been praying for him to either have a change of heart or be moved and replaced with someone more open to God.  Praise God that as of this week he is gone and we have a new director who seems to be more open to us.  We don't know her very well yet but the first impression is good and hopefully she will be willing and even excited to work with us.  Please pray for her to really help us work with the kids and share Jesus' love with them.

The director at the special needs school was so great to work with this past year.  She wanted to be a voice for the children and wanted to make things better for them.  She had a passion that we hadn't seen in other directors and she stood up for the kids when they were mistreated.  And for that we heard that she also has been removed, the politics of it all and the higher ups didn't like her rocking the boat by trying to improve conditions for the kids.  This is sad news, although she will still be a teacher and one of the other teachers will take her place as director, we will miss her as the director.  Please pray that the new director will continue what was started and maybe finally we will see some change here. 

Thanks for all of your prayers, they are fuel for our ministry and we ask for even more as we move into the summer time.  We are starting camps in just two weeks so it's coming fast!!!  We will need energy and guidance from God so please keep praying and maybe even ask your family and friends and church to pray.  I'll write more about the coming summer plans soon and I'll give more specific prayer requests.  Thank you for praying for us!

An Awesome Romanian Adoption Story

Last weekend we went to the wedding of our friends Daria and Claudiu who we know from church and our small group Bible study.  It was a really fun time with great food, music, and fellowship.

While we were at the wedding someone told us something really interesting.  Four years ago Claudiu's parents adopted a little girl from the baby hospital where H2H used to work.  When they said her name is Flori our ears really perked up.  We asked how old she is now and they said around six years old.

Our first trip to Romania was in April of 2007 so that would make Flori (on the right) about one year old at that time.  One of the girls at the hospital was named Flori and I thought this was too much to be just a coincidence.  So I went and talked to Claudiu and showed him the pictures I have of her from then, and he was amazed that it was his little sister!

During the short time that we were here back then Flori was my girl, such a sweet little baby who loved to be cuddled and talked to and played with.  She often tried to steal my glasses and liked playing with my name tag.

We always wonder what happens to the kids from the baby hospital but we rarely find out.  We had heard that Flori was getting adopted but who would have thought that we would end up friends with her new big brother through church?!?

Flori was adopted about a year after our first trip, so she was two years old then.  Here is a picture of her that Claudiu gave me a from year or so after her adoption.  Rock ministries was another organization that worked in that hospital. 

Here is Flori playing the guitar like her big brother, Claudiu, who is in a really great band.

Here is a picture of Flori (on the right) at the wedding last weekend.  She is growing up in a wonderful family and is strong and healthy, a perfect little girl.  We are so thankful to God that he has taken care of her and it is so cool that we got to find out about her!  She spent her first two years at the hospital, abandoned but not alone, thanks to all of the people who came in and worked with her and the other kids.  We love working at the baby hospital but sometimes it is hard to see the impact of the work there.  Really though, it is so important for the babies to develop into healthy children and adults.

If you went on a trip with H2H around 2007-2008 and have pictures of Flori would you please send them to us?  Her family would like more pictures because there aren't many of her at that age.  Everyone who has worked with and will work with babies there should be encouraged, it makes a huge difference in their lives!

More Fun

We've been continuing to do well, here are some more of the fun things that we have done recently.

We met up with our friend Amanda who was an intern here a while back.  She was in Romania for a month working with the world race program.  We got to have lunch and hang out for a while while she was stopped over in Bucharest.  We hope that she will come back to work with us again someday.

We went to Peris for a play day with our friend Sarah from Michigan, and saw lots of our kids that we don't get to see that often.

We looked at plant and animal cell structure with the boys in the transition program as part of Rebecca's biology lesson.

George caught a fly and we checked it out on the microscope.  I took this picture by just putting the camera up to the eyepiece, I was amazed that it worked!  Thanks Tim and Terry for donating this microscope to us, the kids (and us) really enjoy using it.

Robbie checking out the fly.

Steven took me rock climbing for my birthday, we found this cool indoor gym and went for the afternoon on Saturday.  I was reminded how out of shape I am especially compared to some of the other people climbing there, I have a long way to go to get to their level!  But it was still fun and I was able to climb up the straight sections at least.

Steven tried out the bouldering holds, it's quite an inverted angle and it's really hard.

Here I am scaling the big wall...

...and making it to the top!

Here are some bonus macro shots, I have always loved taking closeup macro pictures and now I have a camera that excels at them again.

Thanks for all of your birthday wishes and for your continued prayers.  We would love to keep hearing from you and to keep in touch, we really cherish our relationships and even though we are a long ways away we are still close in our hearts and through our heavenly father.

Fun Times

Since Easter we have gone back into our normal school schedule.  The weather has been pretty nice and we have enjoyed getting back into our routine.

Since the weather has been nice the boys at the transition house have been busy helping build a house across the street from where they are staying.  The neighbor is building this house for her son.

 

Most of the house is made out of cement blocks and the frame and supports are poured concrete.  They make forms for pouring concrete with enough wood to build the whole house with.  Then they tear off the wood and use it either for the roof or for other things, like fires.

These are all the supports inside holding up the 10 inch poured concrete floor that the second story will be built on.

We also had a fun day with the boys for labor day, which is May 1 here.  The pastor from our church came down along with his family and our friend Tom and his family.  We played games and had a cookout, it was a lot of fun.

The blooming trees are really beautiful at this time of the year!

One night on our way home from Bible study we met up with Steven and Haley in the city to grab some dessert.  We headed into the bustling old district of Bucharest and found a French bakery.

We had the biggest Creme Brule we've ever seen and also a piece of fruit tort.  It was nice to hang out in the city and we really enjoyed our sweets!

This past weekend we went to a special event - a conference lead by John Piper called "God is the Gospel."  He talked about the gospel and about the fact that God is the highest good and the highest goal of the gospel.  All other things are secondary to being one with God and coming into a relationship with God.  It was a very good message and it helped us understand why God sent Christ to be sacrificed for us, it was so that we could enjoy God and be satisfied in Him.  Since he gave us salvation we are able to share in his glory and also to bring him glory and that is the ultimate purpose of our lives.  There is also nothing better than having fellowship with God so this truly is a gift of salvation.  Isn't it great that we have a God like that?  He sacrificed so much so that we could come to him and be fulfilled!

Saturday we celebrated my birthday with all of our staff and a special guest, our friend Sarah from Michigan.  We went out to eat at a Thai restaurant, supposedly the only one in all of Romania!  It was wonderful, we had a great time and lots of great food.

Some of the dishes we tried were Phad Thai, Masaman Beef Curry and Green Curry Chicken, they were all delicious!  I am so happy to have found a Thai place in Bucharest because Thai is my favorite type of food.  I'm sure we will be visiting this place again!

Easter Vacation

We just had two weeks of "Easter Vacation." During this time we had special Easter activities, spent time with the Canadian Team, got videotaped for the new H2H film (coming this fall), and had extra math lessons with our BAC tutoring class.

Dying Easter Eggs

Mark and his buddy

Brothers Claudiu and Sandel

We had all the graduates and current transition house boys over for Easter. There were about 35 kids that came to the house, the team of 15 from Canada plus a two person film team and staff. It was a full house! We played Eater bingo instead of having an Easter Egg Hunt because it was wet outside. The graduates were yelling out bingo and were excited to see what their egg (prize) would contain.

Easter at Pipera

We also took another group of kids to the natural history museum in Bucuresti. It was the reward from Sanda and Rebecca's Geography/Science class.

We had 12 kids and two members from the Canadian Team at the museum.

Genica, Nicoleta, Adela

Us at Herastrau Park after visiting the museum.

Brian and Faith, the amazing film team

We had a day at Nenciulesti with kids from Rosiori and lots of play time and special activities at the Bucuresti orphanages. We were busy helping translate and being filmed...and we didn't take a lot of pictures. Although, Mark did find time to try out his new camera (Thanks Dan!) on the roof after our Bible study in Bucuresti.

This Panasonic LX-3 is an exciting little camera, we can't wait to take more awesome pictures!

This spring break was a nice change of pace from our normal day to day, and we really enjoyed being a part of the Canadian team and the film team and doing so many special activities. Too bad it's over so soon!