Birthday Adventures

In May and early June we had a lot of staff birthdays and we wanted to celebrate them all differently, which led to some fun adventures!  The most outstanding one was a trip up to the mountains for Kirsteen's birthday.

We took the trip up to also find the road in to where we will be camping with the boys from the orphanages this summer.  We have been there before but had never driven ourselves so we had to find the right way through many winding mountain roads.

The first thing that happened was that we had to stop on the road for a dump truck that was being filled up due to a washout, and it was a pretty steep incline.  When the road was clear we tried to go but one of the vans wouldn't start.  Everything pointed to the starter not working, so the only thing I could think of was to roll start it down the hill.  Of course I had to go backwards with no power steering or power brakes on a curvy one lane road with no guard rails!  Thankfully after a few tries it started up and we sent that one into the nearest town.  We continued on with the other van and now I can say that I've done some mud running in Romania!

This lake reminded us of when we went to the highlands of Scotland, very beautiful.  We made it to the camp and talked to the guys that we'll be staying with, and then we headed back.  There was one fork in the road that we weren't quite sure of which way to go so we went the way that the sign was pointing.  After a while things started to look unfamiliar and soon we knew that we had gone the wrong way.  Since we were going down the mountain we didn't want to turn around and go back, but we should have because the road we were on seemed to go on forever.  We finally made it to Sinaia after we drove on that detour for an extra hour and a half!  We were hoping the whole way that this road would lead us to somewhere where we could find our way back, and thankfully it did.

After that long drive we went and relaxed at the Irish House restaurant and had a nice time with Kirsteen for her birthday dinner.

We ended the time there with a wonderful dessert - papanasi, which are doughnuts with sour cream and fruit sauce on top, yum.

We went downtown Bucharest to celebrate Steven and Haley's birthdays.  After walking around quite a bit trying to find a good place to eat, we arrived at a great Turkish place and had a wonderful dinner there.

We tried a little bit of everything, we had a couple of kebabs...

...and some Turkish dumplings and this stuffed eggplant with chicken.  Turkish food is so good! 

After dinner we searched around for a great dessert and found one at a place called Chocolat - this chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet, chocolate ganash  and raspberries.  Wow, it was so good, a great way to end a great evening.

Downtown Bucharest is really pretty at night, and I am still enjoying using my new camera to get cool shots like this one.  This is the supreme court.  We also celebrated Josh's birthday with a pizza and game night.  We played a lot of catchphrase and had a great time. 

Hope

I (Rebecca) had a conversation recently with someone who encouraged me to share not only the good times, but to also share when things are not going well.  Things mostly are going well, but it has been emotionally heartbreaking recently.  Sometimes it is just so hard to stand by and watch your kids go down a path you would never wish for them...so here is a tiny glimpse into it.

It is easy to focus on the good, the easy; the things that melt your heart. The kids running up to you giving you kisses, calling you mom and dad, them appreciating what we are doing, seeing hearts seek after God, and the list goes on. But there is so much more to our work than that. There are days when you watch your heart get ripped out of your chest, devastating disappointment, feelings of despair and wondering where God is in the midst of hard situations. Watching a child you deeply care for fight everyday against a million lies, lies of not being good enough, of being stupid, of being a failure, hopeless. 

Watching them give up and walk away from a chance of something good, a better life. Watching a heart turn hard towards God, watching them make bad decisions. Seeing a 4^th grader not be able to spell her name and wondering what type of future she will have. Hearing that kids are not as safe as we wish in their apartments, watching directors get thrown out for standing up for the kids. Hearing the bad advice the psychologists give the children. Hearing the kid's stories and truly understanding how hard it is for them to believe that God has always been watching out for them and loving them.

Questioning God's timing and patience, doubts that our work will not change anything. This is the every day battle, sometimes more obvious than others. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 It is a battle that takes all your strength and brings you to your knees, knowing that God is the only one who can change any of this, and clinging to the promise that He is victorious. 

 “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:5

Pray with us, for us, for our kids, their futures and their salvation...their lives depend on it.

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!