Meaningful Encouragement

Ever since we last wrote about how hard of a time we were having with the kids we have been encouraged by so many people!  We want to say thank you for your prayers, kind words, and helpful Bible verses.  It would be so incredibly hard to do this kind of work alone, but thankfully we aren't.  We have so many great people in our lives and even though we are separated by distance, we are close through our heavenly father.

Things have been going better in the last couple weeks.  One of our biggest prayers was answered, our friend Marius got a job at Starbucks!  It hasn't been the easiest for him and his supervisor was hard to work with, but he is changing locations this week so we pray that it will be better.  He still needs prayers to come to Christ as do so many of the kids that we work with.  Other things have been going better too like our youth group.  The kids seem to be getting the idea that we can't function well as a group if they aren't respectful of us and each other.  Kids are kids though, we just need to continue to have patience!

We went on a little trip to the glass factory and then stopped by the lake with our friends Steven, Haley and Audrey.

We had an early birthday dinner for Rebecca: pork chops with savory cranberry sauce and spiced baked potatoes.  For dessert we had molten lava cakes.

Here is a Swiss Cake that I made for no special reason other than to enjoy an awesome dessert.  I started with the chocolate cake, made marshmallow fluff for the filling and chocolate ganache for the frosting.  Lets just say that it was amazing, and there was enough leftover marshmallow fluff to make peanut butter fudge (for a christmas party) for the first time in Romania!

We attended a program for Saint Nicholas day on Dec 5 and enjoyed watching our kids sing, dance, and recite poetry.  This is the first of many to come very soon!

Me with my girl Mihaela after she danced so beautifully at the program.  We know how parents feel watching their children in school programs, it is great.

We got to see Aurelia at a Christmas party that we went to at one of the orphanages that Steven and Haley work in.  We used to work there too but now are working in a different city so we don't get to see these kids very often.  In addition to having a really fun time we also got lots of hugs and kisses from the kids.

Here is Rebecca helping to open a present during a game.

We put up some decorations in our apartment, these are glass ornaments that we got at the glass factory.  I made the boxes out of some cardboard we had laying around and we found these packing peanuts for snow. 

The lights are up in Bucharest!  This year they are more spectacular than ever with hundreds of different colored Christmas trees hanging over the main road through town.

And finally, we got our first snow of the year, and it is still going!  There is snow forecast for most of this week so it should be interesting, especially with parking.  Thank goodness our car has great winter tires that should allow us to get around easily and safely.

Thanksgiving Prayers

Thanksgiving is a time in which we celebrate and thank God for all of the wonderful blessings that he has given us.  The first people who celebrated this day did it to show their thanks for the bountiful harvest and for God'a providence in their lives.

God provided a wonderful bounty for our thanksgiving feast with all the kids who have been and are in our program.

Jesus once used an illustration that just like crops, in people's lives there are times of planting, watering, and harvesting.  Planting is when the the gospel and/or other Biblical truths are shared with someone so that they have the knowledge of what God has done for them.  Watering is when God works in their lives and we can be a part of helping the seeds to take root and grow into faith.  Harvesting is when the faith matures and the person decides to give their life to God and become one of his children.  It is really exciting to be a part of the harvest, we have experienced it before here in Romania and it is an unparalleled joy when someone that you love accepts Christ!  

Sandel, who was baptized just over a year ago, demonstrates the happiness we feel when someone we love comes to Christ.

The times of planting and watering, though, can be very trying on one's patience.  This is where we find ourselves at the moment, sometimes feeling like we're at the end of our rope.  Kids that we love and pour ourselves into are choosing to reject God even though they know the truth.  You may know the feeling when you long for someone that you love to accept God and it seems like after every step forward they take two steps back.  It is excruciating and exhausting and no matter how much we cry out to God to save them it just seems like nothing is happening.  

Others lack respect and seem to do all they can to try our patience.  We try to teach the truth at youth group but we can hardly get a word in edgewise.  After practically every sentence comments are made and the group explodes.  Even at math tutoring after an hour I lost my cool after taking twice as long to do the lesson as it should have because they wouldn't stop talking.  Sometimes it seems like things are out of control and it is a struggle to know what to do so that we can maintain control.

Satan is working here in a big way.  He is feeding these kids and the people here in general lies that are designed to keep them away from God.  He is using discouragements to sap our energy and will to keep fighting.  He has a huge foothold here and he is using that to his full advantage.  But our biggest reason to be thankful right now is that God is on our side!  He is more powerful than the evil one by far and he has a good plan for each of us.  His plan will be fulfilled even if it takes longer than we would like, which is usually the case, hence the need for supernatural patience.

We are so thankful for all that God has done for us.  We are thankful for our wonderful family and friends who faithfully support us financially and in prayer.  We are thankful for our church families and for all of the people who are making sure we are always taken care of.

We are thankful for the calling that God has given us to minister to the abandoned kids in Romania.  We are thankful for our kids, even if they aren't always so well behaved.

We are thankful for the car that God provided through my old place of work Extol Inc.  We are thankful for our great apartment and for all of the friends that God has placed in our lives here in Romania.  The list could go on and on, you get the picture.

Please pray extra hard right now for those who are wrestling with the truth and who feel like it would be easier to give up than to pursue a relationship with God.  Please pray for us that in these hard times we would be able to keep our eyes on God and on his long term plan and to not get discouraged because we want instant results.  Please pray that God will work through us and give us glimpses of his plan and how it will be fulfilled.  Please pray for resilience, wisdom, and strength for us as we continue to fight this battle.  Thanks so much and happy Thanksgiving!

Fall Happenings

This fall has been flying by and it is hard to believe that all of our programs and classes have been going on for a month already.  We've been keeping busy with lots of extra things too. 

We took the boys from the Alternate Transition House to play soccer with some of the guys from church.  It was chilly but they all had a great time, along with Steven who played with them.  The boys are doing well but some are struggling trying to get jobs so please pray for them.  Also pray that they have the resolve to continue with the program and for them to be open to a relationship with God.

Youth group continues to go well and we are enjoying going through the book of 1 John.  We took a break this week to watch David Murphy's Testimony, he is a baseball player who does what he does for God's glory.  We wanted to encourage the kids to do well in all they do, including school, which most don't take seriously.

We always play fun games in youth group, a lot from the show Minute to Win It.  The kids love these challenge games and it is usually pretty funny watching them do it.

We have an intern, Audrey who stayed with us for a week and got to see what we do here.  We enjoyed having her with us and we worked on learning some Romanian at the same time.  She is staying here for three months and will have had a chance to work in all areas of our ministry.

Our classes continue to go well with the kids, we enjoy all of the hugs and kisses that we get every time we see the younger ones.  Many of them live near us so we often see them when we're out and about.  Sometimes we feel like celebrities because we get mobbed by lots of kids! 

Here is a class of kids that are working on the color wheel lesson that we taught.

Here are their finished products, very nice! 

The boys at the transition program are doing well too, here they are showing off some new soccer jerseys that were donated.  They have started a building/carpentry class that will last for four months.

The boys enjoyed helping to put our new winter tires on the car.  The tires on the car originally were summer tires and Romania has a winter tire law.  Also the plowing isn't always the greatest and sometimes doesn't happen for a long time after it snows so these tires should be a great help this winter.

Thanks so much to our friends John and Karen who made it possible to get these tires!

Please continue to pray for all of the kids we work with.  They need protection from the evil one as sometimes we feel like he is really working overtime to keep them believing lies so that they won't come to God.  Please continue to pray for us, for health, energy, and guidance.  Thanks so much!

New Beginnings

Every year the arrival of fall brings with it cooler temperatures, shorter days, changing colors, and the beginning of all of our programs again after a long summer of camps and special ministries.  The beginning of the school year is always an exciting and busy time, and this year it was even more so because of a couple extra programs starting.

We welcomed six boys into the boys transition house (BTH) that is run by our fellow staff member Doru.  These boys have all aged out of the orphanage and are able to come into our program to learn how to make a future for themselves.  They will learn construction and building skills and also other useful things like English, cooking, budgeting, and how to take care of their own place.

They are excited for the opportunity that they have to better their lives and to grow in so many ways.

We are teaching them how to cook so that when they get out of the program they eat more than just french fries which is the one thing most of them already know how to make.

We made some Mexican food, complete with homemade tortillas, Mexican rice, and chicken.

We found out that Ciprian is an excellent tortilla roller even though he said he didn't want to learn how to cook because someday he'll have a wife that will do that for him!

Florin reeaally enjoyed cutting up the chicken!  Sandel didn't get to help in the kitchen because he was busy getting tutored in Biology by Rebecca so that he can pass the college entrance exam next year.

Two other programs also got started, the girls transition house (GTH) and a totally new one, the alternate transition house (ATH).  The girls are taking different classes and also learning how to live independently.  The boys that are in the ATH are staying in an apartment and are learning many of the same skills as the girls while looking for jobs.

We started youth group as well and are so glad that this year we have a new orphanage director who is letting us talk about God freely!  We are doing a bible study on 1 John and focusing on what true love is and how we can live a life that pleases God.

Another change in our program is that I (Mark) am not teaching English anymore and instead Rebecca and I are teaching art together.  We are excited to give the kids a more hands on lesson and hope that we will be able to have lots of fun with this.

Here is Mariana, one of our fellow staff, with a class of kids and their coloring pages.

Please continue to pray for the kids that we are working with, that we will be able to have a great time together and for us to be able to show them the love of Christ at all times.  Pray for us and our fellow staff for energy, ideas and guidance.  Thank you all for your continued prayers and support!

It Happened On A Very Special Day NINE years ago...

 Wow, today is a special day, it is our nine year wedding anniversary!  Nine years ago today on a cold and blustery October's day we were pledging ourselves to each other and starting a new life together.  We vowed to stay together and by each others sides through thick and thin, no matter where life would take us. 

We wouldn't have guessed that nine years later we would be spending our anniversary in Europe, Eastern Europe no less.  Now we have spent one-third of our married lives working in Romania since we've been here for three years already.

Our fellow workers and friends Steven and Haley were married on the same day only five years later, so we decided to go celebrate our anniversary together in the beautiful medieval town of Sighisoara.  We've been there before but went by train, this time we drove and finally found it after some scenic detours, aka the road names aren't marked well here so we sometimes had to drive in circles to find the way.

We stayed at a guest house with traditionally decorated rooms.  This part of the country was inhabited by Germans from the 1200's so this looks more German than Romanian.

We had a really nice view!

This is one of the nine defense towers that form part of the wall around the citadel.  Sighisoara is one of the best preserved walled cities that is still inhabited in Europe.

This covered staircase takes people up to the old German church and graveyard.

One of the graveyard entrances, it was so interesting to see all the German names there.

This is one of the things we love the most about Sighisoara, the winding streets lined with brightly colored houses.  It has a sort of fairy tale feel to it and is really fun to explore and discover the most beautiful places.

 Here we are by one of the citadel gates with a cool neighborhood behind us.

Even the places that haven't been recently restored have lots of character, showing the bricks under the plaster and the different colors of paint, it gives a real old world feeling.

 We had a wonderful European breakfast at a nice little cafe.  With our coffee we enjoyed croissants, bread, eggs with cheese and an assortment of different meats, veggies, and jams.  The weather was really nice, right around 70, and it was really fun sitting outside at the cafe and enjoying each others company.

On the way back home we stopped by to see several of the fortified churches, just about every little village has one.  In the old days the people here didn't have enough resources to fortify every town, so they just built fortifications around their churches so they would have somewhere secure to defend themselves against invaders.

We stopped by the ruins of an old fortress, Rupea Fortress which is currently being restored so unfortunately we couldn't go inside.  It is pretty impressive though as it sits on a hill that towers over the rest of the surrounding land.

The drive back was really fun because we could just stop and explore wherever we wanted to.  

Another fortified church.

On the way home the main highway was closed so we had to take a detour - a winding road through the mountains and many small villages.  It took a lot longer to get home but we enjoyed the beautiful scenery that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.  This mountain was the standout place and it was just a reminder of God's awesomeness and how wonderful his creation is.

As we start our tenth year of marriage we want to take a moment to thank all of you who have been with us and supporting us all this time.  Thank you for praying for us especially since we have been in Romania working far from home.  Thank you so much for being a part of our lives.  Please continue to pray for us to have a strong marriage that can be a good example to the kids that we work with so that we can show them what a godly marriage looks like.