We Love Barcelona!

Last weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Barcelona with our friends and coworkers Steven and Haley.  For the past three years that they have been working with us in Romania we have wanted to go on vacation with them and we finally got our chance.

We arrived in the evening and we were hungry so we went in search of food right away.  We wanted to try authentic food so we looked only for local places, not tourist traps.  We started at this little tapas restaurant, and since the waiter didn't speak much English (a good sign for us) we just let him pick out the food for us.  He brought us these wonderful plates of meats, cheese, and seafood, and it was delicious!  We also tried the local drink: Cava, which is their version of champaign.

We rented an apartment near the beach in a nice little neighborhood called Barceloneta.  This was the view from our balcony.

We enjoyed being right by the harbor, it was a beautiful area.  It was also very close to the historic part of town so we could walk to most sights.

We took a free walking tour of the city and enjoyed how learning about its history.  This is the Barcelona Cathedral which is the centerpiece of the old town.

The streets and buildings in Barcelona reminded us of Paris, everywhere you look you see something unique and interesting.

When I found out that there are a few artesian gelato places in Barcelona I was ecstatic. Having just tried a lot in Rome I was missing it so it was nice to have some here too.  Our favorites were Catalan Cream (their version of creme brûlée) and mojito, yum!

We went to a huge outdoor market which was packed full of colorful fruit and vegetable stands.

There were also many fish and meat stands.  If you look closely you can see the hanging meat, it is Iberico Ham, a specialty of Spain.  It is cured for 12 to 48 months still on the leg and served in very thin slices.  We had it many times in our tapas and it was really tasty!

We went to another small place to try some authentic paella.  We had one mixed paella with seafood and vegetables, and one with black rice, colored by squid ink with seafood.  They were both amazing!

We had to make reservations at this place because it was always packed with locals.

We had really great weather so we headed to the beach for one afternoon.  The water was freezing so we just enjoyed relaxing on the beach.

We went to the Picasso museum for free since it was the first Sunday of the month.  Then we went and saw some more sights like this: the National Art Museum of Catalunya.

Something that Barcelona is famous for are all of buildings designed by Anton Gaudi.  He had a very unique style which was very extravagant and imaginative. He often used broken tile to decorate his buildings giving them an otherworldly look.

We toured Guell Park which was designed by Gaudi. It was a really neat place with a really whimsical feel to it.  There was tile everywhere making it a very bright and vivid place.

Later we went to see Gaudi's masterpiece - La Sagrada Familia.  It was huge and unlike any other church we have ever seen.  The facade was very cave like with statues blending in with the overhanging stalactites.  

Inside the church was bursting with color from the stained glass windows that were on all sides.

The church is still under construction and won't be complete until roughly 2026.  It was started in 1882!  In the center there will be another spire that is much taller than the four on the front and back, at that point it will be the tallest church in the world.  It was different but very impressive.

Back to eating, we found another hole in the wall tapas bar, they didn't even have a sign! There were no seats, people just stand at the bar and enjoy some amazing food.

Our weekend in Barcelona was so amazing!  We enjoyed the company of our friends, the city, and all the good food!  We are so thankful that we had this opportunity!

Reading Art

This year we have really enjoyed teaching reading at the special needs school where we work.  If we have any regret it would be that we didn't start doing this sooner.  Helping these kids learn to read and write is both very rewarding and very challenging and it is a joy and a privilege to be able to play a significant role in their lives.

Unfortunately one thing that we have learned is how bad special education is here in Romania.  When we arrive at the school we often find the kids in their classrooms without a teacher.  They are usually just running amok or playing games on the computer.  At the beginning of the year one of the teachers told us we shouldn't be trying to have the kids read things because they didn't know all of the letters.  She said they only knew the 10 letters that were hanging on the wall.  Well now that the year is almost over those same 10 letters are still the only ones on the wall, and that class has become our most advanced one!  They can read and write so they definitely know all the letters (they have from the beginning).

Here they are; playing memory with words.

Here Andrea is matching words from a story to pictures.

We had the kids read "The Hungry Caterpillar," and then we gave them their own books with fill in the blanks.

With the younger kids we just finished going through the alphabet.  We are now reviewing so we made each one their own booklet with all the letters in it.

We will be drawing and coloring things that start with each letter.

Who knew that this could be so fun?!

We are still doing our art class with the older kids, the last project was to draw a tiger.  The kids produced quite a variety even though we went through the drawing step by step.

This is my favorite one!

We took part in a field trip last weekend with some of the kids from the "normal" high school.  We went to the village museum and they had to find the answers to several questions.

We have had beautiful weather lately and have especially been enjoying all of the poppies that are growing just about everywhere.  Pretty soon we are going to get super busy with summer camp.  Please pray that all the preparation for that goes well and that we will all have enough energy.

Weekend in Rome

One of the joys of being in Europe is how easy it is to travel here.  We took advantage of this to go and spend a weekend in Rome!

We went with one of our missionary friends Talitha.  We packed in as much as we could in three days and it was really fun!

The Colosseum is really impressive, it is so massive! 

We really enjoyed walking through the Roman Forum, a whole area full of ruins from ancient Rome.  We had beautiful weather too as you can see.

We stayed in an studio apartment right in the center of town.  It was very near to the Pantheon which is a very well preserved temple.

Even some of the newer buildings were impressive like this monument to Italy's first king.

We also paid a visit to the worlds smallest country, the Vatican.  The museum was great with the best part being the Sistine Chapel.

The chapel was much bigger than we pictured and very vibrantly painted.  In the middle you can see the iconic scene of God and Adam touching with their fingers.  It was awesome!  After the chapel we went to St Peter's Basilica, the largest Christian church in the world.  It was amazing but also the most crowded of anything we saw.

One of our favorite spots was the Trevi Fountain.

The fountain is the largest and most beautiful in Rome.

We ventured outside the city to find a gluten free bakery and visited a St Paul's Basilica.  This is the location where the apostle Paul is buried and it was so beautiful inside and out.

We walked around a lot to find as many sights as we could, this is Castel St Angelo, a former tomb and fortress of one of the Roman emperors.

We also went out in the evenings to get some night photos of some of our favorite places.

The Spanish Steps were completely deserted on our way to the airport at 5:30 in the morning, what a good time to see the sights!

We enjoyed many wonderful meals in Rome such as risotto, pasta, fish, and pizza.  The awesome part is that Italy is a very gluten free friendly place, so we could have most things on the menus made with gf ingredients.  The pizzas we had were outstanding and the gf crust was just as good as the regular.

One of my main quests in Rome was to find the best gelato.  I love ice cream so I looked up beforehand where to find the go.  Instead of eating at any old touristy place we ate only at artesian shops that make their own with all natural ingredients, and boy was it worth it.

My birthday present from Rebecca was that I could have as much gelato as I wanted, so I got it five times and tried 10 flavors.  I also got to try Rebecca's and sometimes Talitha's so I tried a total of 17 flavors!  They were all great but my favorites were Lemon Pie, Amaretto, and Pistachio.  I miss it already!

Three days doesn't seem like much but it was a perfect amount of time to hit the highlights of the city.  We really enjoyed our time in Rome and are thankful that we were able to go!

Blessings and Prayers

Time is flying here in Romania!  It is hard to believe that it is May already and that the end of the school year is fast approaching.  As we continue to work with our kids in all of our various programs we have also been busy planning for summer ministry.  Please pray that the plans for the summer will come together so we can have a great one.

We continue to enjoy our reading classes with the younger kids at the special needs school.  We have noticed some definite improvements over the course of the year and thank God for giving us the opportunity to pour into these kids' lives.

We created a board game based on Candyland where the kids have to read the words on their card and go to the next space.  Would you please pray that they be able to learn to read and write?

We have fun doing different art projects with the older kids, they really enjoy art.

We were able to bless a class of kids with some shoes.  They are all from families and do not receive the same things as the kids in the orphanage.  One of the girls missed a lot of school this winter because she didn't have shoes!  The other day they proudly showed us that they were wearing the shoes we gave them.  So cute!

Some of the kindergardeners wanted to show us their headstand skills, they had some crazy energy!

Our tutoring has been going well, with some catching on really quickly and others needing more time, especially for the math.  Thankfully we do the tutoring in groups of 1 to 3 students so we can keep it going at their pace until they really get it.  They need lots of prayers to stay motivated and to study on their own so they can pass their college entrance exam.

The weather has been pretty nice as well, although it is a much wetter spring than normal.  We stopped along the side of the road to get some pictures of our favorite area on our drive from Bucharest to Rosiori.  These goats happened to come along and pose for the picture.

The rapeseed is in full bloom making the countryside light up in this vibrant yellow.

We were blessed to be able to spend some time with our friends Dan and Luella from Canada.  They have come every year since we've been here and we have enjoyed seeing them each time.  Dan and I share a love of photography and in fact a few years ago he gave me my current camera which I really like.  They are always very encouraging and we really enjoy working with them.

We celebrated my birthday with our friends Steven, Haley and Talitha.  They got me this assortment of Italian food and we cooked most of it up for a wonderful Italian meal.  You may have noticed that we've been making a lot of Italian food lately, that's because this weekend we are headed to Rome!  We are super excited and ask that you pray for safe travels and great weather.

Rebecca's birthday present to me is pretty awesome, I get to have as much Gelato in Rome as I would like!  I love ice cream, so I have searched out over 20 artesian gelato places in Rome.  They are said to be the best of the best and I can't wait to taste it!

I also had a surprise party at youth group since it was on my actual birthday.  Extra points if you can guess what this amazing birthday card is based on.  I also received some chocolates and a nice new bow tie from our Romanian coworker Sanda and staff.

We took our car in to the shop this week to have some major repairs done.  It is a really long story but the short version is that not long after we got the car a stone hit the radiator which caused it to overheat very badly.  It was fixed then and was fine for a while but the cylinder head must have been also damaged which has been causing loss of coolant.  Earlier this spring we started asking around for someone to borrow a car from while ours would be in the shop.  We weren't having much luck until last Thursday, when I asked our friend Cristi from church.  He said yes, he is taking a trip so we can use his car until ours is fixed.  That is an answer to much prayer.  Please pray for the issues to be found and for us to figure out the best way to fix it.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support, we are so glad to have you as partners in our ministry here in Romania!