Special Romania Trip

When we left our home in Romania last fall we told our kids: We will be back to visit.  It wasn't a question of if, it was a question of when.  It was important for them to hear that so that they knew that our leaving wasn't final, they would see us again.  It was also important for us because they had been our kids for the last five years of our lives and it was very hard to leave them.  Having the hope of staying connected and seeing them again lessened the sting of leaving them and starting over again.

Marius, on the left, is one of our closest "kids" (really a young adult) in Romania.  We have known him for years and did a lot together while we were there.  Like most of the kids we worked with in Romania, Marius went through a lot as a kid and ended up at the orphanage.  Things have been hard and he has gone through a lot of pain and hurts.  As our relationship grew so did his desire to learn about God, so our last year there we studied the book of John and we saw changes taking place in his life.

After we left we continued talking with Marius and continued to pray for him.  Others who were still there continued to work with him and mentor him, and even though there were and still are many ups and downs, he decided to follow Jesus Christ and to be baptized!  This was something we couldn't miss so we bought some airline tickets (about three weeks before hand!) and headed over.

We were able to spend much of our week in Romania with Marius.  We spent a lot of time hanging out, doing devotions, talking about questions he had, and ministering to him when he struggled.  

We are so thankful for how God works in people's lives and that he gave Marius the gift of saving faith.  How joyous it was to watch Marius profess his faith in Jesus in front of the whole church and be baptized.  Would you please join us in praying for Marius and all of the others we worked with who have taken this step of faith?  Pray that they will be able to overcome their past and live into their identity as children of God who are loved by him no matter what.  Pray against the attacks of the enemy as he tries to drag them down however he can.  Pray that they will minister to others and that God will be glorified through their lives.

We spent the rest of our time visiting kids that we know at various orphanages.  It was so good to see our kids again, they occupy such a large spot in our heart and we missed them so much.

We led our youth group again by sharing the story of how God has led us since we have been back in America.  We also talked about hearing God and knowing his will for our lives.

We surprised many of the kids who didn't know we were coming for our visit.  It was great to see their faces and hear the squeals of joy, but best of all to enjoy the big hugs they gave us!

We praise and thank God for giving us the opportunity to see our kids again!  Please continue to pray for them, that they will be well taken care of and that they will come to know God!

God is SO GOOD!!!

Spring is here, rejoice!  With the melting of the snow and an abundance of sunshine we have continued to be very blessed, just look at the beautiful flower we found growing in someone's yard!

We have been slacking a bit on writing about what we have been up to personally so I thought I would share some pictures.  We have been keeping busy!

We went to Dinner and a Chef at Artisan of Grand Haven and enjoyed a wonderful meal with Dad and Julie Essenburg.  The chef there makes all the food right in front of the guests so it is really fun!  We enjoy learning new techniques and tasting the really delicious food!

We had a Thai meal with our friends Iain and Jay, I made Massaman Curry which is my favorite!  We enjoy getting together with Iain and Jay to pray for each other and our respective ministries.

We have been enjoying getting to know new friends like Andrew, Lindsay, and Elim.  We have started working with them at church, Lindsay is our worship leader and Andrew is the Director of Community Connections.  We have so much in common as we are both going through similar transition in our lives.  We are so glad that God has brought them into our lives.

I was driving around one evening and saw this beautiful evening view of the city of Grand Rapids, our future home...

Yes, speaking of our future home... God has provided yet again in his perfect timing!  We are in the process of buying a home!

God has revealed his plan to us once again by leading us to this wonderful old house on the West Side of Grand Rapids, which is only a five minute drive from church.  We were planning on going through the homesteading process with Westown Jubilee Housing, but as we went through the process we found out that we were able to get a normal mortgage so we started also looking for houses that were move in ready.  We looked at this house right away when we started three weeks ago and liked it, but we thought it might need too much fixing up...

After looking at several more houses we still felt drawn to this one, so we went to look at it again with Jeff from Westown.  He helped us to get a good idea of what repairs are needed and how much they might cost.  We were happy to hear that there are no major issues and we could move in and tackle projects as we go.

There is a lot of nice wood work and craftsman details in this 1919 home.  Not to mention that it has five bedrooms so we will be able to have a guest room which was something we really wanted.  Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!  We are so excited!  Would you please pray that the buying process goes well and that we can close without a hitch?  Please pray for the current owners to be able to find a place and that God would bless them.  We are thankful for their willingness to negotiate with us and that we were able to buy it for an affordable price.

There is so much more going on which we will talk about more in future posts.  For now, here are some prayer points:

We are in Romania right now, please pray for the rest of our trip to be safe and blessed.

Pray for Marius to be strengthened in his faith as he is baptised Sunday.

Pray for God's leading and our discerning in next steps in ministry.

Pray for wisdom as we will most likely begin adopting through foster care once we have this house.

Thanks as always for keeping us in your prayers, we know that prayer makes a difference, God listens to and answers our prayers!

More Children's Worship

God is so good!  He continues to bless our Children's Worship at church.

As we have been going through the Bible we have been having fun incorporating activities that go along with the stories.

We had a tower building contest when we talked about the tower of Babel.

Here are some of the wonderful drawings of the story.  We ask the kids what they God is telling them about the story and how they can apply it to themselves and others.  We also ask them what they can do about it, because we don't want this to be just head knowledge.  Our desire is that their lives will be impacted and they will experience a loving relationship with Jesus.

We also model praying for others to the kids and are thankful that many of them are starting to join in and pray for their peers.  

Of course the kids love to sing too, we enjoy singing songs that make it easy for them worship God and to remember the songs.  On Easter the kids sang the song 10000 Reasons for the congregation.  They were pretty nervous at first but they got the hang of it and did a wonderful job.  You can watch a portion of the performance by following the link below.

Kids Easter Song

Would you please continue to pray for all of the kids who participate in our Children's Worship?  Ask God to make himself real to them so that they have strong faith that will only continue to be strengthened as they get older.  We long for them to be a generation who is on fire for Jesus!

Please also pray for all of our volunteers who teach and model what it looks like to love Jesus.  We are so thankful for all of them and are glad that God laid it on their hearts to minister to these kids.

Livin' Like Nomads

Not too long after we were married we bought a nice house and were planning on staying there for a long, long time.  We thought we would pay the house off early and then retire there so our bills would be really low!  Selling it and moving to Romania wasn't in our plan at all, but when God called us there we trusted that he was in control.  We had no idea what was in store for us as far as our future living situations.

One... help me count here... two... three... how many different places did we live while we were in Romania... four... five... we were there for five years... six... seven!

Now let's keep counting: one... how many places have we lived since being back from Romania... two... we've been back for almost six months... three... we've moved once a month so far in 2015... four... with more to come soon!

At this point we feel kind of like the gypsies (as pictured above) that we often saw passing through in Romania.  Not having a place to call our own has been one of the hardest parts of our transition next to missing the kids in Romania and being overwhelmed at the abundance and choices in America.  We have been very blessed by the people who have let us stay with them and are thankful that we have never had to worry about not having a place to live.  But the longing for having our own place has just kept getting stronger and stronger the longer we don't have our own stable housing.

God is good though and has been showing us glimpses of what he is working on for us.  A while ago we were meeting with our pastors at FairHaven Church and they mentioned that we should look into Westown Jubilee Housing.  This is a ministry that FairHaven is heavily involved with that buys fixer upper houses in the West Side of Grand Rapids and totally renovates them.  Their program helps people who otherwise might not be able to afford a house to buy a great, like new home.  This also helps bring stability and pride of ownership to a neighborhood which is suffering from a high percentage of rentals and poorly cared for houses.

Here is an example of the work that Westown Jubilee does.  They first buy a house that needs a lot of work.

They totally renovate the house making it very efficient in order to reduce cost of ownership as well.

The finished house might as well be a new house, and thanks to donations and volunteer work the houses are very affordable!

Here is an example of the inside work, the houses are typically gutted and redone from the studs up.

What an amazing transformation!  By God's grace we have started the homesteading process and are excited about the possibility of being able to move in to the neighborhood we will be ministering in. The process could take up to a year so we will rent a place from Westown Jubilee until then. 

There are many things we need prayer for as we go through this process, would you join us in lifting these up to our Father?

-for our final approval for homesteading with Westown Jubilee

-for God to provide an inexpensive house for the initial purchase

-for God to provide materials and volunteers to help rehab the house

-for God to provide an affordable rental for us until the house is done

-for continued patience, leading and guiding from God as we navigate through this process

Thanks for your support as we continue on this incredible journey!  We really appreciate your prayers and we know that God uses them to carry out his plan!

Children's Worship Launch!

God works in amazing ways.  Last year Gold Ave Church saw an increasing number of families with young kids at church.  The need for children to learn to experience God in an age appropriate setting and for the parents to be able to focus and participate more in the church service became apparent.  The church leadership decided to spend a few months praying for God's will and asked God to send people to help start this and other ministries to children and youth.

At the same time we were still in Romania preparing for our return home.  We were asking God to prepare us for a new ministry and were trusting that when we returned he would show us what that would be.  Only two weeks after stepping off the plane, through many "chance" meetings, we got to know the pastors of this church.  We felt God strongly leading us and answering our prayers and the prayers of the church!

For the past few months we planned for the launch of children's worship with a great team of people who are passionate about ministering to kids.  A week ago we were able to launch and praise God, it was awesome!

We started out with 15 kids in total and they all had a great time!  We learned about God through a lesson from the Jesus Storybook Bible.  This has great pictures and tells the whole story of the bible as God's story, and each chapter points toward Jesus. 

Everyone enjoyed singing songs with motions and having some freedom to have fun while praising God!

The last part is a special time of prayer journaling where the kids are encouraged to listen to what God is telling them through the Bible story.  We really want to raise these kids up as followers of Jesus who are able to listen to and follow God's voice.  We have a prayer time at the end where we encourage the kids to pray for one another.  This is where the biggest learning curve is for the kids.  We as leaders are modeling listening prayer and spoken prayer, would you pray that the kids catch on quickly?  Please pray that they stay excited and continue to enjoy deepening their relationship with God.

Praise God for his guiding hand in the process of launching this ministry, and ask that he continues to bless it.  We prayerfully look forward to many more ways that we can minister to the kids of the church and neighborhood.  Please continue to pray for God's leading.  Thanks for praying and for joining in what God is doing here!

Our New Ministry - God Clearly Leads!

Hello from Mark & Rebecca.  Last fall we returned from Romania after working there for five years with abandoned children & youth.  We would like to take this opportunity to let you know where God has been leading since.  Thank you for journeying with us so faithfully as we’ve poured God’s love into hundreds of kids in Romania—from babies to college students. Teaching English, Math, and Reading, leading youth groups and summer camps not only helped children break out of poverty, but were each vehicles for sharing our Father’s love. Each of the dozens of times that we saw one of our young people give their life to Jesus and be baptized into him was heartwarming and special!

Even as we felt called to transition back to the U.S. in order to build our family through adoption, we sensed God deepening our call to ministry.  Over our last year in Romania, we prayed fervently for God to lead us to a place where we would be able to use our gifts and experiences to serve the same types of young people—hurting, abandoned, and often hopeless. In faith, we resisted searching for the answer to our prayers while still in Romania.

Upon our return to America, God quickly began to answer our prayers in direct and amazing fashion—connecting us with two inner-city pastors who volunteered to pray us through our transition. As they listened to our sense of call, they were amazed to find that quite unexpectedly, we might be an answer to their own prayers. Their congregation had been praying for many months that God would send workers to serve the children and youth of the church and the neighborhood. God had already begun drawing neighborhood children to worship, even without any parents. These children were simply walking in on their own!  Through much prayer—on our own, with these pastors and with their church leadership—God gave us a strong sense that he was calling us to step into this ministry.

 

But it is a large step of faith! The church—Gold Avenue Christian Reformed (GAC)—isn’t financially self-sufficient and is unable to pay us. Instead, we have agreed to serve the church as Urban Missionaries who raise our own support. Beginning Feb. 1, Mark will join the staff of GAC as the Director of Children and Youth Ministries. Rebecca will assist and support this ministry and will later transition to being a stay-at-home mom after we adopt.

The opportunities at GAC and on the lower west side are exciting. Right now, there are a number of families with young children who call Gold Ave their church home.  Currently during Sunday morning services there is no age-appropriate worship or teaching for these children, so we’ve spent the last month praying and planning to begin a Children in Worship ministry.    

We are also hopeful that we’ll be able to serve the children of this economically and ethnically diverse neighborhood.  MANY kids come from broken families or single parent homes where they are often left unsupervised.  Children regularly come alone to the church looking for a safe and loving environment—but not only on Sunday mornings.  They also stop by throughout the week.

Right now, we’re praying about spaces we might make available for them through the week—a place to nurture them in the love of our Father, countering the lies that they are worthless and unwanted.  The stats say that as these kids grow older only about 50% of them will graduate from high school.  Many of them will join gangs and fall into a life of crime or welfare.  We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only thing that will change these stats, and all the pain that comes with them!

We would like to start after school tutoring programs like we did in Romania that will help these young people catch up and succeed in school.  We hope that through these and other youth programs many will experience and begin to follow Jesus Christ, and that through us, Jesus will bind up their broken hearts, lead them out of dark places, replace their despair with praise and transform them into righteous men and women. (Is. 61.1-3)  We have great hope for what the Lord will do as we pray and serve!

Opportunities to Partner

We are excited to ask you to continue to journey with us as we follow the Lord’s call on our lives. Would you please prayerfully consider making a monthly support commitment?  Your partnership will enable us to accomplish this important work.  One-time gifts are also welcome, as we must reach 70% of our required funding in order to transition from support-raising to ministry.  Tax-deductible donations should be made out to Gold Avenue Church and sent to: Gold Avenue Church, 49 Gold Avenue NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49504.  Please include a separate note designating the support for our ministry.  If you would like to set up a regular electronic funds transfer please let us know.

Additionally, we are looking for partners to:

Regularly intercede in prayer for us and our ministry

Participate in ministry to the children of the neighborhood

Donate needed goods for these ministries

We look forward to connecting with you to find out how God might be leading you to partner with us in this exciting new ministry.  Please share this letter with other individuals or churches that have a heart for kids and urban ministry.  Again, thank you for the love, support, and prayer that you have shown and continue to show us.

With love and prayer,

Mark & Rebecca Essenburg

Stay Connected! Blog: You're on it...  Email: weloveorphans @gmail.com  Phone: 616 498 9270  Facebook group, Quarterly Newsletter: Let us know.    

 P.S. We do have some immediate needs for which we are asking for donations. We would really appreciate some help obtaining these items!

First, we need some supplies for our Children's Worship which will begin this Sunday!

• Crayons, markers, paper, coloring books or activity books
• A child safety gate to block off a doorway, and a curtain rod/curtain to block off a larger one
• Tactile toys like blocks or little people sets

Also, we are working on creating a shared office with the other new guy at the church, Andrew. He is coming on board as another urban missionary who will be the director of community connections and outreach.  The office will be in a room at church that was formerly used for storage.  We are looking to transform it from this:

...to something like the picture below.  We want to create an inviting space in which we can efficiently accomplish our planning and where we can also have meetings.  Right now the only things that we have are the desk and the bookcase, so if you or someone you know is looking to donate something it would really help!  Here's what we are looking for:

• A comfy couch
• Two comfy sitting chairs, not too big
• A small table, could be an end table or coffee table
• A 3X4 whiteboard and whiteboard supplies
• Two filing cabinets (maybe)
• An office desk chair

A little trip to CA

At the end of January H2H celebrated its 20th anniversary of working in Romania.  We took the opportunity to use some air miles and spend a long weekend in San Diego, where H2H headquarters are located.  We stayed with our good friends, also former H2H staff, Steven and Haley.  

Enjoying blue skies at the ocean!

On Friday Haley had to work so we went on a nice trail with Steven.

The warm weather was a nice treat!

Current and former H2H staff and interns that were at the dinner.

We had fun catching up with some former team members at the dinner. It was also great to see the Romanian staff and be able to speak with them. So many people had questions about what we have been doing and how everything was going.

Saturday we went to Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala. 

So beautiful!

Later in the day we spent some time with Talitha. She is a good friend that we have left behind in Romania. It was good to catch up and just hang out! Our fellow Michiganders also explored the town with us.

Sunday, after church at The Wave, we spent some time at the beach.  Krista and George (not pictured) also came to hang with us. Back to The Wave Church, besides having Steven on staff, another really cool thing they do sometimes is having a taco guy. For all us people who are unfortunate to not know what a taco guy is, well, basically some really awesome fresh tacos are made by the taco guy. And the best thing about real Mexican tacos, yeah, gluten free and amazing!

Tacos! (Not from the taco guy, but another time when we had yummy food)

Highlights of the trip: Great friends, amazing food, beautiful weather. It was a short but sweet trip that marked an end of a season. On February 1st, Mark officially started at Gold Ave Church! More about that and God's continued providence to follow!