H2H Staff Training Week

Last week was a very special week for all of the Heart 2 Heart staff. We all gathered at the team house and spent the week there for the annual staff training. All of the H2H American staff flew in and we also welcomed our main speakers, Jim and Roe Dodgen. The main topic of the training was being wholly surrendered to God, and the second main focus was on finding our strengths and how we can best work together. Each day we started with a quiet time and then the rest of the day was spent learning about our strengths and spending time doing team building activities. The entire H2H Staff is shown in the picture below, notice that the weather was very nice!

We also had several fun activities each evening. One night we decorated masks with crate paper. We didn't know what we would be using them for but we were pretty suspicious that something was up. Another night we found out what we would be using the masks for a contest in the city. The goal was to get pictures at as many famous landmarks as we could, while wearing the masks.

Our team in front of the Pipera Metro

The Arc de Triumph is in the background

The week was filled with learning, fun, and time to grow closer together and closer to God. It was a nice break from the regular routine (although we still had to study a little for our next language lesson).

Blossoming...

We have now been here for six weeks! In some ways it doesn't seem that long, but in other ways it seems so long since we were in MI. We've been really busy, but it has been a enjoyable busy.

One way we keep busy in going to the baby hospital on Monday and Wednesday. One of the first things that I (Rebecca) noticed, is that it is still really quite there. The babies don't cry a lot, and when they do cry, it isn't very loud. The reason for the quietness is because the babies don't expect anything to happen when they cry. The nurses are too busy to give them the love and attention that parents give. One of my favorite babies is beginning to be more interactive. He has a big smile when you come up to him and say "Buna, ce faci?" (Hello, how are you?) He also has the sweetest giggle, what an amazing sound God created! It is great to be part of making sure these babies have a chance to develop normally, by holding, playing, and loving them.

Rebecca and her unnamed budy

Another thing that is continuing to progress is our language lessons. We have completed four weeks already! This past week "the Doamna" (the polite way to address a lady, but it is how all the staff refers to our language teacher) commented that we were progressing at an excellent speed. That was exciting to hear! We are in the process of learning verbs and recognize more words everyday. Thank you to all who have been praying for this!

This hibiscus was purchased one of our first weeks here. Mark waters it diligently and now it is in bloom. With much patience, attention, and time our lives can blossom just like our flowers. It is so great to be serving a God who promises to take care of us, just as he clothes flowers in beauty and splendor.

Everything From Babies to Symphony

These last few weeks have been a flurry of activity for us and we have just been trying to keep up. It has been good though, we are being stretched but we know God is blessing us greatly. We started out the first week of October by helping get the girls transition house ready for the new girls to move in. We went to meet the new girls on their first day and really enjoyed getting to know them. We also enjoyed a wonderful Romanian lunch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cole slaw, and bread.

It is always good spending time with the H2H staff and it was nice to meet the new girls.

We also went to the baby hospital a few times and we will be going there twice a week from now on. We really enjoyed loving the babies there and the nurses gave us some very nice compliments on how we were with the babies. Not to brag at all, we just were very encouraged by their comments. We now really look forward to the days we get to go to the baby hospital.

We continue to adjust to the city life and find that our apartment has plenty of space for us. We enjoy being within walking distance to everything.

Using our gas stove has been working out fine, we haven't burned anything yet. We were having a craving for brownies so Rebecca had to figure out how to use the oven with no temperature reading. Notice also how slanted the stove is, the gas line is hard piped into it so it can't be propped up either.

She also had to figure out how to get the door to stay shut, and she came up with a great solution.

The brownies turned out wonderful and tasted so good. They used up quite a bit of our precious peanut butter and chocolate chip stash but they were so worth it.

We also enjoyed our six year anniversary and we celebrated by going on a date to the symphony. We had to use some of our newly acquired Romanian to buy the tickets and that went really well. The building is very nice inside and out, as you can see from the pictures.

It was fun dressing up and going out and the concert was really good. It lasted two hours and we enjoyed the special pianist and the violin soloist. This is something we might do more often because in addition to being very fun it was very inexpensive.

This is the inside of the dome, which is very ornate like the rest of the place.

The rest of our time has been spent studying the language. We have so much to learn and it feels overwhelming sometimes but we know that God will help us through this just as he promised. This continues to be a big prayer request for us - that we would be able to learn this language so we can be effective at ministering to the kids here. Please continue to pray for strength and endurance for all the busyness and studying. Also please pray for the kids here, that the babies would be blessed and would develop well, that the kids in the orphanage will come to know Christ and be transformed, and that the transition boys and girls will be given hope for a future.

September Newsletter

It is hard to believe that we have been in Romania for a whole month now. Time has been flying and we've done so much in this short amount of time. We spent the first week of September getting everything ready and tying up loose ends before we left for Romania. We sold both of our cars and got together with lots of family & friends. We had a great sendoff at the airport and all of our flights and layovers went really smoothly. We didn't even have any of our six pieces of luggage lost which was a miracle considering how many bags get lost these days.

When we arrived in Romania we got to spend some time with the Heart 2 Heart staff as we got used to the time change. We went to our first staff meeting where we took part in the initial planning for the orphanage program for this school year. We went to our apartment for the first time and had no idea where in the city we were at. We went shopping at IKEA to buy things that our apartment was lacking like most kitchen items, new couch cushions and a new mattress for our bed.

We went to several orphanages to hand out school kits and saw many of the kids that we knew from summer camp last year. Many of them remembered us which gave us a great feeling, knowing that we made an impact on them last year. We went to the girls transition house to get it ready for the new girls to move in. We went to the baby hospital for the first time and really enjoyed interacting with so many babies. We will continue to go to the baby hospital each week while we are learning the language. We started our full time job of learning the language and have had tons of memorizing to do.

We have enjoyed exploring the area around our apartment and have started to get a feel for where we are in the city and how to get around on the subway, busses, and trams. We shopped at a local supermarket which has most things we need and we also bought things from the local fresh market and a pastry shop. No wonder the time went by so fast, we have been so busy! We would like to thank everyone for their great support and would also like to give a few prayer requests. Please pray:

-For God to continue to strengthen us and especially to give us the ability to learn the language

-For the kids in the orphanages to have hope and to follow Christ and be transformed

-For the babies to develop well so they can live healthy lives

-For all of the H2H staff and all the people being used by God to make a difference here

Exploring And Language Lessons

We started out last week with a staff meeting where we found out our schedules and finalized the curriculum for the orphanage program. We will be working at the baby hospital on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and our language classes will be Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. We will be able to tag along with the orphanage teams when we have time but studying for our language classes will be our top priority.

Things are looking great in terms of all of the programs this year. We all chipped in on the orphanage program which will focus on teaching the kids how they can have the qualities of heros. Both the boys and girls transition programs will start soon also, scheduling staff and finding eligible kids were the biggest hurdles which God provided for. We are excited to see what happens this year and ask for your prayers that God transforms all of these kid's lives.

Tuesday we went out to the girls transition house and did some yard work to get it ready for the new girls moving in soon. We also helped move a washing machine into one of the staff apartments near the girls house.

This is the view outside of our apartment. Much of the city is like this - never ending block houses in all directions.

This is the top of the market where we can buy fresh fruit and veggies from, as seen from our apartment.

Would you expect to see a horse drawn cart making it's way down a street in the middle of the city? This is an everyday occurrence and we've even seen people walking their cows around.

We went to Carol Park, which has a huge monument dedicated to Romania's first King.

From there we walked to the center of town where we could see the People's Palace, the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. We toured the inside on our first trip, it is very large and ornate. It was built by the communist dictator as his personal office but now it houses the entire government.

From there we hopped on the subway and went to the university area. There are lots of classical buildings there. We were looking for a specific Romanian language book for our language lessons but had no idea where to find the bookstore. Thankfully a professor saw us looking around and helped us find it, how nice! There were several statues in the area that were wearing gas masks, we have no idea why though.

Thursday we started our language lessons so we spent most of the day and most of Friday studying around 300 new words and some basic sentence structures. Saturday after our lesson we went to the orphanage to play with the kids. They were really rambunctious and energetic and we were pretty worn out afterwards. Sunday was a nice day of rest and we enjoyed spending some time with the rest of the H2H staff. Sound like a pretty busy week? Welcome to the new normal: busy, busy. It will all be worth it when we can speak to the kids without translators, we are so looking forward to that!

School Kits And Lesson Plans

Last week was another eventful one as we expected. We started off by putting together hundreds of school kits for the kids. We made bags with notepads, pens, pencils, crayons, toothpaste, toothbrush, erasers, and a pencil sharpener. On Tuesday we went to the orphan apartments at Rosiori, a town about 2 and a half hours drive from Bucharesti where we are staying. There are several apartments spread all around where the orphans live so that the government doesn't have to count them as orphans. This was our first time there but we knew some of the kids from summer camp last year.

Andrea loved her school kit and was very excited to receive it. At camp we called her Punky Brewster because she has such a spitfire attitude. She's so cute though and loves attention.

We then went on to an actual orphanage in another nearby town. This is Corny, one of the H2H staff who grew up as an orphan that H2H worked with. Now she is a great help and is our guide around the city since she lives nearby. She is also the main worker in the baby hospital.

Miki found us right away, she was on our team at camp last year. She is a sweetheart.

There weren't very many kids we knew so we met lots of new ones. This girl really wanted her picture taken with Mark.

Krista, one of the H2H missionaries met some new girls too.

Here we are handing out the school kits. Our director Jen is handing them out and her church helped supply most of the items. The next day we went to the main orphanage in Peris to hand out school kits to the kids there. We had fun playing games with the kids as usual.

The end of the week was a little more laid back. We spent more time working on lesson plans for this school year for the kids. We also spent time with the rest of the staff getting to know them and hanging out. We went shopping again and finished off our list of things we needed. We have been so blessed to be able buy furnishings and kitchen supplies at IKEA and some of the other big stores around the city. We are very thankful that God has supplied us with everything we needed through generous gifts from supporters.

We also went exploring around our area in town. We are starting to get a good feel for our immediate area but this city is so huge that we will have a lot more to do before we know our way around. We went to the park next to our apartment, it is very large with a small lake in the middle. It is nice to have a place to walk that feels a little more like the country. We are enjoying being here and are looking forward to starting our language lessons this week Thursday. Would you please pray that God opens our minds and gives us the ability to learn quickly? We would really appreciate your prayers, thanks!

First Week In Romania

The past week has been very busy with planning and adapting. We went to IKEA and bought all the kitchen furnishings we needed, which was basically everything. We also bought a new mattress because the one here was in really bad shape and we wanted to be kind to our backs. The refrigerator was not working so we delayed moving in until it was replaced. We also spent time during the week starting to plan out the curriculum for this school year with the kids. We are doing a hero theme and trying to teach the kids how to be heros themselves.

Friday we went to the Peris orphanage to see the kids and hang out with them. We were greeted by many of them who we knew from camp and they remembered us. Many of them would say "sunt de la tabara?" meaning "you were at camp?" It was great to see them and we had a great time playing games with them.

Of course Claudiu remembered us and was mightily happy to see us and to hug us. He's on our prayer card from last year. He is usually a trouble maker and keeps his distance from people but he seems like a different kid around us.

Catalina loves to put our rings together and is so fascinated with us, she loves to be hugged by both of us. She is very sweet.

Flori gave Rebecca some new earrings, well actually stickers but they did look nice.

We joined in the soccer game and had fun, although these kids are so good at soccer that they really didn't need our help, they just wanted us to play with them for fun.

School starts this week for the kids so we will be starting the more structured programs, although our language classes will be the top priority for us.

Sunday we went to church at AlphaOmega, the same one we had been to on each of our previous trips. We saw many people that we knew and met lots of new people too. It was a great day to go there because there were two baptisms of young adults who decided to identify themselves with Jesus Christ. It was neat hearing their testimonies of how they came to this point in their lives.

After church we moved into our apartment and spent the evening arranging things and unpacking. This morning we went to the market and bought food for lunch and then Corny and Mariana came over to show us around a bit. Then we took the subway over to the team house for a meeting to discuss our curriculum. Our apartment is in a great location close to the subway, market, and park. It is really easy to get around and we are already learning our area.

Please continue to pray for strength and guidance as we learn how to do things here. Please pray for guidance and wisdom for us and the team as we continue to work on programing. We will start language next week so please pray that God prepares us for that and allows us to learn well. Thanks so much for your prayers!

We're In Romania!

We made it to Romania! We left from the Grand Rapids airport on Sunday afternoon, and were sent off by some family and a few of our closest friends. It was a great sendoff and we were so glad they came to support us. Our kids Sam, Lexi, & Precious were there too, it was so great to see them. Everyone laid hands on us and prayed for our journey and then we went through security, with Sam following saying he wanted to come with us. Awww! We'll dearly miss everyone but knowing that they're so supportive is a big help.

Lexi offering her drink to Mark before we left. All of our flights went really well, were on time, and all of our luggage made it here! Thanks for the prayers, we heard that we may be the first ones to fly over on British Air and get all of our luggage right away.

Today we went to see our apartment so we can figure out what we need to buy for it. This is us in the elevator. We are on the 8th floor.

This is the living room, Mariana and Corny were at the apartment cleaning it out.

Jen brought us there and Linuta was also there. Beyond the window there is a balcony that goes along the entire length of the apartment.

This is the spare bedroom which we will probably use as an office. The bed is actually a pull out so people can come and stay with us (hint, hint).

This is our bedroom, pretty good size and lots of storage.

The kitchen is small and very retro, the stove is also very small but we'll have to adapt to it.

The rest of the kitchen with the dining table.

And finally the bathroom, can you count how many shades of blue there are in here? All in all the apartment is pretty nice, there is lots of storage space too. Next step is to buy all the stuff we need, mostly kitchen furnishings. We'll run to IKEA sometime this week to get that.

So far we are doing pretty well on energy, jet lag doesn't even seem that bad. Continued prayers for energy would be appreciated. Everything is different as we expected, so we have lots of learning to do. We won't start our language classes until late September so we'll have a couple weeks to figure out how to get around and buy things here. We'll keep the blog updated as often as we can, especially at the beginning there will be so many new things to talk about!