What's It All About Anyway?

Here in Romania we lead very busy lives, we travel around working in three different locations with around one hundred different kids. Rebecca teaches science classes and I teach english classes to kids at all levels, from first grade to post high school. It can be stressful at times and it is easy to get caught up in all the business, planning, and logistics. So why are we here? What is our goal in working with these kids?

Part of the goal is to enrich the lives of kids who don't have much of a chance of succeeding in life. They aren't given the tools or training to do well and they already have a stigma of being abandoned. English classes are one way we can help, teaching them how to communicate in a language that has become the business language of the world.

Teaching science helps the kids to have an interest in their surroundings and gets them excited about learning. Schools don't do experiments here so they are always so excited about what Rebecca shows them.

They also love doing crafts. It is good to help them to learn that they can accomplish something by themselves. They learn to take pride in their work.

All this is good but there is something more to what we're doing. Even though it is important, if we just focus on what we're accomplishing in our classes we're missing the point.

We are here to pour love into these kids' lives and to build relationships with them. Only through that can we give them something that will truly change and shape their lives - the love of Jesus Christ. He said in Matthew 19:14 "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these."

When we love these kids, which we do as our own children, we are building relationships with them that will point them toward their savior. And what a rewarding "work" this is! To hold these kids in our arms is such a wonderful feeling, knowing that they love us and have put their trust in us which isn't an easy thing to do for an abandoned child.

We have the privilege of discipling some of the older kids, our youth groups are continuing to thrive, Monday night we had 34 in our small apartment in RDV! In recent weeks some have decided to be baptized which is so exciting. Others have accepted Christ recently, praise God! This is what it's all about, loving these kids and leading them to the Lord. Thanks for your continued prayers, God has been encouraging us here very much lately. Please continue to pray for these kids and our ministry, also for strength, health, and wisdom for us and the rest of our staff. Thanks for being our partner in Christ!

Love

Since today is Valentine's Day, I figured I should talk about love. If you haven't noticed yet, Mark and I love our job and the kids we work with. It is such a privilege to do God's work here, to be his hands and feet. God is constantly growing our love for him and his children.

Here two of our transition boys are washing our van, a task they gladly completed.

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in the truth." 1 John 3:18

This is a picture from youth group. It is so great that this year we are able to talk freely about God's love! It is such a great opportunity for the kids to have fun, learn about themselves, and most importantly learn about their heavenly father who loves them.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13

This is Cristi, and he really liked our former interns, Krysten, she reminded him of his sister. He wrote her a note telling her he missed her, and that he wants her to come back to Romania. How great it is to be able to have relationships with these kids!

"The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart, and a good conscience and a sincere faith." 1 Timothy 1:5

This is one of the cooking classes, they love cooking/baking, and especially the eating part :)

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8

We have had so many beautiful sunny days lately, truly a gift from God! I have learned to love deeper than I thought possible, our kids teach us so much. We are truly blessed to love them, and be loved by them.

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." 1 John 3:16

Back In Romania

After our Christmas vacation in the states we made it back to Romania without any problems and have been trying to get back into the swing of things ever since. While we were gone the kids asked the other staff quite often where we were and when we were coming back. They missed us a lot and we missed them too, so it has been great seeing them again.

There have been some beautiful mornings where hoar frost covered everything.

More hoar frost; it happens when it is really cold and foggy so ice crystals form on everything.

The boys at the transition house were really excited to see us, we had a great time with them. We caught up on what we did and what they did and we got back into our english and science lessons. Tuesday we celebrated Cezar's birthday with a cake and some picture taking time.

Our friend Tom came with us and we had a great time not only with the boys at the transition program but also with those at our youth group in Rosiori.

Tom and Mark took a walk with Cezar while the other boys were making his birthday cake. We stopped by one of our friends in the village, Catarina. She has a nice size house but can only afford to heat this one room. I couldn't stand up straight and forgot about that once and hit my head. Catarina, even though very poor, still offered us some home made bread and was so overjoyed that we came to visit. I'll have to go back soon to give her this picture because she loves getting pictures of us to display in her house.

We had lots of fun in our youth groups, the opening game was to find a 5 lei bill that was hidden in the room somewhere. We then talked about being lost and read the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son. At one of our locations while we talked about this one of the girls asked how to accept Jesus, so at the end of the time we prayed together as a group, and nearly all of the young adults their prayed along! Praise God for this and please pray for these kids that they realize what this means for them and they start to grow as children of God.

Mariana used an electronic game to teach the alphabet to the young kids.

Their reward for being good was some play time on their toys.

The kids always enjoy coloring so we include it in our activities as much as we can.

We ended the week with a surprise birthday party for Jenny. It was a 70's themed party and we played twister and listened to 70's music.

Dori trying out the chocolate fountain.

God continues to confirm to us that this is where He wants us. The kids love us so much and we love them back and our relationships are producing fruit already. It is so encouraging to know that God is with us and is using us. Please continue to pray for strength and wisdom as we minister here and continue to pray for all those we are ministering to.

Fun Times At Home

We finished our time home this week, a whole month has gone by and now that it's over it seems like it went fast. That always seems to be the case with vacations, but at least this time while we were in it we didn't feel rushed or overwhelmed, we enjoyed it very much. We got to see most of our family and friends, sometimes having two or three different get-togethers in a day. Our last week we spent lots of time with our friends who we hung out the most with at home, the Jasperse and beyond clan.

I went ice fishing with Scott, Jonah, and Kevin, it was one of the colder days of our time at home and we weren't terribly successful at catching anything. It was at least fun to hang out despite our freezing toes, fingers, and noses.

We celebrated our last Christmas of the season and Precious enjoyed getting her Sesame Street song book.

Sam and Lexi were excited about their two dollar bills from grandma and grandpa.

Sam and I continue to be best friends, he likes to wrestle and play the racing game on the computer.

Lexi calls Rebecca "my Becka" and still loves to run into her arms.

We had a big brunch before us guys went fishing and the girls played games.

Jonah shows off his new toy.

Jess and Precious show off their new aprons.

Kayleen and her brother Kevin showing their new gifts.

Christine and Scott A try to look normal to make up for Scott J acting like himself.

We had so much fun seeing our friends and playing with our kids, we'll miss them but thankfully there's skype to help us not miss out on everything that's going on.

I couldn't resist putting this picture up of Lexi in her new princess outfit.

Thank you everyone for helping us have such a great time home. We love you all and we will look forward to seeing you again when we come back on our next one year visit this fall.

More Christmas At Home

We had our third Christmas celebration with Mark's mom. We spent the weekend at her place and played games, watched movies and relaxed.

Mom E and Herb

Sandi and Jay

Us

Kevin

We also shared about our mission in Romania at church and asked people to join us there this summer. We had more interest than we expected and some people are already filling out applications with H2H! Praise God!

We also spent a few days in Canada visiting Oma (Grandma) who is 102 years old! Her mind is very sharp and we enjoyed visiting with her, although she currently has bronchitis. We are very thankful to get to visit with her again and share what we do in Romania with her.

Oma looking at our pictures

Us with Oma

My mom, Oma and Me

We have been enjoying our time home with friends and family. But we also have been thinking about the kids we love so much in Romania, we can't wait to see them again!

Christmas At Home

It's good to be home to spend time with our family and friends. God provided for us to make it home in time for Christmas even with flying through the messy situation at Heathrow Airport in London. We went to church on Christmas eve, Christmas day, and Sunday, and enjoyed each unique service.

Our first Christmas celebration was with Rebecca's family.

The second Christmas celebration was with Mark's family.

We still have a couple more Christmas celebrations coming up, since we've done only one each weekend so far. Spending a whole weekend with each part of our family has given us lots of time to spend together. It has been very fun and it is so great to spend time in person.

Our weekdays have been spent visiting friends, most days we see someone for lunch and someone else for dinner. This has kept us really busy but it's great fun seeing everyone again. We are so thankful that we have a longer time at home so we can see so many of our friends.

Here we are with our friend Amanda who has been to Romania twice already. You can see Grand Rapids far off in the background.

We've been able to see our favorite little kids quite a bit too which is a big blessing. They are growing fast but thanks to Skype they still remember us very well. We love playing with them!

We've been able to make it to many great restaurants and are thankful for so many of our friends' generosity. Our number one requirement was to go to San Chez Tapas Bistro, our favorite restaurant. Tapas are small Spanish dishes that are shared by everyone at the table. This allows you to taste many different foods that are all extraordinary!

Two of our favorite foods at San Chez: Blue Cheese Fritters and Potato Empanadas.

We also have eaten Thai, Chineese, Turkish, Mexican, and American food. We are thankful for the variety of food here, something we don't have much of in Romania.

We have also been very blessed by a new partnership between us and Caledonia CRC. God has been providing for us since we decided to go to Romania and it is evident that He still wants us there. He has been very faithful in providing all that we need and this added partnership provides for our longer term needs. We are so thankful and want to ask that you join us in praising God for his unfailing faithfulness. Also we want to say thanks to you for all your support and prayers! We are reminded of what a wonderful support net we have here, and we know we couldn't minister in a foreign country without that.