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.

Rebecca's Thoughts

Someone told me on vacation that basically everything they see about what we do is filled with happiness.  And while it is true that there is an amazing amount of joy in what we do, there is also so much pain.  (But who takes and publishes pictures of an unhappy child?)  Sometimes we feel so helpless, like we can't do what we would like to change the situation here.  I thought about this a lot during vacation.  If you remember my post after last summer, you would know that vacation provokes many thoughts.  For the few people that did see us while we were home for my sister's wedding, maybe you weren't aware of how I was really feeling.  I tried my best to hide it...but I didn't want to be there.  Ouch, I know...

There was only one place I wanted to be, next to "my kid."  I wanted to be there for the frustration, fears, despair and anger felt.  For all you who are parents, how many of you could go on vacation (alone) if you felt your child really needs you?  That is how I felt.  My kid kept telling me to have fun and enjoy myself, and I did, but it wasn't easy when every free thought I was thinking and worrying about what was happening halfway around the world.

I am glad to be able to say that the future of my kid is looking positive, H2H will be helping to build a bright future.  But what about the others, our organization touches around 600 of the 100,000 orphans here.  And even of the 600, there is no way we can help every one.  Some of them go out into a society that doesn't support them like it should and are basically alone.

When you think about the negatives, it can be so overwhelming.  But I remember something I read one time about a man throwing starfish back into the sea.  A person asked him why, what was the point when you can't save them all.  And he replied that for the one he just threw back in, it mattered.  We can't focus on what we can't change, what we can't do, on those we can't reach.  We have to focus on what is before us, what we can change, what we can do.  For Mark and I, we get to love the kids who let us into their lives as well as teach them about what things matter most.  For you readers, you can support us like most of you already do.  In prayer most importantly, we and the kids need it so much.  And secondly, through financial support.  God has blessed us and we are fully supported.  But you can always give (directly to h2h) to help the kids.  It helps us help them...from shoes to a chance to succeed and everything in between.  I can't stop children from showing up abandoned, or the tears over their families who couldn't support them like they needed, or all the hard things they go through.  But I can be there, I can listen and let them know about the only hope we all have.  And you can be here too...by physically coming or knowing that your support is what makes us be able to be here.  And we will keep showing pictures showing the joy of ones chosen to be thrown back in.

Summer 2012 Recap - Romania

Summer in Romania is always a highly anticipated time that we look forward to all year long.  Working with the kids through summer camps enables us to minister to them in a whole new way.  We get to take them out of their normal environment where feelings like loneliness, anxiety, and oppression are ever present and bring them into a high energy, fun filled time.  We also have more freedom to talk and study about God and to share His good news with them and make it real through our testimonies and interactions.  This summer was no exception and we really had a great time!

We started out with a special camp for teen girls and two trips to the mountains with some of the older boys.  The girls enjoyed an olympic themed camp at the girls transition house.  In the mountains with the boys we set up our tents inside the protective fence of the mountain rescue station to keep out the bears and other animals that roam around there.  We did lots of hiking and sight seeing and we had many chances to talk about God and what it means to be his follower.  We focused on how we can honor God, grow, and be joyful in the trials that we face.  We also followed the life of David and used him as an example of how to be a man after God’s own heart.  We had an awesome group of guys come from America to help us and they contributed a lot to making these trips great.

We then started day camps with the younger kids, from ages 3 to 14.  We brought them out to our transition house in small groups and did a sort of VBS program with them.  We sang, learned about the Bible, and did olympic themed crafts and games.  The weather was so hot most of the time, usually mid 90’s to low 100’s, so we played lots of water games like duck, duck, goose with water balloons, balloon toss, and slipping and sliding on a giant slip and slide.  These camps were the highlight of the kid’s summer and they never wanted to leave!

After two more older boys and girls camps were finished a small team from FairHaven Ministries, our home church, came to help us run a fun VBS program for the kids at one of the orphanages.  We had a really great time ministering with them and they did a great job of working with the kids.  We were really encouraged and blessed by them coming and are hoping that more people will come on a trip that we are planning for next year. 

At the very end of summer we headed to Vienna, Austria to visit our friend Carolin, who was an intern with H2H last year.  We really enjoyed touring three palaces, seeing impressive cathedrals, going to a Mozart & Strauss concert, and eating amazing food.  We then headed home for a short visit which included being part of Rebecca’s sister’s wedding.  We enjoyed seeing family and friends but our time home was way too short to even begin to see everyone.  Don’t worry though, we’ll be back sometime around Christmas for a longer time so we’ll get to share with our churches and spend more time visiting with everyone.

Please Continue To Pray:

- Praise God for such a great summer. He sustained us even as it was very busy and taxing.  Pray that the seeds that we planted will grow into faith that will be put into action

- School is starting soon!  Please pray for guidance and wisdom for us and all of our staff as we plan our classes and work on scheduling

- Both transition programs will also be starting soon, for the first time in two years for the girls program. Pray for the kids coming into the programs that they will have a great growing experience in the programs.  Please also pray for all the staff that will be involved in these challenging programs

- None of our students passed the college entrance exam, only 40% in the whole country did!  Pray for their next steps as some enter into our transition programs and others will be helped by H2H to find apartments and jobs.  Some will continue to study to take the test again next year

- Praise God for all of our support partners and pray that God will bless them and continue to provide for us.  Pray also that H2H and our churches will be fully funded.  Pray for staff unity and for a great year in which we can see a big change!

To download a printable copy of our newsletter click on the picture of it below and download it.

Also check out the promotional video that H2H had made with all new footage from this spring!

New H2H Promotional Video

Thanks as always for your prayers and support, we couldn’t do this without you!

Beautiful Vienna

After all of our summer camps and the busy summer ministry are done we usually get some time to recharge and take a vacation.  This year we headed home for Rebecca's sister's wedding which is this weekend.  On the way over, we stopped in for a short visit in Vienna, Austria.  We met up with and stayed with our friend Carolin who was an intern with H2H last year.

Vienna is a really beautiful city with many palaces, churches and buildings with amazing architecture.  This is one of the three imperial palaces there that we saw.  Inside was an art museum with lots of classical paintings.

At the palaces the landscaping is always immaculate with flowers, shrubs and fountains.

This is the banquet hall in another one of the palaces, unbelievably big and so ornate and rich.

In the old part of town there was limited car traffic and lots of horse drawn carriages.

There were also many well kept parks.

We also had the good fortune of going to a symphony orchestra concert where they played Mozart and Strauss pieces.  It was really fun and we enjoyed hearing such classical music in the place that it was composed and first played.  That is one of the neat things about touring different places in Europe, there is so much history there.

This is one of the main churches in town, St. Stevens.  I climbed the 343 steps of the bell tower to get a great view of the whole city.

The inside was amazing and we got to do something that we've never done before, going down into the catacombs underneath the church.  It started off as just some normal looking rooms that were nicely finished but as we went further they got darker and older feeling.  Then we were able to look inside some rooms and see the bones and old rotting coffins.  It was kind of creepy knowing that these were real bones and skulls that used to belong to real people.

In the streets there were many statues and monuments like this one.

This is the altar inside of another church that we visited.

This is the state opera house all lit up at night.

This is one of the palaces that we visited and it looked really cool at night.

You can tell that Vienna takes a lot of pride in their city and loves to show off the beauty of their historical buildings.  This is their town hall.

We stayed with Carolin and she was a very good hostess, arranging all sorts of good breads and cheeses and cooking for us the first night after we arrived.

The following nights we went out to eat and had some delicious Indian, Thai, and Austrian food.

We really had a good time in Vienna and with Carolin.  It is always fun to see a new city especially one as nice and full of things to do as Vienna.

FairHaven Team!

Last week we had the incredible pleasure of working with a group of people from FairHaven Ministries, our home church!  We have been praying for a group of people to come and work with us her from our church for a long time, and our prayers were finally answered.

The McCrum family came along with Howard and Genny.  They all have awesome stories of how God provided for them to come.  Howard is the only one who had been here before, in fact, he was with us on our very first trip in 2007.

Each day we went to one of the orphanages and did the same VBS program that they did at our church this summer.  The kids absolutely loved the singing and making motions with the songs!  After singing we did crafts like paper plate fish, painted sun catchers and bracelets.

After crafts we went outside to play on the playground and always had a blast.

 

There are many new kids at this orphanage so even we don't know them all since we normally don't work there.  It was fun getting to know more kids.

The girls had their nails panted many times.

The guys carried lots of kids around.

And we had lots of fun playing around.

 

More nail painting...

...and lots of sidewalk chalk drawings.  Usually after the orphanage the team would go to the baby hospital and love on the many babies there.

We had a really great time working with this wonderful group of people (here the other couples on staff are with us, Steven & Haley and Josh & Missy)!  It was a big encouragement for us to have people from home come here to work along side of us.  They all had a great time too, building lasting relationships with the kids that they worked with for the whole week.  A big thank you to those who supported them and helped them come.  

We would love to have more people come from home!  Next year another group from our church will be coming so please start thinking and praying about whether God is calling you to do this too.  We will keep you informed of the details as they come.  Of course, you don't have to be from FairHaven to come, you can come with them or with one of the many other groups.  The main thing is that the more people that come to help us out the better, there are so many kids who need love!!!

On another happy note, our car is finally fixed and running great!  Earlier this summer we were driving and a stone somehow got into the engine compartment.  It hit the radiator and caused the coolant to leak out quickly, which caused the engine to overheat rapidly.  That caused the head gasket to rupture.  So we had that all replaced and now it is back to normal.  Thanks for your prayers as we went through trying to figuring it all out and waiting for it to be done.  Please pray that something like that doesn't happen again!