An Awesome Romanian Adoption Story

Last weekend we went to the wedding of our friends Daria and Claudiu who we know from church and our small group Bible study.  It was a really fun time with great food, music, and fellowship.

While we were at the wedding someone told us something really interesting.  Four years ago Claudiu's parents adopted a little girl from the baby hospital where H2H used to work.  When they said her name is Flori our ears really perked up.  We asked how old she is now and they said around six years old.

Our first trip to Romania was in April of 2007 so that would make Flori (on the right) about one year old at that time.  One of the girls at the hospital was named Flori and I thought this was too much to be just a coincidence.  So I went and talked to Claudiu and showed him the pictures I have of her from then, and he was amazed that it was his little sister!

During the short time that we were here back then Flori was my girl, such a sweet little baby who loved to be cuddled and talked to and played with.  She often tried to steal my glasses and liked playing with my name tag.

We always wonder what happens to the kids from the baby hospital but we rarely find out.  We had heard that Flori was getting adopted but who would have thought that we would end up friends with her new big brother through church?!?

Flori was adopted about a year after our first trip, so she was two years old then.  Here is a picture of her that Claudiu gave me a from year or so after her adoption.  Rock ministries was another organization that worked in that hospital. 

Here is Flori playing the guitar like her big brother, Claudiu, who is in a really great band.

Here is a picture of Flori (on the right) at the wedding last weekend.  She is growing up in a wonderful family and is strong and healthy, a perfect little girl.  We are so thankful to God that he has taken care of her and it is so cool that we got to find out about her!  She spent her first two years at the hospital, abandoned but not alone, thanks to all of the people who came in and worked with her and the other kids.  We love working at the baby hospital but sometimes it is hard to see the impact of the work there.  Really though, it is so important for the babies to develop into healthy children and adults.

If you went on a trip with H2H around 2007-2008 and have pictures of Flori would you please send them to us?  Her family would like more pictures because there aren't many of her at that age.  Everyone who has worked with and will work with babies there should be encouraged, it makes a huge difference in their lives!

More Fun

We've been continuing to do well, here are some more of the fun things that we have done recently.

We met up with our friend Amanda who was an intern here a while back.  She was in Romania for a month working with the world race program.  We got to have lunch and hang out for a while while she was stopped over in Bucharest.  We hope that she will come back to work with us again someday.

We went to Peris for a play day with our friend Sarah from Michigan, and saw lots of our kids that we don't get to see that often.

We looked at plant and animal cell structure with the boys in the transition program as part of Rebecca's biology lesson.

George caught a fly and we checked it out on the microscope.  I took this picture by just putting the camera up to the eyepiece, I was amazed that it worked!  Thanks Tim and Terry for donating this microscope to us, the kids (and us) really enjoy using it.

Robbie checking out the fly.

Steven took me rock climbing for my birthday, we found this cool indoor gym and went for the afternoon on Saturday.  I was reminded how out of shape I am especially compared to some of the other people climbing there, I have a long way to go to get to their level!  But it was still fun and I was able to climb up the straight sections at least.

Steven tried out the bouldering holds, it's quite an inverted angle and it's really hard.

Here I am scaling the big wall...

...and making it to the top!

Here are some bonus macro shots, I have always loved taking closeup macro pictures and now I have a camera that excels at them again.

Thanks for all of your birthday wishes and for your continued prayers.  We would love to keep hearing from you and to keep in touch, we really cherish our relationships and even though we are a long ways away we are still close in our hearts and through our heavenly father.

Fun Times

Since Easter we have gone back into our normal school schedule.  The weather has been pretty nice and we have enjoyed getting back into our routine.

Since the weather has been nice the boys at the transition house have been busy helping build a house across the street from where they are staying.  The neighbor is building this house for her son.

 

Most of the house is made out of cement blocks and the frame and supports are poured concrete.  They make forms for pouring concrete with enough wood to build the whole house with.  Then they tear off the wood and use it either for the roof or for other things, like fires.

These are all the supports inside holding up the 10 inch poured concrete floor that the second story will be built on.

We also had a fun day with the boys for labor day, which is May 1 here.  The pastor from our church came down along with his family and our friend Tom and his family.  We played games and had a cookout, it was a lot of fun.

The blooming trees are really beautiful at this time of the year!

One night on our way home from Bible study we met up with Steven and Haley in the city to grab some dessert.  We headed into the bustling old district of Bucharest and found a French bakery.

We had the biggest Creme Brule we've ever seen and also a piece of fruit tort.  It was nice to hang out in the city and we really enjoyed our sweets!

This past weekend we went to a special event - a conference lead by John Piper called "God is the Gospel."  He talked about the gospel and about the fact that God is the highest good and the highest goal of the gospel.  All other things are secondary to being one with God and coming into a relationship with God.  It was a very good message and it helped us understand why God sent Christ to be sacrificed for us, it was so that we could enjoy God and be satisfied in Him.  Since he gave us salvation we are able to share in his glory and also to bring him glory and that is the ultimate purpose of our lives.  There is also nothing better than having fellowship with God so this truly is a gift of salvation.  Isn't it great that we have a God like that?  He sacrificed so much so that we could come to him and be fulfilled!

Saturday we celebrated my birthday with all of our staff and a special guest, our friend Sarah from Michigan.  We went out to eat at a Thai restaurant, supposedly the only one in all of Romania!  It was wonderful, we had a great time and lots of great food.

Some of the dishes we tried were Phad Thai, Masaman Beef Curry and Green Curry Chicken, they were all delicious!  I am so happy to have found a Thai place in Bucharest because Thai is my favorite type of food.  I'm sure we will be visiting this place again!

Easter Vacation

We just had two weeks of "Easter Vacation." During this time we had special Easter activities, spent time with the Canadian Team, got videotaped for the new H2H film (coming this fall), and had extra math lessons with our BAC tutoring class.

Dying Easter Eggs

Mark and his buddy

Brothers Claudiu and Sandel

We had all the graduates and current transition house boys over for Easter. There were about 35 kids that came to the house, the team of 15 from Canada plus a two person film team and staff. It was a full house! We played Eater bingo instead of having an Easter Egg Hunt because it was wet outside. The graduates were yelling out bingo and were excited to see what their egg (prize) would contain.

Easter at Pipera

We also took another group of kids to the natural history museum in Bucuresti. It was the reward from Sanda and Rebecca's Geography/Science class.

We had 12 kids and two members from the Canadian Team at the museum.

Genica, Nicoleta, Adela

Us at Herastrau Park after visiting the museum.

Brian and Faith, the amazing film team

We had a day at Nenciulesti with kids from Rosiori and lots of play time and special activities at the Bucuresti orphanages. We were busy helping translate and being filmed...and we didn't take a lot of pictures. Although, Mark did find time to try out his new camera (Thanks Dan!) on the roof after our Bible study in Bucuresti.

This Panasonic LX-3 is an exciting little camera, we can't wait to take more awesome pictures!

This spring break was a nice change of pace from our normal day to day, and we really enjoyed being a part of the Canadian team and the film team and doing so many special activities. Too bad it's over so soon!

Spring 2012 Romania Update

The last few months have been very eventful in our lives and ministry here in Romania. Our regular classes have been going well and we continue to build relationships with the kids. Rebecca teaches part of a Geography and Natural Science class, creating slide shows about different countries. The kids get to try food from a different culture and learn about what other places are like.

We took the younger kids in this class to the museum of natural history in Bucharest. They especially liked the touch screen displays that were at each exhibit. The mammoth skeleton in the main room was also a big hit. After the museum we had a picnic in a local park and had some play time. It was a fun field trip, and we will do another one soon with the older kids in the class.

I teach English classes to a variety of kids of all ages and skill levels. Our most important classes though, are our tutoring classes for the college entrance exam. Last year only 40% of kids in the entire country passed this exam! We are tutoring a small group of kids from the orphanage in English, Math, and Biology. It is very hard because even though these kids have passed all their classes at school, they don’t know enough to pass this very hard test. We are trying to make up years worth of learning in a very short time, and they are struggling because they aren’t used to doing homework or studying for their classes. Whether or not they pass this test will have big implications for their futures, so there a lot is riding on their success.

We also are part of a youth group and that has been going well. Unfortunately we have been forbidden to talk about God or the Bible by one of the directors of the orphanages. So instead of doing Bible study we have been talking about good character traits. We try to fit references and Biblical principles in wherever we can. Each week we are presenting a different person as a hero, some Romanian and some international people. Some of the people we have studied are Martin Luther King Jr., King David, and Richard Wurmbrand, who was a Romanian pastor that was put in jail by the communists and spent 14 years in prison being tortured and brainwashed. By God’s grace he resisted and escaped from Romania and founded the organization Voice of the Martyrs.

God blessed us personally very richly this spring. Even before we came here we knew that we would eventually want a car. This year the need became even more apparent as our sharing of H2H vans became even more complicated and even less convenient. We prayed about it a lot and faced many struggles and obstacles, and one day God provided through a very generous gift from Extol Inc, the company I worked for as an engineer before we came here. The amazing thing is that they asked us what we needed without us having asked first, this is how we know that God was at work. We were able to find a great used car, a 2007 Ford Focus that was brought over from Germany. Many others also gave us gifts so that we could pay for the registration and insurance and have some saved away for upkeep. It has been great having our own car, we have been able to go to events and see friends that we wouldn’t have been able to without one.

God also provided for something else that we had wanted for quite some time, an iPad 2. Having one would be ideal for Rebecca’s presentations for her Science classes. Through a few people’s generosity we were able to get one and it too has been a real blessing. It is so amazing how God works and we feel that through these miracles he is confirming to us that we are doing what he wants here.

We want to thank you very much for your prayers for us and our ministry. We are also very thankful to those who have blessed us with their generous support and gifts!

Click on the picture below to download the PDF version of this newsletter!

What We've Been Up To Lately

In the past few weeks we have done quite a few special things outside of our normal routine.

We got together with Jenny, a friend from our small group Bible study from church. She made us chicken tacos, it is hard to find Mexican food here so it is always a treat when someone makes it. We also went to her birthday party and hung out with our other friend Kristie. They both work here with another organization. We enjoy getting together with friends when we can find the time.

We drove up to the mountains for a little taste of Transylvania. One of the new couples on our staff, Steven and Haley, had some family come so we went on a little sight seeing tour.

We saw the most famous castles in the area: Peles and Bran. We also saw the fortress Rasnov from a distance. It is always neat to see these as we just don't have anything like it at home.

Here we are with the new couples on staff and our intern Talitha. We really enjoy spending time with them!

We love nature and history so going to these areas is a great time because they are full of both.

Rebecca and Talitha became very close in her few months here. We hope to see more of her in the future...

Clear days like this are great, you can see the beauty of the mountains here.

After seeing the castles we went to the Medieval town of Brasov, which is very beautiful. We ate at a great restaurant there which is in an old wine cellar.

Last weekend we took a group of 16 kids on a field trip to a museum in Bucharest. This was a reward trip for good behavior and participation in Rebecca and Sanda's Geography and Science class. The kids enjoyed the natural history museum, especially these prehistoric skeletons. It was really hard to keep track of the kids because there were hundreds of other kids on field trips. What a time!

After the museum we went to a park and played and had a picnic lunch.

At the beginning of this week we had a special time with the special school for (mostly) boys here in the city that we work. There was a team here from the states so we went to the forest and they talked about America and we did some crafts.

After we were done playing at the park the new director of the school invited us over for refreshments as is the tradition here when there are guests. She had two really nice special cakes made up for us and talked a lot about how she wants to be a part of our team and to work together with us to make this school be a great place for the kids.

One of the team members presented her with a large world map and some other tokens of appreciation. We are very thankful for her and her enthusiasm, it is really special for a director to fight for the kids and to really want us to be a part of their lives.

We have both been sick the last couple weeks but Rebecca took a turn for the worse at the end of last week. She is now on antibiotics and is starting to feel better. Please pray that we will both regain our health and stay healthy. Please pray for things to go well as we enter into spring break time and try to plan fun things for the kids.