April!!

 April was a very full month here in Romania.  But every April we welcome the spring with the flowers in our yard at the Pipera team house.  I love the lilacs that pop out amongst the first!

 The first week of April, the Romanian Department of Education proposed to try something different.  So this week was "Scoala Altfel" or a different kind of school.  The goal of the week was to encourage teachers to teach in ways outside of the traditional classroom.  Since that is what we try to do all of the time we helped out in the different schools with special events.  We hosted interactive learning days about America at two locations.  We also taught some other things like photography, cooking, music, and as you see above, Haley is teaching a beginning ballet class.

 We hosted two teams in April.  We had a Kiwanas Team and a Canadian Team.  During the Canadian team we had two more guests join us, Brian and Faith.  Their purpose in being here was to film for a new H2H promotional video.  Brian is a great photographer as well, so the picture above is the band in their uniforms, in a casual shot!  It was a busy time filming, interviewing, and translating, but I look forward to seeing to final result!

 April has tons of birthdays!  We celebrated several staff birthdays and Rebecca turned 3! 

 Present opening!

Jenny, my housemate and I, in some of our finds up at the Sinaia castle.  We were there with the Canadian Team but couldn't resist!  I have a feeling that these special glasses will reappear sometime in summer ministry!

Butterflies Emerge!

It our weekly preschool group we read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It is a great book to read this time of the year as spring is in the air! Our kids loved the book and make some pretty cute butterflies, don't you think?!

Team Time!

The beginning of March we once again had our annual team from Mission Possible. Teams have a lot of different facets to them...we do a bit of site seeing. Here are Jenny and I and part of the team are in front of the People's Palace.
We do quite a lot of cooking!
We help the teams meet all of kids and family. The Moms and "grandkids" came over for a fun morning and lunch.
We visit all of our ministry locations and spend time in activities with the kids. Can you say ornery?
We met, encourage, and support the kids that are in the transition programs. That is just a taste of a week with a team!

Birthday Buddies

When we started working in an additional orphanage 2 years ago, Fernando and I discovered that we share the same birthday.
This year, when I returned from my time in the US on Feb. 20th, I found out that Fernando had been quite concerned that I wasn't going to make it back in time for our birthdays on March 3. Fortunately, I did and we celebrated together. This shared day has made a special bond between us!

Back to Basics!

I returned to Romania in time to participate in Staff Training for this coming year. This is the most recent picture of the current staff. We are wearing our new "Choose Joy" t-shirts, which is the theme of this year.
We are doing a team building activity. By all holding the rope sitting on the floor, we had to make the circle standing up, without letting go of the rope. Success!
We also had time of instruction and workshop and spiritual refreshment and we had some fun together as well. It is always good to stop and look around and be reminded of the journey that God has brought you on and the great people you are journeying with.

Christmas in January

This year my time back in Kansas was Jan 20-Feb 20. My family, being the amazing support system that they are waited to have Christmas until I was home. So on January 28th, we sat in front of the tree (that was still up) and celebrated Christmas together. It was a fun day to be together!

Relationships that Last

The summer of 2008 a team from my home church, Buhler MB, came to spend a couple of weeks serving with me here. That summer Taylor Wedel made a very special connection with Nicu. At that point Nicu had only been at the orphanage for less then a year, he was pretty quiet and shy but he obviously craved special attention, and Taylor was one of the people that was able to meet Nicu where he was at.
A few trips and a few years later, Taylor and Nicu still have a special bond. It is one of those things that mathematically doesn't make sense. How many days or hours have these two actually spent in each others' presence? But God does something really amazing with short-term missions teams. He takes the amazing kids we work with and He connects them with amazing people who are willing to come, and changes both of their lives!
I have people ask me if short-term missions are worth it. For Nicu they are. And for Taylor? I can't speak for him but I think that they must be, because this time.....
he brought his new wife!