Emily!

 When I first moved to Romania in 1999 Emily came around the same time.  We were so vastly different, Emily a super sweet, emotionally sensitive, touchy feelly girl, and me a logically driven, tomboy.  God must have laughed when he put us in the same apartment together!  But over the 3 years that we both served in Romania, we became very close.  The kind of closeness that only comes from  being alone in a foreign country and walking through some very difficult times together.  In June, Emily came back for her first visit in over 5 years.  So many things have changed in Romania, in H2H and not to mention Emily is now married with 3 small boys, but in most ways it felt like we hadn't been apart! 

We had one special evening in which some of the original staff and some of the kids we worked with at the time that are now adults went to coffee together.  Great memories!

 Emily introduced her family to the orphanages.

 It was fun to see them make their own connections to the orphans here.  Samuel and Marian became good friends!

Proud Mom Moments

The end of the school year always brings about some great moments.  All year long we serve multiple roles in the kids' lives.  But during end of school activities I feel even more pronounced that we are not only teachers in their lives, but parents as well. Each year as the schools have their final programs and promotions we get to be there to cheer the kids on and applaud their efforts from the year.   Nicu and Vic are two of my sons and you see them appear quite often in my blogs and pictures.  It has become tradition to take a promotion day picture together.  They are both doing so well in school.  Both just finished the 4th grade.  Nicu was first in his class and Vic second. 

This June I also attended another very special graduation.  Some of you might remember that towards the beginning of my life in Romania, I taught at BCA, which is a school for missionary kids here.  This year my first class of 1st graders graduated from high school.  Here I am with 3 of my first graders all grown up!

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.