Whirlwind

I'm sitting here on my couch this morning, just saying goodbye to 8 deaf/mute Ukrainian refugees who spent the night in our house. I'm enjoying my second cup of coffee and reflecting on the whirlwind of the past few weeks. I'm fluctuating from tears to smiles. This might be because of my tiredness or maybe because the yo-yo of experiences that this time has held, or maybe and bit of both! Most of you are aware that I had a furlough in the US in January and part of February. I started off in California at the H2H headquarters. Jim, Jodi, and I spent 5 days hashing over current and future H2H items. I got a little beach time to take a deep breath and then headed to Kansas. My Mom had fallen a severely broken her right arm, so a lot of my time in Kansas was helping my parents and being there through a surgery, multiple appointments and the start of rehab. I did some speaking, met with some supporters, and saw some family and friends. While in Kansas, I was asked often about the Ukrainian/Russian tensions and how that might effect Romania. I knew that already the conflict was increasing prices of things like gas and causing US and Nato troop build ups. Overall though, at that point, Romanians weren't too concerned about Romanian safety and were going about day to day life pretty normally. I returned to Romania and hit the ground running. I needed to catch up on things that had happened and needed tended to from while I was gone plus prepare for a small team that was coming in from Michigan. Three days after I returned, Russia began attacking the Ukraine. Very quickly I became aware of an impact that I hadn't considered while in the US. The impact of refugees fleeing the Ukraine. The millions of people that would be trying to get out. My church partnered with 2 other Bucharest churches and threw down some mattresses on the floor for the first group that showed up on our doorsteps and sent out a plea for volunteers and supplies. The team of three women that were visiting readily agreed to jump in and we spent time at the church converted refugee center helping as we could around our other ministry time in visiting and spending time in the orphanages and centers that we work with. Two weeks have passed since that plea and the church refugee center has expanded to 3 locations, including our previous girls transition house in Snagov. Thus far we've had 537 refugees come through. I've been able to continue helping out at the center and be involved in the preparing our Snagov house to receive people. Other things the H2H staff and I have been involved with is transporting goods to different locations as needed, helping renovate a building to be able to house more people, transport people from the border to Bucharest, house people in our own homes, provide meals and hygiene supplies, play and care for children,and more. I've been very, very impressed with the mobilization of the Church and NGOs to rise up and offer aid. The stories that we are hearing are heartbreaking, but out of the ashes God brings moments of blessings. The beauty of the Church embodying the Hands and Feet of Christ is one of those and I've been so humbled and blessed to be a small part and a witness to it here in Romania. We don't know what the upcoming days hold. We are being cautioned by our pastors that this is marathon, not a sprint. Pray for us to have what we need to be faithful in what we can do.

November of Thanks

November was a great month with lots of reasons to be thankful for. Corni and I continued to go to Peris as much as possible. In the middle of the month they started to require a "green pass" to be able to get in to see the kids. This is the European Union document that confirms covid vaccination. Right now in Romania with out this pass you can only go into grocery stores, no other stores or public areas. At Peris we did a special Thanksgiving themed class. We did thanksgiving taste, touch, and smell, played bingo with Thanksgiving English words and with the littles did a riveting game of find the turkey.

After two years, my previous housemate and ministry partner, Jenny, was able to come for a visit. It was really nice to have her here and have her help with the H2H Thanksgiving and with Ruthie and Karla. She was here for two weeks and it felt like we put two months of activities into that time! Lots of great moments to be Thankful for! We were also able to celebrate Emi's 11th birthday during the Thanksgiving celebration.

Because of Covid restrictions, it was a little uncertain if we could have our Thanksgiving celebration. We were able to go ahead, but with a smaller group (35-40). As usual, we had a time of sharing of things we saw God do in the past year. Because of the smaller number we were able to have each person share and it was a very special time. It was a very special part of the day and I was really blessed by the time.

Taste, Touch, and Smell

Hello Everyone! As I mentioned in my last blog, Corni and I have began teaching two classes at the Peris School. This is a school for children with special needs. The needs range from behavior problems, learning disabilities, autism, and developmental delays. Some of the students come from the orphanage that is housed in the same building and some come from the neighboring village. The kids from the village seem to come from very poor families and most of the time at least one of their parents has a metal disability of some kind as well. The teachers at this school do a great job with the training and resources they have and have always been open and willing to partner with us and learn together. The main question for me as I was thinking about what to teach this year was what will meet the needs of the students? The teachers really desire to have an English class. This is an easy thing for me to teach, but does it meet the needs of the students. I delved into my teaching days at Marion, before I moved to Romania and I resurrected one of the favorite activities of my students during that time: Taste, Touch, and Smell. This is an activity that checks a lot of boxes. Each week I bring in a food item. The students have to close their eyes and then they touch, smell, and finally taste the item. They have to give me a list of adjectives to describe the food, without saying what the food is. Then after we have a list of adjectives we have someone (preferably from outside the room), that reads the list and guesses what the food was. This is a multi-sensory task and allows the kids to experience new things and develop language skills, plus its fun! We then take the list and I teach them the English words as well. Along with this we are doing some Character development with a Bible Story each week. I have three teachers that are participating as well and they are as enthusiastic as the kids!

Another highlight from October was that Ruthie turned 11! I don't know where the time is going! We had a nice birthday with some of the H2H family as well as a few of Ruthie's friends from church. Her favorite dessert is cheesecake, so instead of a birthday cake we had a birthday cheesecake this year!

Boys Transition Program Starts Again!

This September, we were able to restart the Boys Transition Program. Nicu and Melissa Perghel have taken the reins as the new program administrators. We are starting small with two young men. Both of these guys, Iuli and Andrei, come from the Peris orphanage and we've been working with them since they were little boys. They got moved into the Boys' house in Nenciulesti in September and are getting used to the new routine and program. So far things have gone really well. We are excited to see how God works in their lives in this coming year!

September!!

Wow! What a busy month September was! We finished up summer activities and transitioned into fall. I'd been wanting to try a big H2H fundraiser, a garage sale and bake sale, and it finally seemed possible with covid restrictions lifted and scheduling. Everyone on the staff and from my local church pitched in and the weekend was a great success. A lot off work, but I was very pleased with the results!

Schools started here on September 13th. Ruthie is in 5th grade this year and Karla and Daria started kindergarten.

This school year I'll be teaching two different classes at Peris and then doing my normal helping out for special events at the Rosiori apartments. I was able to get started in September and am enjoying my classes.

The highlight of the month was some special visitors! Kelly Pankratz, one of my high school youth sponsors and spiritual mentors and Maryn Robson came for a visit. We were able to visit most of our ministry locations, plus we spent a few days seeing some of the beauty of Romania. This was like water to my soul and was a great time of refreshment and encouragement. Unfortunately, not all of the pictures can be duplicated in this format, but trust me it was a terrific time. Kel was also able to bring some goodies from Buhler MB. Thanks everyone for all of the love!

Summer Camps 2021!

In my last blog I told you about the first day camp of the summer. In July and August we were able to have two more weeks of day camps and two groups of a shorten version of overnight camps. So in all we had 5 different camp experiences, with about 110 kids involved. It was different summer for us in many ways. We were not allowed to have teams from the US come and help out because of Covid travel restrictions and each orphanage had different rules and regulations that we had to follow. Despite this we were thrilled by the amount we were able to do, the volunteers from our graduates and some fellow Romaian friends, and the smiles, fun and love that was able to be shared. I was reminded again of the resilency of our kids and the power of Faith, Hope, and Love. The second camp was a week of day camps with kids 6-13 from Rosiori. The theme was the miracles of Jesus and we brought the kids each day to the Boys Transition House in Nenciulesti. I was in charge of lunches and snacks and leading craft time. Two of my favorite memories of the week were the singing time. The kids loved to sing and everytime that we sang the song "Stiu Cine Sunt" (I know who I am), which is a song that talks about who we are in Christ, and I saw the kids singing the words with passion and energy, I would get tears in my eyes and would pray "Lord let these words be true in their lives!" That is our deepest desire, that each child would know who they are in Christ. It is such a contrast to go from being an orphan with "no worth," to being a child of THE KING, with infinite worth. The other favorite moment was after lunch each day each team would tell me thank you for the meal. It started out with an impromptu shout out instigated by one of the team leaders with a traditional romanian thank you "Sarat mana pentru masa." (I kiss your hand for the meal) and it turned into a competition between the teams to come up with a different poem or chant each day to say thank you. It made me laugh every day!

The Boy in the third picture, Alex, attached himself to my side and said he was going to be glued to me all day. I told him he'd have to help cook, he said "no problem," then I told him he'd have to help clean up "No problem." Then I told him he'd have to help clean bathrooms, he thought a second and decided to go play! The next camp was a day camp with kids of all ages from Peris and Voluntari. We did lesson and game time out at Snagov in the big yard and then they came to Pipera for lunch and swim time in the afternoon. I was a leader of the red team, which was the girls' team. We had a slight disadvantage to the highly athletic boys' teams, but we were able to come from behind and win first place for the week! It was very exciting!

Camps 4 and 5 were teen camps from Rosiori. We were able to bring them up to Bucuresti and they were able to stay overnight. It was only one night and two days for each group so we packed in those days. We had lessons, worship, games, scavengerhunt, pool time, camp fire, more games, meals, more games, and a bit of hang out time. We are continuing to see the trend in Rosiori that teens are being placed in the orphanage often, so we have quite a few "new" kids that haven't been in the system and then as teens find themselves in the orphanage. It is a very hard transition and I'm so glad that we can provide a place for them to feel safe and loved.

It was a terrific summer and I'm so thankful to God for his provision, my staff and volunteers for all of their work, and all or you who support us in many different ways. Thank you!