Tarnaveni Gypsy VBS pictures

We're having such a great week at our Tarnaveni gypsy VBS! 

Monday, June 27, 2011

My oh my how time is flying by! 

I feel like M'Kayla and I just boarded our flight  to Bucharest yesterday, eager to begin our summer of ministry.

The first ACF American mission team departed home to America  on Friday and M'Kayla and I begin yet another new program tomorrow!  We will be hosting a weeklong vacation Bible school for over 100 of the Tarnaveni gyspy children.

We're expecting around 60 of the younger kids during the morning session and another 60 of the older ones during the afternoon session. While 120+ kids (per day)is quite a bit to handle, we're excited about this unique opportunity to minister to some of the most precious kiddos who are often "looked over" and forgotten. With the help of all of our amazing translators, we know we will have a fantastic week : )

We already have relationships (from years past ) with several of the kids attending and it's so great to have an opportunity to spend more time with them sharing the most important news we possibly can. 

M"Kayla and I just wanted to show some love to Another Child Foundation :)

Sunday, June 26, 2011

What an incredible week we have had!

God’s presence was felt each and every day as we worked with the older girls (and a few boys) from the Zau orphanage and from the Buckner group home. I was surprised yet also grateful with how quickly and deeply relationships formed with so many kids despite the tremendous emotional and mental trauma they have already had in their young lives. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself… let me start with last Saturday (June 18th)...

M’Kayla and I left our work at the Child Developmental Center in Tarnaveni to help the first mission team from America with their camp at Harghita Christian Centre for the week. The camp was located in the heart of the beautiful Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania—the facility, the crisp mountain air, and the view was fantastic!

Every morning began with breakfast and worship and was followed by a rotation of Bible study, recreation, crafts, and music. After lunch we would do different activities with the kids such as hiking, water balloon fights, relay races, sand volleyball, basketball, Romanian football (soccer), face painting, and nail painting. There were also different activities planned for each evening. One night we had a movie night experience (popcorn included) where we showed the film “Rio.” The next evening was a talent show where several of the kids enjoyed showing off their dance moves and talented voices. Another night the kids got competitive where they challenged each other in “Minute to Win it” games. We wrapped up the week with an awesome bonfire complete with s’mores, drinks, music and even glow sticks!

Our goal was that, by the end of the week, every child know how much we love them and want the best for their future and how much more God loves them and has a plan for every one of them. I definitely believe that we accomplished our goal.  We continually stressed the importance of having God-given dreams for their life because many of them are approaching the end of high school and will soon be forced to survive on their own. It was heart breaking to see how much they struggled with thinking of life outside of the orphanage and how very few of them had actually given much thought to goals they wanted to accomplish or what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. We talked about the importance of the daily decisions they make but that the most important and life altering decision they can ever make is to have a relationship with Christ. It was great to see how many of the kids wanted to learn more about Jesus and there were even a few who were confident in their faith despite the difficult circumstances they have been through.

The most encouraging example of this that I saw all week came from two young women who have been raised in the orphanage for most of their lives. Although both of these young ladies are deaf and communicate only through hand gestures, they make it both obvious and apparent to everyone they come into contact with how much they love the Lord. Both of the girls communicated how they love to read their Bibles and pray every night as they fall asleep and they even found a way to ask me if I would see them in heaven one day. I quickly understood their hand motions as they described with Jesus, the Bible, and heaven and was so excited to reply with an emphatic “DA!” that I WOULD be seeing them again! The love, excitement, and purity of heart of those two is something I will never forget. Despite the fact that they have each had such a rough childhood being raised in an orphanage with little means of communication, they choose to praise the Lord and show their love for Him continually. I was also told that in the Bible Study portion of the morning activities, several of the kids from each group prayed the prayer of salvation for the first time to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior! Such encouraging news.

While I was expecting some attitudes and participation issues because most of the kids were older, the exact opposite was true! They were all so thankful and appreciative of absolutely everything throughout the week and you could tell how much they enjoyed the change of atmosphere away from the orphanage and group home. We were all able to overcome the Romanian-English language barrier through universal signs such a smile, a hug, a simple “I love you”, and also with the help of some amazing translators. It never ceases to amaze me how great they are with all the kids.

This week was both challenging and encouraging for every American team member involved. It was painful to tell each and every child goodbye as the bus rolled away back to the orphanage, but hopefully we will see each and every child again someday because of the seeds that were planted this week.

I wish we were able to share pictures of the kids from this amazing week but there are some legal issues involved since all of the children are Romanian orphans and we’re not allowed to publish any kind of pictures of them.

Just take our word for it—the children all absolutely beautiful :)

Saturday, June 18, 2011

M’Kayla and I packed up our bags this morning and left Tarnaveni for a week of camp with all the kids! We got to meet up with the first missions team today and I can already tell that we are going to have a fantastic week of camp. The team has so much life and so many great ideas for this week— we're all so excited!

Friday, June 17, 201

Today M’Kayla and I had a “McDonalds and a movie” day with the girls from the Buckner group home after finishing up our last program with the 5 year olds at the CDC in the morning.  The group home girls had never been to the “cinema” in town so it was a treat and a new experience for all of them! There was a comedy playing that was in English with Romanian subtitles so that everyone could have a chance to enjoy the movie—Alexandra said that this is how most of the movies are. They must learn to watch American movies with Romanian subtitles at a very young age! Their theatres are about twice the size of our regular theatres in America and they’re set up in more of an actual theatre style than ours are. We even got our own private viewing for the day! It was so interesting to watch it in a different country because there are no trailers or advertisements of any kind. They simply close all the curtains (for the doors) and start playing the movie right away. As soon as the movie is over, they play the credits for a couple of seconds and then it shuts right off. Very interesting to see how they do it over here! After the movie we all went for supper at McDonalds which is also something that the girls rarely get. We all had a full meal and a delicious ice cream cone afterwards – everyone had full tummies for the walk back home!

M’Kayla and I meet up with the first mission trip team tomorrow and head to camp for the week with all the kids from the Zau orphanage and the girls from the group home. We are so excited to work with the kids all week that we have been building relationships with since we have arrived in Romania. Pray for all the kids to be receptive of what we are trying to teach them and for them to participate in what we are doing—a lot of them are very close to our age! They usually participate very well (because we always make sure to  participate WITH them to put them more at ease) but it’s always something to keep in mind and pray over!

We leave our Hotel Iris (home sweet home) tomorrow for a new adventure :) 

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

I definitely have huge respect for how much the Romanian people walk to get where they need to be!

Today, we got a taste of their life where we got to walk walk walk all day long! Instead of having the Buckner van pick us up from Hotel Iris to go to the CDC this morning (as usual), we volunteered to walk so we could have a chance to see more of the city and have a new experience. The 30 minute walk was beautiful and M’Kayla and I recognized several of the houses and neighborhoods where the kids from the CDC live. After doing our morning program at the CDC with the 4-5 year olds, we hopped onto our bus to TM to bring the Buckner group home kids to the TM Zoo! After getting all the kids an ice cream treat in the city, we did a 45 minute hike up to the zoo (soon after starting our walk we realized that the zoo sat on top of two large hills haha). Needless to say, we had some GREAT exercise and it was so neat to experience a Romanian zoo! The kids loved getting to see the panther, jaguar, and baby wolves—they were all new additions. Everyone had a great time and a large appetite once we were finished hiking back down the hills and on the way home. 

Pray for us as we wrap up this week and prepare to bring these kids and the kids from Zau orphanage to camp next week with the first mission trip team! 

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

 M’Kayla and I are getting better and better with learning our way around Tarnaveni. We now know how to walk to the Penny Market, the local Baptist church, a little pizza place with free Wifi (one of our favorite places), and now to the Child Developmental Center! It’s about a 30 minute walk from our hotel but it’s a straight shot from our hotel so it’s pretty simple. David, one of our translators met up with us so we wouldn’t get lost for our first time walking there—he’s so awesome! We did our morning program with the CDC kids as usual but instead of teaching the afternoon kids as well, we went to visit the new Buckner group home in TM! We took a city bus to get to TM from Tarnaveni—it was so pretty to see all the fields and hills along the way. We managed to figure out where to get off (haha) and we met up with Alexandra and went to the group home. The group home is brand new (only two months old) and it is beautiful! Eight girls that moved from the Zau orphanage live there along with the two kids from the couple that lives there to take care of all the kids. There is plenty of space for all the kids and even a nice yard and driveway for them to have plenty of space outdoors. During our visit, a hairdresser from their local church came over to cut all the kids hair. The girls were so excited about their new hairdos and hairstyles. The couple that lives there and the mentor were so kind and hospitable; their love for the children radiated through their actions and words.  It made me so happy to see that the girls from Zau were in such great hands.

Pray for us to keep our energy up : )

Monday, June 13, 2011

Happy Romanian holiday! Everyone here has the day off from work and from school which means that the kids who normally go to the Child Developmental Center Monday-Friday also have the day off. Thus, the day off for us! Everyone wins!

We decided to do some sight seeing and exploring so Gabi brought us to tour a Romanian salt mine about an hour outside of Taranevan—it was so cool! After walking down about 20 flights of stairs to get to the bottom of the mine, there was a “mini amusement park “ complete with lights, a ferris wheel, ping pong, bowling, putt putt golf, and even row boats (who knew you could go boat riding in the bottom of a mine?!) Needless to say, it was an awesome experience and a  great workout going back UP the 20 flights of stairs—just ask M’Kayla ;). After grabbing some lunch in town we also got to do some jewelry shopping at a little market we found-those always have the best jewelry! We both got to load up on hand spun, hand painted glass earrings to bring home to share with everyone—get excited! To finish an already great day, we got to play my favorite sport: VOLLEYBALL. It made my heart so happy to have a chance to play while we’re over here! 

Back to work with all our kiddos at the CDC in the morning : ))

Saturday, June 11, 2011

What a successful day we had with all the kids from the Tarnaveni group homes! Although we had to switch to an "indoor picnic" because of the rainy/cold weather,it was still a great success. Most of the kids from these groups homes are older kids and several of them have special needs. There were quite a few of them right around our age or even older. However, everyone participated beautifully in our bible study and programs that we put on for them! It was such a huge relief that none of the older boys had an attitude and really enjoyed themselves. 

The favorite activity of the day was a game M'Kayla knew called the "duct tape game" where one person from each time is taped with a few strips of duct tape and the members of their team throw cotton balls at them. The team with the most cotton balls that stick WINS! Everyone wanted to be the person that got taped up-- too funny :) 

Liviu and all of the wonderful CDC staff cooked up a delicious lunch for everyone including grilled chicken and Romanian grilled beef "wraps" that are apparently very popular at picnics..so yummy! They also served soft drinks and sweets (which is a huge treat for these kids)so needless to say, the kids loved that as well!

It was great to have a chance to reach out to all of these kids and show them Christ's love! M'Kayla and I will start going to the Targu Mures group homes next week to work with the girls in the Buckner group home :)

Night!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

What a busy past few days we have had!
We have been working since Monday with the 3-4 year olds and the 5-6 year olds at the Child Development Center. We work with the younger children during the morning and then with the older after-school kids during the afternoon. It has been so awesome to watch them learn from what we are teaching despite the Romanian-English language barrier! Our translators have been so great with the kids and they relate our message of Christ’s love so well to the kids.  So far we’ve covered “Jesus Loves the Children”, “Jesus Works Miracles”, “Hosanna to Jesus!”, and “Jesus Rose From the Dead”. The kids really loved the story of how Jesus healed the blind man and the lame because they got to act them out. Their favorite part was actually lifting one of their classmate “through the roof” of where Jesus was preaching to the crowd so that the lame man could be healed. I was so happy they didn’t drop him when they were lifting him up so high off the ground! We’re having so much fun with all the kids even though we’re definitely exhausted by the end every day! The endless games of “Rosta Rosta Gusga” (Duck Duck Goose) and “Tara Tara Ramush Da” (Red Rover) are some of their favorites on a daily basis. Yesterday we also started going to the Taranevan group homes in the evening. There are three group homes in Taranevan where the kids now live that have come from the orphanage. We are going to our second group home tonight and we just found out that it is an all boy home! I hope they’ll be receptive of two American girls who can’t speak much Romanian…who knows, maybe they will actually appreciate it it haha :) Be thinking of us as we embark on all of our Romanian adventures--we’re holding a picnic on Saturday for all of the group home kids!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

For the past two days, M’Kayla and I have had a chance to enjoy some “down time” and get to know Taranevan fairly well before we start all of our work with the kids. Yesterday we were able to plan, organize, and get all of the needed supplies for the upcoming week of activities, Bible study, and lessons we will have with the kids. During the morning we will be having a Bible lesson and activity for the younger children at the Child Development Center and during the afternoon we will do the same for the older children at the CDC. During the evening we will be visiting the local group homes and doing activities with them as well. The group homes we will be visiting house somewhere around 10-15 older teenagers that have had the opportunity to leave the orphanage. We are so excited to get to work and interact with the kids! Today we attended a morning and evening service at the local Romanian Baptist Church in Taranvan. It was such an awesome experience to sing some of the worship songs in English while we listened to them sing it in Romanian! Songs such as “Lord I Lift Your Name on High” and “As the Deer” are popular songs in both Romanian and American churches. We even had a little surprise whenever Leviu asked us to sing in front of the congregation for the evening service! We also got to observe the Lord’s Supper in a different country—it was so neat to hear the blessings of the body and of the blood in a different language whenever we knew exactly what he was praying for.

Our work at the CDC starts bright and early!

Keep us in your thoughts :)

Friday, June 3, 2011

Abbey here!

M’Kayla and I are safe in Taranevan in the Iris hotel after 22+ hours of traveling it took to get here. The 4 hour drive to Houston, 9 hour flight to Paris, 3 hour flight to Bucharest, and 6 hour drive to Taranevan were all worth it to finally be HERE in ROMANIA!! Needless to say, we crashed last night as soon as we got to our hotel and slept quite soundly through the night. We were able to wake up late this morning, exchange some of our money into lei (the Romanian currency) and then head to the Zau orphanage with some of the Buckner volunteers. At the orphanage we did “mini makeovers” for the girls including French braiding, manicures, and makeup. The girls definitely loved it and kept exclaiming “frumosa!” (Romanian word for beautiful) when they looked into the mirror. The girls are all so beautiful and they love having older girls to spend some girl time with them—it’s something they rarely get to experience in the orphanage.  We all had a great time and it was neat to finally see and experience the Zau orphanage after hearing about it. The number of kids who have to live there has gradually decreased over the years thanks to the help of Buckner Foundation. Tomorrow M’Kayla and I will be scheduling and planning the programs and Bible studies for the next two weeks at the Child Developmental Center. Keep us in your prayers as we minister to these precious kiddos!

Night America :)