Not in Romania quite yet...

Hello everyone. We are in Milanàs airport for another day. We arrived yesterday, spent a great afternoon in the City and then when we returned to the airport, we found that our flight was cancelled due to fog. It is BAD fog too, and may actually end up delaying us again today. We were put up in a nice hotel last night, given transòportation and dinner. This morning our bus was 30 minutes late, but it was okay because we have to wait until 2pm for another flight to Timisoara. Even then, there may not be space for us. Pray there is. Thanks for your prayers....more to come!

Here we go again!

Hello friends! Alissa here, taking another group over to Romania to work with people who've been oppressed and rejected by society. Josh and Tyler (my brother) are going to travel with me to Timisoara. We will be staying with Doug and Roberta Moore, who are part of International Messengers. They operate River of Life Care Home in Timisoara, for un-wed mothers and their children. We will also hopefully be traveling two hours north to stay in a small Christian orphanage in Oradea. There, we will have a chance to minister to the small children abandoned by their parents, and also visit with some Romanian youth from the neighborhood. We will be gone for two weeks, and we would really appreciate your prayers. This blog will be updated whenever we can find an internet cafe...and hopefully we can add photos as well! God bless!

A few of the orphans that we got to play with!!

Hopy getting her grove on at the begining of a VBS day.

Getting Started

Before each day began we gathered everyone together to pray, sing, and go over a scriptural memory verse. After this all the children were broken up into 3 groups were we did smaller individual activates.

Waving with new gloves!

On the last day of VBS, we handed out gloves to everyone. They waved to us as we took a picture.

Alissa with a Gypsie Girl

VBS was extremely interesting. Several languages were spoken, including the Gypsies natural language, gypsy. Here is the one of many girls that were taught about Jesus through, crafts, songs, Bible studies, games, and smiles.

Help me!

I shall never complain about US driving after being behind the wheel in a former communist country, Romania. The motto, "No cop, no stop" applies to many drivers there.

The Foundation workers

Pictured are the Foundation workers. Some of them translated, others directly interacted with the children, and others helped in areas of cooking and cleaning.

The Team and Dana after church

Shawn

Shawn and the boys at the Foundation

Shawn and Charice with spoons on their noses

After Romania we spent a day and a half in Budapest. That is when things got a tad bit loopy!

The ladies putting on their killer smiles

The girls minus the one guy.

Shawn Preaching

Shawn got to preach the first weekend we were in Timisoura.

Parliament Building in Budapest. I threw it in for kicks.

Dana and Charice. Dana did a lot of translating for us.

This was the coolest pic taken on the trip. thanks Charice :)

Alissa with a new skirt

Hopy at the Foundation where we did a VBS

Alissa at the Orphanage

Alissa with her brother Tyler's birth father in Romania

From Romania with love.

Hey everyone, we're back in the States, and I am thankful to be able to report that we are all safe, and though we had missing luggage, it was all returned safe and undamaged this morning around 5am. I am missing the kids already, but I'm thankful for all the prayer that you have been lifting us and them in. I know that this trip was beneficial to all of us who went, and no moment of ministry was void. Pictures would tell you a lot, but the stories that we cannot begin to convey meaning through, will be with each of us for the rest of our lives. We truly felt your prayers, and I want to again thank you for that. It was hard being away, doing things that were sometimes uncomfortable, changing our schedule at almost every step, but God sure used us. I am also glad that we now have seen new ways where we can help Romania. I know that for me, even though this was my third time in Romania, I came away with a new understanding, and a new passion. I am looking forward to being able to go back and to further serve the people there. Please continue to pray for direction for each of us individually, that we would listen to what God wants for our lives and ministry.

Group VBS Picture

This is a picture of the children that attended VBS at the Foundation. This was our final day of Bible school and the children were waving to show off their new gloves. We will miss them!

So we have figured out the city of Oradea pretty well....as you can see we found our way back to an internet cafe...one that we are not smoked out of Praise the Lord. Today we had planned to go to Cluj, but due to a 3 hour trek each way, we decided against it. So we're spending the day walking around, doing some european shopp'n...you guys can have pity fr shawn as he has to deal with 3 girls in all these stores...hahaha. Anyways, I pretty much want to take home 50 kids from here....probably more. We went to the orphan girls home last night, and my heart was so torn....i just wanted to chill with them for a week or more! I scared them with the few Romanian words I know, because they would say something about us, and I would ask "what did you say?".....the looks spoke....."oh my goodness she heard what I said." LOL I knew enough to scare them.....so they whispered from then on...whoops. :-) Can't wait to share stories. Except for all you family and friends, I would soooooo not miss the states if I moved here. (dad, and mom don't freak out....i haven't bought a house....yet ;-)) until later---alissa

What to say . . .

Hey all,
I just wanted to drop a line and say things are very good here in Romania. It has been amazing to see God work in such glorious ways. Some of the childern that we worked with had a great foundation that we were able to build on. For others it was their first introduction to the Gospel. Another great testimony involves an employee at the "foundation" where we were doing VBS. This individual was very uncertain in his faith and we were able sit down with him to listen and then speak to his life. This made a huge difference in his life and I believe he walked away knowing in his heart that Jesus was his Saviour and Lord. Other cool stuff included me (Shawn) shopping on our off day with three women (Thank you mother for preparing me at such a young age for this!). We also tried to evangelize Mormons, but they were not intersted. I think they were taken a bit off guard having other people approach them about faith. There is so much more that can be said but this blog can only do so much!

Thanks to all and Blessings!

Yeah God

Yeah God is a term that we have all coined during this trip to describe wonderful things that are happening. For instance, all of our awesome meals here have been Yeah God experiences...if you know what I mean! : ) In reality though, this entire trip has been one big Yeah God. While our plans have changed, things have gone smoothly and we are all learning and growing so much. The entire team will have so many wonderful things to share with all of you when we return. Our apologies for the lack of updated pictures. Our access to the internet and appropriate equippment has limited our ability to post pictures. Please don't worry though, we are taking pictures of EVERYTHING! Tomorrow will be our final day of VBS at the Foundation. We have grown to love the children and it will be very difficult to say goodbye. I know that we will all leave a piece of our hearts here as well as bringing a piece of Romania back with us. God is blessing the people here and we are really enjoying the chance to be a part of God's work here. Please continue to pray that God will speak to the children through us as we spend our last day with them. Thank you for all of your support! We love you all and look forward to seeing you soon! -Charice

10cents for 15 minutes.

So we finally found a clean, non-smokey computer hookup, so we're praising God! We cannot believe that it is already Thursday. These two weeks are just flying by! One day left of VBS, so pray that our influence will be great.....that God's love would be remembered about our visit. We are making friends with the translators at the foundation, and right now we are all hanging out. Tonight we (me...alissa and Hope) are cooking American Mac'n'Cheese! We are probably going to play UNO too. We are getting sooooooooo full with all the Romanian cooking. They feed us so much food.....we just have to remind ourselves that at least their food doesn't have as much sugar, so when they give us sweets we can chow away! ;-) I don't know what else to say.....oh yeah, ask shawn about the gigantic dog that almost ate his leg while he was "defending" us all on the street ;-).

Our first few days in Romania

Hey everyone, I am sorry that we did not have internet. The day after we posted in Budapest.....actually the same day, we were picked up by someone from the foundation, who drove us straight to the orphanage so we could try and catch up on some much needed sleep. It was great. The next afternoon we caught a transit to Timisoara, which took about 3 hours.......pfew....cramped in the back? NOT FUN. At doug and robertas we had a ton of fun playing with the children, and making friends with the pregnant women there. Seeing the Roman family was great for me...*alissa. We are doing well, and are now back in Oradea. God bless!