Off again to home...

We're off this morning at 8:40am...Friday morning. We'll be going back to Budapest to debrief this week & pray about what God has for us next either at home or abroad. Please keep us in prayer as we have a 4 hour drive today & then flights home tomorrow (Sandy, Jon & Tyler). Janelle, Tiffany & I are going to also need prayer for safety & wisdom (and also a sense of adventure) as we stay an extra week in Switzerland just for fun. It's much needed for all three of us.

When I get back, you'll all get a full report of what we did & how God worked through us! If any of you would like to get it in person over coffee, just call or email! I'd be happy to meet up with you!

Half Way Through

Buna Ziua! (Boonuh Zeewah!)

We are now in Cornesti, which is just outside of Timisoara. We spent the last few days in Sistarovat, at the camp at the foot of the mountains. We had a CRAZY day with orphanage kids on Saturday, and spent a lot of time getting to know the other camp counselors who'd been there for a few weeks already. Some of the orphans had already met the counselors, so it was easy to talk with them.

The road to get to the camp was as bumpy as riding a horse....our bottoms hardly touched the seats all the way up. Ha. Anyway, now we're here at the Care Home in Cornesti....and they paved the ROAD! Praise God.

Last night my brother Tyler & I went to see his biological family. It was so touching. His sister Daniella is back from Spain, and it was SO good to see her, as we haven't seen her since 2002. She speaks a bit of Spanish now, so we could talk with her a bit more too without the need of an interpreter...although I wished I could have brushed up on my Spanish earlier.

Tomorrow we will have a day camp for the elderly & then Thursday a day camp for the village children. The kids at the care home now are greatly troubled children, and have been so abused....pray for them & their mothers.

Also, please pray for the missionaries here, as a few have been having some serious health issues & need healing.

This is all for now. Until later, Bless you!

WE're heading out! Tiffany, I and Tyler are sittingin the terminal, and they've just started boarding. Please pray for us as we head out. Janelle's flight was delayed from LA...apparently we'll be holding the flight until she arrives. Pray all of our connections meet us when we get to Budapest & that we will all be safe traveling. Plray for clarity of mind & purity in our hearts. We're all excited & nervous. Leave us comments & we'll try to update when we can. Bless you who have committed to praying for us...your prayers will be answered. God is good. Ceau!

Heading out again!

Once again, there will be a few people traveling to Romania to work with Gypsies, orphans, unwed mothers, their kids & the elderly. If you're interested in coming along, please leave a comment on here, or call me! I'd love to talk with you about going. Cost is $1500, dates are August 26th (evening) through September 5th.

The following needs to be completed before we can add you to our group. Thanks!!

Romania--August 26-September 5
First Name: ­­­­_________________________
Last Name: ___________________________
Address: ______________________________________________________
Telephone: ( ) ______________________
E-Mail Address: _______________________
Age: ________ Birthdate: ___________________

Do you have a current passport? _____________
(If not, apply now as it takes 4-6 weeks to have one processed.)
If yes, what is your passport number? (Please submit photocopy of your passport also.)


1. Why do you want to go? What do you expect?




2. Have you traveled outside the U.S.? If so, where and how long?




3. What strengths do you bring to the team?




4. What weaknesses do you bring to the team?


Total Cost: $1,500
*$300 deposit due June 14th
*$500 due by July 12th
*$500 due by July 26th
*$200 due by August 9th

Tell Us About You

My name_______________________________________________________
My family_______________________________________________________
Occupation______________________________________________________
I became a Christian________________________________________________
Childhood ambition_________________________________________________
Fondest childhood memory____________________________________________
Favorite book, music, and movie________________________________________
Ideal retreat______________________________________________________
Least favorite school subject___________________________________________
My gift(s) is/are___________________________________________________
Wildest dream_____________________________________________________
Greatest joy_______________________________________________________
Biggest challenge___________________________________________________
God created me to__________________________________________________
Perfect day_______________________________________________________
I regret__________________________________________________________
Indulgence________________________________________________________
Spare time I_______________________________________________________
Hardest or most difficult time___________________________________________
I just love________________________________________________________
Inspiration_________________________________________________________
Words that describe me are____________________________________________
If I could I would____________________________________________________
My life____________________________________________________________

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!

Romeo and Juliet

We had balconies off of our rooms in Budapest so the three of us girls did a little rendition of Romeo and Juliet. Here are two of the balcony stars.....

Catching up on some sleep

We all tried to catch up on some sleep while at the Amsterdam International Airport. This nap was taken right before the four of us (among others traveling to Budapest) got on a bus that took us on a scenic tour of the airport before it brought us to our airplane. It was a rather interesting experience......

budapest burgerking

we did not meet our contact last night, but we are at a hotel, waiting and praying to get in touch w some1 soon. pray for us. we r safe, just a bit confused.thanks.

In MSP Airport

This is a picture of the four of us right before we left for Romania. This was the begining of 26 hours of travel. Good times.

Our Places of Ministry

Through contacts of Alissa, we will be ministering in Oradea and Timisoara. You can find these towns on the western side of Romania.

The word minister means "to serve" in the Hebrew and Greek (Heb. Sharath, Gk. diakoneo). I point this out, because often, American Christianity forgets the meaning of Biblical ministry. Jesus came to serve, not to be served. So to are all Christians called to serve as well.

Click here to listen to the introduction!

Off We Go!

This trip is for us all and most significantly, for Jesus Christ. The four of us go being called by the Lord. As we serve the poor, proclaim liberty to the captives, take part in the recovering of sight to the blind, and set at liberty the captives, we do so being anointed by God for this very mission (please see Luke 4:18-19).

We encourage you to check back often. Through the means of technology and more specifically this blog, we can update you with words and pictures. We will do so as much as the environment around us allows. We also encourage you to leaves notes and pictures on this blog! Technology is a wonderful thing, so may we all use it for the edification of believers and more pointedly for the glory of God!

Together with Christ,

Shawn, Charice, Alissa, Hope