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Pace! ("Peace", a common greeting between Christians here!). I hope this email finds you healthy and happy! I am excited to update you on what all has been going on here in Romania! But first, I want to ask you to pray for our ministry. We are hoping to launch our first public Bible study here very soon, but have had some delays. Will you pray for God's perfect will and timing in this?
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Thanksgiving dinner!
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This Thanksgiving was such a blessing! The holidays are hard on the mission field, but friends like these made Thanksgiving so much easier! The Risner's and I prepared an American Thanksgiving feast, and invited all our friends to come celebrate. My favorite moment of the night was when we passed around a pumpkin, writing on it what we were thankful for. Our Hindu friend, Manoj, wrote what translates as "this moment". It summed up my feelings exactly!
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Christmas candy tradition continues!
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Every Christmas since I moved to Romania, Pam and I have created goodie packages of Christmas sweets- candies and cookies, and have passed them out to our friends, neighbors, and to businesses in the community. We continued on the tradition this year in Brasov, passing out nearly 20 boxes of American Chocolate Chip cookies! It was such a joy to see the looks on people faces (some of whom we knew, some we didn't), when we brought them these small gifts.
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Sharing our crayons!!!!
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Another huge joy of the Christmas season was traveling back to Oradea and Santandrei to visit our ministry there! We gave away shoes and toys to the kids in the gypsy community, and on Sunday we got to see them learning about Jesus's birth with Lavi. It was amazing to see how these kids have grown and how the teaching there is having an impact. When I first started with them, they did not share things well, at all. I had to give them each their own crayon and then they had to switch when they wanted another color. If I put the box down, someone would grab a handful and not share them. While we were there, I watched Lavi explain to the kids that she would put the crayons in the middle, and they were to share, asking for the color they need, and only use one at a time. Sure enough, she set a big pile of crayons in the middle of the table, and they all shared nicely! It's the little things!
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Covrigi- pretzels!
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As the weather has gotten colder (much colder) our market finds these days look like fresh pretzels, homemade pickles, or local honey. However, we are still going to the market when we can, and to many other places in order to build relationships. Please pray for us as we interact with the people here, that God will open up doors!
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