Snow, snow, snow...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....it has been snowing almost daily since last Thursday. We haven't had this much snow in many years, I think since our first winter here. We have about a foot of snow on the ground and it is snowing again today!


The kids have loved playing in the snow. We actually had 60 degree weather last week so when the wood stock was low we weren't too worried. When it got colder and started snowing we became a little worried we were going to run out of wood before our next load came yesterday but we cut out one fire and shut the room off and saved wood. We have been living with 8 people in two rooms. It is a challenge and I admire many Romanian families who live in a room all winter to save on heat! In such cramped quarters I feel like the old woman in the shoe who had so many children she didn't know what to do!! We will plan a little better for next winter. We have already ordered our wood to all be here by July so we don't run out!


I am thankful for all those who are praying for our situation to be resolved. We trust and are confident in God's love and protection for us and our family. He holds the twins future in His hands and we are confident that future is with our family, we just don't know when exactly that will be.
We are happy to know that our file has been sent to Marghita and we are awaiting word on our new court date.



On a lighter note. I hear the most interesting conversations in my house. All six kids are mixing their languages. So, I hear things like: "esti done", "eu am slept aici", "Iubesc pe dog", now if you don't know Romanian I know these sayings will not be so amusing to you but it is very amusing to hear.
My next favorite thing is to hear Nate whine in Romanian. He is usually whining at Georgie. Nate thinks that all 54 Hot Wheels cars should be his alone and he always chases after Georgie saying "vreau aia", I have to remember that even though it sounds funny to hear him whining in Romanian that I must discipline him when I hear it.
My oven has been broken for two months now. Thank the Lord for Kendra who makes lots of good soups! I really don't want to buy a new oven here because it will be a down grade...meaning I would get a much smaller oven and I think I would really regret that so I am trying to be patient while waiting to find the alusive part we need.
Meanwhile I received a counter top mini oven from a friend. I have made mini pizza's in it and mini cookies and Kendra is trying muffins tonight!
I will be driving the twins back to Marghita tomorrow. Yes, I know scary thinking of a girl from South Carolina driving in the snow but our van is really good in the snow so I am not worried. Then on Thursday I will go visit a day center that ministers to 7 children. I'll tell you all about it when I return...just pray I don't get lost and I don't get a flat tire (I did on Sunday) and that I don't run into really bad roads...yes mom I will drive slowly :).

Life

We have lots of different things going on so this will be a conglomeration of different stories.
First of all, the twins saga continues. I found out the other day that whenever we do get our court date...could be up to two months, that even if we are granted custody we will have to wait 45 more days to bring them home. So, we quite possibly are looking at not until after their 5th birthday! For those of you who wonder why we told them so soon that we wanted to be their parents, this was supposed to be a quick and easy case but the child protective services in Oradea turned it into something complicated. If we had known it would be this long of a wait just to get them in our home we would have never told them so soon! Baron has no doubts that we will get them but the waiting is hard. These are such important moments of their life. We wanted to get them before scars were too deep routed to heal but God can heal all hearts and wounds and we have faith that He will guide us in helping our twins heal as we show them that God loves them unconditionally and that we love them too!
One of the hardest things was the day we went to court I got a phone call from my friend who was staying with the boys. She told me Zach was leaping and dancing through the house shouting out, "this is the day the twins become ours!" She wasn't sure what to tell him so I gave him the news over the phone. This is hard on our kids too. Even Nate asks where they are from time to time.

Those of you who homeschool your kids know how I feel...I feel like the boys need someone besides me in their lives to teach them something, to influence them. I don't want them to be "momma boys". So, I had been wondering what in the world we could do for them. We went to a gym to check on gymnastics for JaneBatson, Kendra's little girl. It turns out there are no gymnastics teachers for girls but they do have Greco-Roman fighting for boys. So, we signed Zach and Spence up for lessons! They went Friday for the first time and loved it. The teacher, Avraam (Abraham), is so nice and friendly. I felt so comfortable leaving them there. They will go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. I am trying to feed them lots of protein. He was a little worried about how skinny Zach is. It will be a good outlet for them to meet other Romanian boys their age and beef up on their language skills.

We have a mess on our hands! Our attic has been finished for 5 years now but the stairs are outside the house. Now that we will have 5 boys in one room we felt we needed to expand a little. The boys room now is used partly for school so we are putting stairs inside the house so that Baron and I can move upstairs and our room can become the school room and the boys can have a bigger room. They should complete the job on Monday. The stairs will look a little abnormal, we bought a pre-fabricated spiral staircase but it wasn't tall enough to reach so they had to build a platform with two steps going up to it and then the spiral stairs.

I am excited that we get to send our oldest, Zach, to America this summer for about a month. We decided it would be good for him to get away from home for a little while and go to camp. He will go back with my parents the end of May. He will go to camp at the Wilds the second week of June and then hopefully out to Missouri for a week to see his other grandparents. We will miss him terribly but we pray it will be a good thing for him.

Last but definately not least...the angels are rejoicing in heaven due to a new believer! A friend of Dorina's has come on and off over the past few years but everytime we talked with her something was keeping her from a real relationship with God. She, just like many others here, had alot of religious baggage she was carrying and was having a hard time releasing it and accepting the truth. The past few months she has been coming to church faithfully and we visited her again recently and we could sense a change in her. We noticed she was singing so happily and loudly at church, and she told us she had been reading her Bible and studying and that she wanted to be baptized. So, Baron gave her a Bible study to do and she came over last week and shared just a wonderful testimony of the grace of God. It was so clear she was believing in Christ alone now! I wish I could share the whole conversation with you all, it was such a blessing for me to just hear her talk about the religious baggage she released and that the truth had set her free. She told me that the book of John really opened her eyes...it is all about faith she told me. It is always so encouraging to see someone changed by Christ. She is telling everyone she knows about the change Christ as made in her! Praise God!