Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is here. I love this time of year. It comes and goes so fast. I hope to just slow down and enjoy the gift of Jesus this next month! We are in Vienna, Austria for a nice little break from the normal routine. This is the twins first time out of Romania and they are loving it. Everything is so great. We were just sitting at the Hungarian border in the fog and Joey thought Hungary was such a cool place. We went to Toys R Us today with 6 kids. They each drew a siblings name and bought a gift for that person. We had to keep reminding the twins that they were picking out a gift for someone else but they did really well! I had Joey, Nate, and Spencer with me. We'll see if Joey and Gina can keep a secret what they got for the person they shopped for! This is their first year to celebrate Thanksigiving with us. I don't remember why but we didn't have them last year. We are so THANKFUL to have our whole family together this year! So, glad after the holiday's we don't have to make the drive back to the children's home with them. So glad the sentence on the paper says it's irrivocable, they are ours. Praying for an final adoption court date soon after the holidays.
We have so much to be thankful for. God's amazing grace to us. We get a gift we don't deserve! How marvelous, how wonderful is our Savior's love for us! We have a network of family and friends who pray for us and support us and love us! Through all the economic difficulties in America people have continued to give and our support level has not dropped at all. We have seen many people suffer in Romania through this crisis and thanks to you and your faithful giving we have been able to pass on the blessing of helping them with their needs.
We have God's peace that he gives to us when our hearts are fixed on Him. Through all the pain and trials we can know He cares for us and the trying of our faith produces patience. Pray for us this holiday season as we reach out to those in need. This time of year seems to open more doors for ministry. We pray that we will be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leading. Everything we do in Lugoj, Romania is His work. Anything accomplished is because of Him alone. He alone is worthy of our love and praise. We are so thankful and pray that you all have a blessed time with your family and friends. We pray mostly that each of you will experience a closer walk with our Lord and allow Him to control and guide you!

Christmas Again.

So, I was sitting in church this morning looking at all my needy kids wondering how in the world can I just do something special for 6 of them. So, I posted a message on facebook about wanting to get 25 kids books for Christmas and already have gotten a great response! I'm so excited to see God move hearts to help those in need. Our kids will be so excited. Most of these kids don't get gifts at Christmas. They are poor kids in difficult situations. We are so thrilled to bring a little joy to them all. God bless you all. We serve a great God who meets our needs always!

Christmas

So Christmas will be here before we know it. I have 6 kids in particular I want to bring Christmas too. We have about 25 kids in Sunday School and we will get them all a little something but there are 6 kids I want to do something special for. Two of them have just started coming to church with their foster mom. The boys are 8 and 5. They are in their third foster home. This lady that has them now seems to really care for them. Their previous foster moms were disasterous. The two girls are 9 and
4, they live down the street from us. Their dad left and their mom doesn't have a job so they are living off of about $100 a month. The other two come to our church. The brother is 8 and the sister is almost 6. If anyone is interested in helping me do this I would love to get some color wonders from the states (I brought back a bunch this summer and the kids here were mesmorized by them and loved them) and Christmas Candy. We are helping all the older siblings with homework and noticed reading is a real problem. They have no books to read at home and so they don't get much practice. I buy a book every couple of weeks to build up my Romanian book library so they have something to read when they come here. Obviously you can't buy Romanian books and send but if any book lovers out there wanted to buy these kids some books they could donate the money and we could buy them some over here.
If you are interested in helping and want more information please contact me. Remember, for the stuff to get here in time you should send it by the end of November at the latest. God bless you this holiday season.

Sunday

We had another packed out Sunday. I brought my camera to take some pictures but was too busy to take any pictures :). The challenge is teaching parents how to keep their little ones quiet in church and if they get too loud to take them out. We know that little ones will make some noise but letting your little one run up and down the aisle and talk just is a bit too much of a distraction. Parents seem to have a hands off approach. Tonight went pretty well though after Baron made an announcement. We are thankful for all the little ones and pray their parents continue coming so they can learn about God's love and their little ones can get an early start on learning about God. We continue to pray that God's Spirit will work. We are not capable of so great a task as shepherding so many hurting and needy people but He is capable...with God all things are possible!

Sunday School

A quick note about Sunday School. My little class is packed out. The piture is when the weather was still nice and we could all take our chairs outside but we can't do that anymore! Pray that God will provide the funds needed to make a run down room into our new Sunday school room and connect it to the church.


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