Romania

We arrived in Romania on Thursday, May 31. We are experiencing a bit of jet lag but are thankful that our flight over was uneventful! All our luggage got here and we walked out of the aiport without having to open one bag! We are going to bed late and sleeping late, but we should be on schedule within a few days. We had pizza tonight, the kids were excited to have Romanian pizza for the first time in 10 months! They were sad to leave family behind but they perked up as soon as they saw all their toys, their own beds, and their rooms! It just takes time to re adjust but God's grace sees us through every time! So thankful for the faithfulness of God. Keep us in your prayers. We pray for wisdom for our future ministry here that God would lead and we would follow Him in all things. We have about a month left of school and the kids aren't excited about doing school through June but we took off a lot of days! Spencer turns 12 this Tuesday and a week later our baby Nate turns 6. They are growing up so quickly!

I thought it was time to update the look of the blog. We have been so blessed to have some wonderful family pictures taken. It is hard to grasp that we have been here 9 months and our time is just about up. We leave on Wednesday to head back to Romania. Alot of thoughts flood my mind as we get ready to head back home. It is not easy to put into words what you feel when half your heart is in one place and the other half in another. We have been blessed by the fellowship and encouraging words from many of you. We have been blessed to see many of you and heard how you have been praying for us. The Lord is good and faithful. He who begun the good work will fulfill it and see us through until the work he has for us to do is finished. I think it is harder to leave now knowing that our parents won't be coming to visit due to physical weaknesses. You always wonder when you will see them again. Our hearts are heavy as we think of some dear friends who we just saw on Sunday. They have to face the dark road of cancer. Praise the Lord for His grace. Praise the Lord for the joy of fellowship we had with them and their family even though they are facing this difficult trial. Praise the Lord that we don't have to make this journey alone, He walks with us even down the darkest and most difficult roads. We ask for prayer for wisdom. We don't know exactly where the Lord is leading us in regards to an orphan ministry but we do know he wants us to minister to the orphans. Pray for our family as we transition back into life in Romania. We want to be a blessing and point others to Christ. Pray for our children that their hearts will turn to Christ. Pray for those who are still lost in darkness that they may come to the light of our Savior and know his peace and love and forgiveness. Pray that the Lord leads a national to our ministry who desires to be a pastor so Baron can start training him.

Fun Vacation

I uploaded these pictures backwards so we'll start with the last day: Thursday we made a visit to Daytona Beach on our way home to Greenville, S.C. The kids have always flown over the ocean, we thought it would be fun for them to see it up close. Joey always yelled, "the ocean!!" when we crossed over a lake so he now knows just how big the ocean is!

Wednesday, we spent the whole day at Magic Kingdom! It was a magical experience. I enjoyed sharing with my kids something I really enjoyed as a child!

Tuesday and half a day Monday we went to Sea World. The kids loved getting soaked by the whales and they even have quite a few good rides there!

Twins Birthday

We celebrated the twins birthday a couple weeks before their actual birthday. They turned 8 on April 22. We had a great time with pin the tail on the donkey, relay races, and a favorite was wheelchair races!

This was their first birthday in America. They were so excited. We are still awaiting the infamous blue passports. We have had a few issues with getting them but we are praying that before 90 days is up (and we loose our money that we paid for them) that all the papers are in order and everything sent in and the passports issued. I don't think they will be done before we head back to Romania, they will be disappointed to have to travel back with their Romanian ones!

We leave at the end of this week to head back to South Carolina. Pray for our kids, it will be difficult saying good bye to their cousins...they've formed relationships with them and it will be hard to leave.

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter with Baron's family. We all went to church together. This is my favorite cousin picture: ages 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 11, 11, 13, 13, 15, 17, and 8 months!

So thankful for the time we have had with family and getting to know cousins that we hadn't seen in 5 years, some we had never met!

Family Fun in Branson

We have had a great time out here in Missouri. We arrived in March and after just a few days we headed out to a week long family trip with Baron's family to Branson, MO. We went to Lambert's Cafe, home of the throwed rolls, yes they do actually throw the rolls at you. We were all spread out and Joey and his cousin Campbell actually kept putting their hands up to catch rolls and ended up with about 15 rolls to take in a take out box! We then went on to Branson.

We had fun hiking and going to the fish hatchery. The highlight was 2 days at Silver Dollar City. Our two oldest road rollar coasters for the first time. Spencer loved them Zach wasn't so sure he loved them but he kept going on them because that is what you do when you are 13, you go on the rides even if you don't like them! We bought the video of them riding the coaster called Wild Fire and posted it on Facebook, that is a fun video to watch!

Update

I just don't feel as if I have much to say, that is how boring life in America is :-)I decided it was time for an update on the blog. We have had an exciting fun time and although it is still about 3 months before we return to Romania we are on the down hill of our time here. We have applied for the twins passports. They are thrilled and can not wait to receive blue "passaports". That is what Joey used to call them, he just says passports now. The kids are all asking when we return to Romania and are ready to go home.
We head out to Missouri on Wednesday for 8 weeks. We had a marvelous time of fellowship this past week at Calvary Baptist Church in Simpsonville, S.C. They made us feel so welcome and at home and encouraged us with their fellowship at the missions conference. We are truly blessed to have so many wonderful churches behind us.
I have learned to knit since Christmas. I also want to learn to crochet. I have enjoyed making scarves and hope to be able to pass on knitting to others in Romania.
The kids have grown. We have had trouble keeping up with school and will probably be doing school through at least part of the summer.
Pray for us as we continue to travel and prepare to head back. While we look forward to getting home, we still have to say good bye to a lot of friends and family and that is the most difficult part. Thank you for your prayers.