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!

A Grateful Heart

I have a grateful heart this morning. I am encouraged by your words and prayers. I am encouraged that God does care about me. I am encouraged by all the music of praise I have been listening to. O, Lord, you give and you take away, blessed be your name. How dare I say to God when everything is going well, "I Praise you God, you are good." Then when the storms come along we are always tempted to First say to God, "what in the world are you doing...this isn't right, you aren't doing what I wanted." Instead of, First praising Him and being anxious for NOTHING, but in everything by prayer and supplication WITH thanksgiving let my request be made known to God and then the peace of God will overwhelm me. It doesn't mean I have to understand or like what is going on but it does mean I can't dwell on it and let my thoughts revolve around it and sit around sad and depressed. I will rest in Him. He does work everything out for good for those who love God and we love God so we have faith that this will work out for good.
My prayer is that someone one who loves the Lord will raise up in this country and really fight for all of these children. When the laws of adoption were written by the lawmakers none of them went and asked the children what they wanted. They just did what the EU wanted them to do because they so desperately wanted in the EU and thought the EU was the answer to all their problems, which of course it isn't.
Thank you all for caring about our twins enough to pray for them!

Waiting...Again

I don't really know where to start with this story. Today was our court date to receive custody of the twins. We put in our first request for this last May and just now got our court date. The twins have been waiting and waiting to come to their new family for all this time. We were finally assigned our court date last October and as we got closer to this day I didn't allow myself to think about the bad things that may happen. I really tried to remain hopeful and think that there was nothing to stop this from going through today but I think somewhere in me also said, this is Romania ANYTHING can happen.
We showed up at court and our case was #39 so we thought we were in for a long long wait. The social worker that works for the private foundation the twins are under was there. She went into the little court room and came out and called us in. she told us they were on case #29. Then we realized that they weren't going in order. As a lawyer walked in the room he or she would call out the case number they were there for and then the judge would call that case number. Well, the twins social worker was expecting a guy she knows from child protection to show up to present the case when all of the sudden our case is called and some lawyer stands up and says that our twins are from Marghita and therefore the case should be sent to the small court in Marghita and decided there. The judge said ok and that was that and we walked out of the room! The twins social worker was just as shocked as us. Quite frankly I didn't have feelings of love toward the whole system of people in Romania who don't seem to think about the children...I reacted with ranting and raving and tears (just being honest). I had actually told God before all this, "God no matter what I WILL still praise you." So, in the car on the way home we kept music playing and I kept saying the words over in my head and telling myself that God is good and He does care about our case. He has his reasons for allowing this and He can see the end of the story!
We went and spoke with a jurist about all this and told him we understood that it was going to be in Marghita now and didn't want to try and change that but we were interested in our file getting sent to Marghita as soon as possible so we can get a new court date as soon as possible. He is going to press them to get our file out as quick as possible. Our last file sat in Oradea for 6 months before we were given a court date.
So, what did we hear in the court room while waiting...a case of "My neighbor's dog killed my cow and 10 goats." yes, I'm telling the truth.
So, how am I feeling right now...I am just a little numb right now. Feeling especially bad for our twins who were so estatic about this possibly being the last time we had to drive them back to Casa Alba. I will continue to tell myself that God cares and that He is Sovereign and in control even though it doesn't feel like it. I will praise because He IS GOOD. He gave His life for mine..I have no right to complain.
Please pray specifically for the twins, for our file to move quickly to Marghita and for us to be assigned a new court date quickly.

Life

It's January...winter blahs therefore I don't write much because there is little to write about and I don't want to complain. Thankfully, it has warmed up a little tiny bit. When it is right at freezing and above it feels like a heat wave to me...remember I'm from South Carolina so me and cold don't mix well! When the temperature is below freezing the house never quite warms up but at freezing and above we can keep it toasty warm. Today it is about 32 degrees and snowing so the house is fairly warm.
Baron and I have been talking for many months about sending our eldest son, Zach to the states this summer for a month. He is 10 years old and I think it would be good for him to be away from home a little bit and under the influence of other godly people. I am his Bible teacher, his music teacher, his Sunday School teacher and sometimes a boy needs to get away from mom and be taught by someone else. So, when my parents come in May he will fly back with them. We have registered him to go to the first week of jr. camp at the Wilds and he will be back in time to go to Romanian camp. We still aren't 100% sure how we will get him back but we have a little idea up our sleeve that makes me very happy. We just informed Zach today of his little trip he will be taking and there was a lot of jumping and he pretty much danced a jig! I think he is a little excited. The other boys took it well too. There didn't seem to be any jealousy. I have told them often that just because one brother experiences something doesn't mean that all the brothers have to do the exact same thing. I have tried to teach them to be happy for one another when something good happens instead of being jealous.

We are getting closer to our court date. The day that felt like it would never arrive is close at hand. The aunt has not been back again. We anticipate being granted custody of the twins in two more weeks. I don't know that we will be able to bring them home that day but pray for a miracle. I'm clinging to my little mustard seed of faith that we can bring them home. If we can't bring them home that day it will be around the end of February. We will have a big party at Casa Alba to bring closer for all the kids who have grown up with the twins. It will be a day of joyous tears for many and some sad tears as the other kids are happy for their friends to get a family but also wishing for a family of their own. Pray for all the kids.

Pray for us. We have several things that we are looking into and we will keep you informed. We are hoping to start a Saturday club for foster kids. We are hoping to reach out to the kids of an orphanage near by here. Someday we want to start a Crisis Pregnancy Center. It will take a lot of planning and wisdom. We were encouraged when we talked to an official at the city hall about a pregnancy center he seemed very enthusiatic about it and thought it was greatly needed. Pray for our co-workers the Louks. They need to raise the rest of the needed money so they can come help us. We really need their help with all these projects!

As the winter blahs hit us, let's try to wake up each morning with this verse in our hearts, "this is the day the Lord has made, I WILL rejoice and be glad in it!" I want to be thankful for each day the Lord gives me to live and breathe and serve Him instead of complaining about circumstances and weather and whatever else I find to complain about. Living here I realize every day how blessed and spoiled I am as an American. If you are ever in such a pit that you are having a pity party for yourself, go visit a poor country and it will quickly help you get out of your pit! We are so blessed. Use all that God has given you to help someone else see the greatness and goodness of God.

An opportunity for someone!

I just wanted to put the word out for some people we met here in Romania a few years ago. They have a children's home about 20 minutes from where we live in a village called Jdoara. I believe they have about 19 kids in their home with very little help. I think a few of them are teenagers now and gone off to high school and I believe the youngest children are around 5. They have recently lost a lot of their paid workers and are in desperate need of help. There is also a 5 year old autistic girl who needs to go to a special school here in town every day and needs someone to care for her here in town so she can go to school, right now she is staying out at the home and not going to school because there isn't anyone who can do it. If anyone reads this and is interested in this opportunity, long term or short term please contact me and I will put you in touch with them.

Hard good bye's.

We have had a wonderful time with the twins here. Today was entertainment day. The kids stayed in their pajamas all day and played games, watched movies, and ate junk. This evening the twins began to realize they were going back to Casa Alba tomorrow. We try not to discuss it too much but as I was putting them to bed tonight Georgie started crying...not crying, bawling and saying, "I don't want to go back to Casa Alba, I want to stay here." How do you comfort a four year old and explain to him why he can't stay at home. I know I ask that question all the time but I am at a loss for words. I just hold him and cry with him and wish it weren't so and pray God's peace and love and protection over him. He is just broken hearted...so am I. He responds at Casa Alba with sadness and tears, Gina responds with outbursts and temper tantrums. Please pray for them. Please pray that our court date by some miracle someone will say on that day that there is no reason to wait for the paperwork, these kids just need to go home! If that doesn't happen it will still be another month before we can bring them home around the end of February...pray for a miracle. I am starting to believe that miracles don't happen in Romania but holding out for one still!