The New Room

Beginning of Construction

After: Green Walls, Pink accessories

The new light

Before: We had this door removed and moved the wall back.

After: Where the door used to be, now a nice spot was created for her closet.

Before: This is her old bed, we created a little more space in her room by taking out this door to the outside of the house and moving the wall back to be even.

After: the new to us bed from IKEA. We wanted to go to Budapest to get her a new bed at IKEA but we found one in the paper right here in Lugoj!

Our Gina

Our daughter Gina, she has an infectious smile. She has an independent spirit. She loves to be in charge. She can't wait to be a mother. She came to live with us at the age of 5. She officially became a Howerton at the age of 6 1/2. She is the only girl amongst 5 brothers. We made a little room for her when she came to us. I was thrilled with and she was thrilled with it. It has a door to the outside in it and. The wall comes in and takes out precious space because they added stairs on the outside so you could get into the door. Today begins the work. The man is here to tear down the door and tear down the wall to make it a little more spacious in her room. She has had water leak in and down the wall and had water spots. The roof is fixed now so her room will also get a fresh coat of girlie colored paint, pinks, lavenders, and greens. We will lower the roof and put in a new light (the previous light was a paper lantern that is now ripped) maybe a little girlie chandalier. We will take a trip to IKEA in Budapest and get her a loft bed. Sometimes a little girl needs to be treated like a princess.

We have been back in Romania for two weeks now. We are continuing to work through school. Please pray for the twins especially. We are really working at getting them comfortable with reading and school work. We are praying about sending Nate (youngest) to a private school next year so the twins don't feel they are in competition with their little brother. Another benefit to that would be helping Nate learn Romanian again. He seems to have forgotten it and has been unable to communicate with his Romanian grandma which makes her sad. Pray for us to have courage to do this...it's not easy sending your baby off to school!

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.