What happens when you have too many blogs? You post your February update to the wrong one. oops! here is my update from last month. :)
This short month of February has flown by! But it has been packed full of great times in
my ministry, sad times, happy times and transition.
Things are going very well in the After School Program. We are learning more about where our kids are
coming from and their home life. The two
girls I work with have begun home visits and visits to the schools in the
village that our children attend.
Meeting the families and the teachers really helps us understand our
children more. It has also been
interesting seeing that there is almost a caste type of system in the village.
While to us, we love all of our children, no matter if they are poor or dirty,
to the families actually living in the village, there are those other families
that are looked down on for being “more” dirty or more poor or whatever the
reason is for the prejudice. We had one
little girl in my class who kept missing days, and finally we spoke with the
mother and found out that she was missing because she was being bullied and
teased on the way to our program for being dirty. UGH! Talk about heart breaking, (especially
because she is one of my favorites!) So
I had a meeting with our team and we came up with the idea to teach on the Good
Samaritan this coming up week to the kids and to do the verse “Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you”. We
will also have a zero tolerance policy for bullying, and if we see it, that
child will be sent home from the Program for the day.
There is a lot of work to be done in this community. Hearts need to be changed, they so need
Jesus. We are working with this younger
generation to raise them up with to know the hope that we have in Christ, and
prayerfully change will begin with them.
This is a huge prayer request! Please pray for the cycles of alcoholism,
abuse and reliance upon the government for money as well as the cycle of
poverty in general to be broken. That
the people in village would become self-sufficient, and transformed
spiritually, mentally and physically from the inside out by the power of Jesus!
This month I have continued to help the President of FFR and
my friend Sarah Vienna with her music and speaking engagements. She is in America right now traveling around
and I have been helping behind the scenes with her promotion. Speaking of which, if you are in the San
Clemente, CA area this Tuesday, March 3rd, you should go to Sarah’s
FREE show and hear her sing and speak about what we are doing here in Romania!
Things with the FFR Internship & Discipleship Program
that I spoke about are going great. I
have had several young ladies emailing for more information and I have already
accepted 2 girls into the program, one from Scotland and one from
Michigan. I’m excited to see who else
the Lord will bring together for this 2015-2016 Internship year. I know He has great things planned for this
Program and I am really excited to be heading it up and stepping out in faith
to see what He will do! If you know
anyone who would be interested in participating in the Christian Missions
Internship & Discipleship Program please send them my way. It will be a year of growth, challenge,
discipleship and ministry!
On top of all of this, it has also been the “birthday month”
for 3 of our staff. Two of our wonderful
long term volunteers have moved back to their home countries after over 4 and 5
years of serving with us. Transition is
in the air, which brings some sadness and some excitement as the Lord leads us
all on to new things. But I will really miss Raelene and Alisha, they are
amazing and loving women who are so full of hospitality and grace.
Alisha visiting my 1st grade class
I am very excited to be moving this weekend into my OWN
apartment finally! After being in
Romania for over 4 months and having moved out of my apartment in Cali before I
moved here, I’ve been living out of suitcases for 6 months, and I am ready to
finally be settled. The process has been very easy this time around finding my
apartment and I can see how the Lord has had His hand in my waiting until to
find this place. My landlords seem to be
wonderful and I really love the apartment!
I have A LOT of cleaning to do in my new apartment before I get settled,
but it is a wonderful place, in a typical communist bloc apartment building, on
the top floor (I’m on the 5th floor) and I can see over a sea of
bloc apartment buildings the BEAUTIFUL Brasov mountains from every room in my
house (even from my shower!). It is in a
very clean and quiet area. Most of the
people in my bloc are old, so that is great for me. I like my peace and quiet. It is also on the other side of town, closer
to the village and the grocery store I like to go to. I will send pics once I’m settled for sure!
view from my window
This month has once again shown me that the Lord will
provide for my needs in such interesting ways.
I have been really blessed by one time gifts of support from different
people, some of whom I hardly even know, including a group of children from
Praise Chapel Norwalk who helped raise money for my ministry! What a blessing!
Also it has been interesting that the Lord says He will
provide for my needs and usually I think “money”. But He has shown that He can provide in so
many different ways. With Alisha and
Raelene moving back to their home countries, I have been blessed to receive
many items from them that I was going to have to buy for my new apartment. The really funny thing is, when I moved back
home to American in 2010 from Romania, Alisha was here, and I gave her a lot of
the things from my Romanian apartment back then…as we were packing up Alisha’s
apartment over the past few weeks, I have ended up receiving back many of the
items that were once mine from over 5 years ago! It’s like they were holding on to them for
me. I love how the Lord works to provide
and it’s nice to have these little items that were once mine back as it makes
me feel even more “at home” here.
My language lessons have been only hold for the past couple
of weeks, as there has just been too much going on, they will start up again
next week, which makes me very happy!
I could go on and on, I am always amazed at how much the
Lord can fit into one month!
I hope you are all doing great, I would love to hear from
you!
With lots of love,
rachel
Prayer Requests:
Romanian Language
Team unity
The kids and families in the village
The transition that is taking place right now in FFR with
people moving
Continued provision
Praises:
This entire month!
My new apartment!
God’s provision in such unique ways!
Friendships
New opportunities with the ministries I am involved with and
the amazing paths the Lord is leading me down
