Josh and I have been in Romania now for almost one full week! We received more orientation after getting here and have already had our first staff meetings to plan things out for the year to come. It is incredible to hear all of the plans Heart2Heart has for this year and that we will be a part of what they have established here already.
We will begin language learning on October 3rd and have been anxiously anticipating this. We were able to visit one orphanage we had been to in the past and were presently surprised how many kids remembered us! It was awesome to see how much they have grown over the past 3 years! : ) We cannot wait to start learning Romanian so we can communicate more with these children.
We have gotten settled in our new home with two amazing couples, Mark & Rebecca and Steven & Haley. We are so excited to be on this journey with them and to learn alongside them. We have a decent sized yard with a big garden in the backyard. We hope to learn more about this and how to tend to it.
The front & back of the house.
Our room...still needing some work!
Here at the house we also have 2 dogs, Lola & Mila, which we are becoming familiar with and finding that we are not able to even communicate with them. We are hoping to train them basic commands; back, sit, stay. In the Romanian culture, we are kindergarteners when it comes to the language. We are humbled by this and ready to learn.
Top: Lola, Bottom: Mila.
We still cannot hardly believe we are here, in Romania! We have dreamt of this for 7 years and felt God preparing us along the way. Josh and I are thrilled to be the hands and feet of Christ to the orphans and Romanian people.
Prayer Requests:
- Health: we both have colds and Josh's ankle is still healing
- Marriage: "stress will bring out the uglies (in a marriage)"
- Unity: with our new family H2H, to work together and put others first
- Patience/Anxiety: our trips to the grocery store, etc. have at least taken 2 hours
- Language lessons: God to continue preparing us for this and travel to and from lessons
Praises! :
- Safe travels to Romania and within Romania...we again need to get used to the driving : )
- We are blessed to be able to rest and rejuvenate ourselves on the weekend and also have time to communicate with partners and loved ones back "home".
- Josh's ankle did awesome on the planes and is healing and getting better as the days go by!
- The little bits of language we did learn 3 years ago on our internship have flooded back to us over this week of being here. We are excited to have the opportunity to learn more with the language and culture more in depth.
- Jen & Jenny: Missionaries here in Romania. They were so incredibly patient with us as they took us and the other new couple (Steven & Haley) to Ikea and other stores to get furniture and things we were in need of.
- Mark & Rebecca: They have been here for 2 years and have been able to help us and give guidance in little things such as where things are around the house, to traveling with us to the grocery store and being patient with us as we searched for items we needed.
- Steven & Haley: That we have another couple to relate to as we journey together in this new culture. We will also be completing language lessons together, so we are thankful to having someone else to study with and struggle with.
- God's continued faithfulness through the "desert" and bringing Josh and I to the land He has called us to.
- For all of our family and partners back "home" who have shown us their support and love and opened their homes, etc. to us before we left.
Thank you and may God bless you all! : )
