Snow Days and New Adventures
This past month has been a great month. We wrote last month about our Christmas and being sick again, but Praise the Lord that this past month we were all healthy and able to do many things as a family. Here are a few things we did this past month as a family:
First off, we had the chance to take the kids to the zoo here in Bucharest with some friends from Emerson's school. We try to do a fun, family activity every Saturday since our weeks are really busy and this was one of our favorites so far! Winters here in Bucharest can be really tough since there isn't much daylight and the weather is dreary a good portion of the time. For this reason, any chance for us to be outside, play together, and be in nature is really beneficial. Although it was cold and wet, the kids loved seeing all the animals especially the llamas and the tigers, and we enjoyed a fun, picnic lunch while we were there. This month we also had the chance to go to a place called Destiny Park. This park is similar to a children's museum, and every room was interactive. The children roll-played different jobs and learned all about responsibility. Emerson loved being a firefighter and police officer. They also had a really cool lego room that he enjoyed as well. Sadly, the youngest age that could participate in the activities was four years old, so Lydia played on the toddler playground and got ice cream and popcorn with Brooke. Fun was had by all, and we can't wait to go back!
Excitement filled our home this month because we had our first real snow of the year. Last year it did not snow until March and barely then. This year it snowed for the first time in January and kept snowing on and off for almost a full week. Emerson and Lydia loved every second of playing in it. We have a small playground one block from our apartment building that we like to go to, and the kids enjoyed having a snowball flight and sliding down the snow-covered slide. Snow days here in the city are much different from snow days in North Carolina though. Nothing shuts down and our snow tires allow us to keep to our daily schedules. Emerson loved being at school and playing in the snow with his friends, and we continued with our language studies.
Ministry has been great this past month. Drew had additional meetings with a pastor about the church plant outside of Bucharest. Things will begin to ramp up soon with the church plant such as training the team for evangelism as well as walking through with the team what the Bible says on being a church and what starting a church looks like. This will be a great time of reading through the Book of Acts. Through our relationship building, this month we decided to invite a young pastor and his family over for dinner. We had such a good time getting to know them and hearing their stories. The pastor has actually had two internships with an American Church before so he knew many of our customs, traditions, and favorite foods. We also had great discussions about the American churches versus churches here in Romania along with how God is moving here. Many of our conversations were in English, but Brooke and I spoke quite a bit with them in Romanian as well. By the grace of God we are both becoming more confident in speaking the language, and are excited to have more and more opportunities to go deeper with people in their heart language.
Lastly, our digital engagement project training has finally begun. The first meeting was this past week and everyone in the group introduced themselves. Our company has many professionals in the digital engagement world who are ready to help us develop our platforms in order to be successful. We are very excited for this project and pray that it reaches many people in and around Bucharest. Thank you all so much for following along with us and for praying for us. Below are some specific prayer requests we have. Thanks again!
Prayer Requests:
Pray for the Digital Engagement project we are leading. Pray that the Lord would send the right people to help facilitate the project and that many would come to know Christ through it.
Pray for the church plant in a neighboring town on the outskirts of Bucharest. Pray that the Lord continues to guide us as we help to prepare the team, and that many in this town would come to know Christ.
Please pray for us as we begin to discuss school options for Lydia next year. Pray that the Lord would give us wisdom and discernment about sending her to school (national school or private school) or keeping her home with Brooke.
Pray for Brooke and the healing of her gallbladder. Right now her surgery is scheduled for March 27th, but we are also trying some natural protocols in the meantime. It's a huge praise that Brooke does not have any symptoms and please pray this would remain the case over the next month.