Sweetest Day!

Since I have gotten a few compliments on my new blog outline. I decided I need to step up my game in blogging. Just to let you all know I designed that blog heading while watching The Voice with my roommates. I guess you can say that's where I find my true inspiration?

Anyway so a friend posted the origin of Sweetest Day on facebook. And it really touched me probably cause it began in Cleveland (woot woot, go Ohio!) and second because it was started by a man who wanted to bring happiness to the orphans which makes my heart happy.

This past week has been good in so many ways. I have gotten to volunteer at the orphanage partnered with Anchor of Hope. Which has been lots of fun. The kids are starting to recognize me even though they are so young. It's makes me miss the Stoner boys sometimes but I remember God put me with these orphan kids right now for a reason.

I also got to see my babies this week. They had a few more newborns come in from a couple different hospital so we have a lot kids right now. Sadly I didn't get to see my orphans kids at the Pinocchio orphanage. Kim's Pastor and his wife are visiting us this week. And stories of the kids have seem to come out more and more. All the horrible things these kids have went through breaks my heart. And of course it makes me want to be able to adopt them all even more. But since I can't, I am excited to see them and share the little love I can. 

Today we went to a different gypsy village. I am not going to lie at first I was disappointed because I have grown close to the kids at our normal village that I didn't want to leave them. But this new village was also great to visit, the kids were awesome so well behaved and polite with me as I was struggling to understand. I am really happy for this opportunity to have another village to serve.

After I shared with you how my week went, I will go back to why I started writing this original post. Because of Sweetest Day! A lot of friends have been arguing about whether it's only an Ohio holiday or not. Sadly it is (or was?) and many Ohioans think of it as a second Valentine's Day. But that is not the reason it was started. It was started to bring happiness into the lives of the orphans, shut-ins, and others who were often forgotten.

So with the discussion of Sweetest Day on my mind. I decided to share it with my roommates and we have decided that this week we will celebrate the kids. We do this every week but since we missed this past week with everybody being sick ( I forgot to tell you everyone has been sick, some stomach bug going around.), we are going to try extra hard to put more happiness into the lives of our kids. To think most of these kids have faced more horrible things then I could ever imagine, I like to think that for 4 hours a week I can see them with smiles on their faces. 

Romanian.

This past week has been pretty busy between homeschooling the Postema kids, going to the orphanages, and getting all my visa paper work done. I am very happy to admit I was fully exposed to Romanian almost all week but I am not going to lie that it was also a bit frustrating at times to try to talk to the kids in Romanian all the time. It's a lot mentally trying to speak in a foreign language let alone in a crazy setting whether it's orphan kids screaming or arguments breaking out at the immigration office. But by the end of the week I felt like I was slowly getting the hang of things. 

After much searching through facebook, I finally found some pictures of the kids I work with. Yay! Up above is a picture of the orphan kids I work with through Anchor of Hope. And the picture down below is of the gypsy kids we work with. The gypsy kids are awesome always starting up conversations with me correcting my Romanian. 

After telling you a little about my week, I will post a new blog post this week about the gypsy kids and give you more of the details of some of the kids. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Week-end by the Sea

Last week-end I went to the Black Sea with the Guess'. To enjoy a little get away while the girls were gone. 

It was beautiful. 

We ran across a 630 BC City of Ruins outside of Constansta. 

We ate a few times and visit a navy museum. For it to be a rainy week-end it was rather wonderful.

Happy Birthday CJ!

It's CJ's Birthday! 

He turned 6 today! It's his first step to manhood or so I have heard. The evening was spent celebrating with tacos, cupcakes, and caramel ice cream. And this weekend there will be more celebrating with the rest of the team :)

Busy Schedule

I know you all have been waiting in great anticipation to hear what I am up to in my life. And I am trying to stay pretty busy. This is what an average week will look like for me. 

Monday: Language Lesson

Tuesday: Jenny's Orphanage

Wednesday: Free Day 

Thursday: Jenny's Orphanage

Friday: Language Lesson

Saturday: Baby Hospital

Sunday: Church & the Gypsy Village

Please Pray that God will grant me with the gift of language. Sometimes it is so hard to communicate but the hardest part is more often then not I can get away with speaking English but then I am not building great relationships with the kids. When I was in France I prayed for a friend and God gave me the best friend I could ever ask for so now I am praying for the gift of language cause Lord knows I need to learn to communicate better. 

With my roommates being out of town this week on vacation. I have almost two whole weeks at the apartment by myself. Luckily the Guess Family has adopted me and I will be going to the Black Sea with them this weekend. Yay! And I got in contact with Sarah who runs a non-profit organization called the Anchor of Hope, since my roommates are gone I will be spending sometime at Sarah's orphanage volunteering and the baby hospital. Tomorrow is my first day at the baby hospital by myself, wish me luck! This is one of those instance when speaking Romanian would be helpful but God knows. 

Roommates

I got to say having roommates has been fun. With late night movies, funny quotes through out the day... It's like having a sister(s) except with less fights. 

Jenny and I have become so much a like we pretty much wore the same outfit to church today. We didn't realize till we were running 5 minutes late to church so we just decided to accept the fact and be twins. But nobody seemed to notice. .. But I still thought it was blog worthy. 

O Saptamana buna! Have a good week!

I will blog later about all the activities I have been getting involved with this week. A little something to look forward to on my blog :)

How Plans Change so Quickly.

Just last month I was thinking I was going to leave Europe behind and head back home. Well funny thing is God sorta had a different plan. After talking to the Romanian team and to the Stoner's a little more. I decided to try to extend my visa. I am still in the process but it looks like a done deal considering the Pastor in charge of the Baptist Union for Romania is the one writing my recommendation. The only way it wouldn't go through at this point is if the secret police decide to throw me out of the country. Which I am pretty sure I am no real threat. 

The rest of my time in Romania will be spent helping my roommates with the orphanage and village out reach. I am hoping to learn some Romanian so I can maybe venture out to a baby hospital by myself. We will see if that happens but I did start my first Romanian lesson today. I think it went well. I guess I will know  now in a couple weeks if I am learning anything by whether people can understand me or not. 

I feel really good about staying here. Kim and Jenny's church has already welcomed me and it helps a lot to know your welcomed and they are willing to let me serve with them. A lot of them are already trying to convince me to stay forever. And I just keep on smiling at them... haha.