Sharing God's Grace in Rimnicu Valcea

March

2010-03-06T00:11:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! Well march is here and just when I thought winter was on its last leg, it comes a blizzard today! Oh well, it'll pass :). This past month has been a good month and I hope March goes even better.

We did our theme for the month today at our afterschool program, this month's theme is Mother's day. Romanian mother's day is on the 8th of March, so we decided to go with a Mother's day theme. I will have some pictures up of our theme in the next post.

Everyone be in prayer for Cristi this month, he is going to Tirgu Mures on the 17th to get his pins removed from his foot that were put in because of his broken foot last year. I'm sure it will be quite painful for Cristi and he'll be laid up for a month or two. We're taking a two week break from our afterschool program so Irina can stay home and take care of Cristi

I have a new blog, it's my own personal blog and I post much more often on it than I do this one. If you would like to check it out heres the link http://codyharrod.wordpress.com/ .

Keep us in your prayers!

February is almost over

2010-02-27T10:12:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! Well, February is coming to an end and we're only three weeks away from Spring! This past week the weather has been much nicer, the sun has been out and the temperatures have been in the 40-60's. These past two weeks have been great, our attendance at our after school program has been up and we have some new adults coming to our Thursday afternoon adult English program. We had about 25-30 kids on average everyday these past two weeks with about 5 new kids coming. This past week we had some of the parents come and tell us that they are very grateful to us for changing their children's lives. The parents told us that their children were more obedient, more respectful, and they started praying every night before bed, something they had never done before!The parents were shocked when their children said "Mom and Dad I want us to pray like we do with Cristi and Irina at the after school program" At our after school program we always have a 20-30 minute lesson for the kids where we pray and try to teach them about Jesus and instil good values in them. They have responded in a great way! All of our regular kids have had a great change in their attitudes and actions. Some of them have started coming to our Sunday morning church services and have started to read their Bibles. These kids are the next generation and we hope they will grow up and serve the Lord. We hope that they will be examples in the community and lead others to Christ as they grow. Here are some pictures and a short video of them from this past week.

Next Friday the Family Center, a place that helps family that was founded by a lady from New Zealand, is having a raffle for the ladies. The proceeds from the raffle will be used to support the Family Center in its mission here. Our youth group has been asked to do the music for the whole program. We are honoured to help in this fund raiser. We hope the raffle goes well and that all of the people who were invited attend. I will have some pictures and video of it next week.

I can see that God is really working here in they lives of men, women, and children alike, this generation has the power through our Lord Jesus Christ to change this place. I hope they will listen and accept the call of the Gospel and be the ones that change this spiritually dark place. Keep us all in your prayers as the work here grows.

Mada and Lavinia's Baptism went Great!

2010-02-15T20:46:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! If you read my last post then you know that we had a Baptism yesterday! Madalin and Lavina Dumitrache, a mother and son who have been attending our Sunday morning services since we began them, were baptized. We had a special service for them where they, and other close friends, had a chance to share some thoughts and encouraging words. In the Baptism services here, the focus of the service is on the ones who are being baptized. I personally think this is great, it gives the ones who are being baptized a chance to share their testimonies and how God worked in their lives. Mada told how the Lord had changed his life and how grateful he was that God offered him this free gift of eternal life. Lavina told how she had attended a Baptist church for several years and how she looked like she was a genuine Christian to others for all those years. She went on to tell how she struggled with the addictive habit of smoking and how the Lord showed her she was claiming to be one of His children but was actually living a lie and living in a way that wasn't pleasing to Him. She said that she is glad that she can now stand and say she is a true child of Good and a changed person. The service was very moving, it was also a great encouragement for us all. Lavina and Mada are now the very first members of our church, Beserica Bunul Pastor ( in English it means "The Good Shepherd Church"). We are really excited how God is working in our church plant. Here are the pictures from the Baptism.

Last week went well, we had about 20-25 kids everyday last week and at our Teen English we do on Friday night, we had some new students come. The kids really like the theme we did for February , they especially liked that we put up their faces on the wall.

Last night's youth meeting was one of the best we've had! All of our youth were so attentive and interested in what was being taught. You could tell they had genuine interest and when we had our worship service you could feel that they were singing with all they had to praise our wonderful Lord. Cristi's brother Catalin, who came to sing at Mada's Baptism, had a devotion for us last night. He talked about how even though we as people try to invent theories on how things were created and how they work, the truth is all of that we make up like the big bang, is a lie. He went on to say that God is so great that he created even the little tiny things and takes care of them, so how much more is He going to take care of us? He challenged us to put all of our faith in God and count all of the things he gives us as a blessing.

Last week was just great, keep praying that each and every week from here on will be better and better with our Lord Jesus leading the way.

Great News!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-02-09T21:47:00.001+02:00

Hey everyone! We have some great news to tell you all! This Sunday at 10:00 in the morning we will have our first Baptism service! We will use one of the Baptist's churches Baptisteries and it will last about 2 hours long. The people that are being Baptized are Madalin and His mother, who have been coming to our meetings ever since we started them. We are all really happy for them and happy that we will have our first official Church members! I hope that the Lord will use Lavinia and Madalin for the years to come in His service and for His will! Be in prayer for Lavinia and Madalin as they are the first people that attend our Church plant to do this. Pray that through this they will be a witness to the others and that they will be soon to follow!

Some more good news(I love telling good news!) for you! This past Sunday was our first time to ever serve the Lord's supper at our church plant! We are really happy that we could finally do this! There were only 6 of us (My Mom and Dad, Chase, Cristi, Irina, and myself) that took it, because we are the only ones that have been Baptized. This will soon change though, like I told you before Madalin and Lavina are getting Baptized so we hope they will partake next month when we give it again!

Well the Kids are back to school after their one week break, so our attendance was back up to 22 kids today. It's not the 30-35 we had at the beginning, but I think when the weather warms up our attendance will return to where it was. This past Friday the kids did some coloring for our wall's February theme! The theme is winter, with the kids on sleds and snowmen. We let the kids color a picture of a child on a sled and then printed out the kids that colored it and put his face in the place of the face on the coloring sheet. Cristi, Irina, Anca, Chase, Mada, Ioana, and I got together last night and cleaned the place up and hung all the "stuff" up. Here are some pictures!

Last week I went to Bucharest to take my ACT test for one final time and i some something very interesting on the way home! Here take a look at this! Talk about a loaded car!!!

Well I'll take some pictures of the Baptism and post them up next week! Keep us all in you prayers!

Coming home

2010-02-01T21:08:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't written in awhile. I have some important news for those of you who haven't read our latest newsletter. We Will be returning to the U.S. in either the latter part of May or at the beginning of June. I will Be returning for to attend college at Central Baptist College in Conway ,Arkansas. While my parents are gone Cristi and Irina will be in charge of the ministry here. We have complete confidence in Cristi and Irina and know that they will take care of things. We are really excited to come back and see old friends and family again, but sad at the same time to be leaving all of the people we know and love behind. Keep us in your prayers over the next few months as we prepare for our trip back.

These past two weeks went really well. We had some kids that stopped coming but we put out fliers and we have some new kids that filled their places. We have been teaching the kids a new song each week, so by the end of the year we will have a lot to choose from for the closing program. We still have room for another 15 or 20 kids so we have been putting out fliers during the weekend. We hope to get our attendance up over the next few weeks. Here are some photos from this past week.

Last night's youth meeting went great. We had some new youth that came and they had a lot of questions during our Devotion. We hope that our youth will grow and mature in the Lord, and we hope that they will learn to rely on each other because they are some of the very few Christian teens in this place. They are all that each other have as far as Christians go. I Pray that they will put their differences aside and learn to help each other. Here are a few pictures from last night.

Last week was Cristi's Birthday! He turned 31 on the 26th of January. We had a little get together for him on Sunday afternoon. Here are some pictures, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CRISTI!

Keep us in your prayers!

More snow? Ohh No!

2010-01-19T21:31:00.000+02:00

Sunday it started snowing again and has snowed everyday since then! But even though the weather has turned cold and nasty, last week was a great week! The sun was out for most of the week and the temperatures rose a little. At our English and Homework help we had about 20 kids everyday, so that means our attendance has been a little down from the 30-35 we were getting. Since our attendance has been down a little these past two weekends we have been going and hanging out fliers. over the past two weeks we put out about 100 and I hope to go put out another 50 this Saturday if our attendance doesn't get any better. We hope that we can bring in more kids and meet more parents so that we can really get to know more people in the community where we are working.

This past Saturday night Cristi and Irina invited the whole youth group over to their place for pizza and a movie. I made pizza dough for 8 pizzas and Irina cooked them. We had a great time and hope to do it again soon!

This Sunday went well, even though we didn't have Cristi there. Cristi was invited to some of his friends baptisms, They had a large Baptism for 8 of the young people in one of the Baptist churches at once. Dad filled in for Cristi this Sunday and Irina translated. Sunday night's youth meeting went well too. We had 8, not counting me, Cristi, and Irina. I really feel like our youth are growing in the Lord and that they are trying to serve Him and do what is right. I hope they will continue to serve Him throughout their lives.

Well, keep us all in your prayers, pray that God will continue to grow the work He has started here!

New Years Resolutions!

2010-01-12T18:50:00.001+02:00

Hi everybody! Well This past week I took pictures of the kids and the project we did with them, but Yesterday my external hard drive ,that I keep all of my photos on, magically got erased! So everything I didn't already have uploaded to Picasa or Facebook got deleted! Sorry! Anyway, This year we've decided to do a theme once a month in our room where we work with the kids. We want to let the kids draw some pictures and put up some different decorations each month. This months theme is "Happy New Year 2010!" We let the kids color some fireworks and we but up a big "Happy New Year!" sign. We also told each one of them to draw their New Years Resolutions and plans for 2010. Some of them drew and colored themselves getting better grades, some acting better and doing what their parents tell them, and one drew that he wanted to be like one of the famous soccer players this year! After that we hung all of their resolutions up on the wall so that they would think about them and remember them. I'll take some more pictures this next week so that everyone can see them.

This past Saturday Irina, Chase, Mada, Ioana, and Myself, gave our facility (the place we work with the kids, have youth meetings, Church, ect.) a good scrubbing! We got out the bleach and scrubbed down all of the walls until all of the black marks from shoes and chairs came off. We spent 3 and a half hours cleaning and I want to thank Irina, Mada, Chase, and Ioana for their hard work! Now it is really nice and clean! Here are some pictures of us.....

This past Sunday went great and we had a great Youth meeting afterwards! We also Celebrated Ioana's Birthday by have cake and pizza. We sang some praise and worship music and Then I had a short devotion for them. The text I used was Matthew 7:7-12, it was about the golden rule and treating others the way that you want to be treated. I told them that even though kids at school may say "your crazy and stupid for believing in all of that Jesus stuff" we still should treat them the way that we want to be treated. I also told them that when we are out and joking around with our friends we should be careful about what we call someone or what we say to them because we don't always know what that person has been through. We should talk to each other in positive and encouraging ways, not in discouraging and hurtful ways. I really wanted to emphasize the excessive joking and name calling in our group because it has been a real problem for some of them recently. I want them to lift each other up, not tear down, especially since some of them are new Christians. Here are some pictures....

Well, keep us in your prayers and especially ask God to help Cristi and Irina with the ministry here. Ask Him to keep them strong and not Discouraged.

Back to school kids!!!

2010-01-04T18:15:00.001+02:00

Hey everyone! Well the Holidays were just super! We had a great Christmas and a great New Year. For New years our youth group had a small get together at Anca's house and at midnight we all went downtown to watch the fireworks! After that we came back to Anca's and had a short time of sharing our New Year resolutions. I was really enthusiastic when some of our youth said that they wanted to take this year and draw closer to God because he is the most important thing. I'm really excited the way that God is moving in the lives of these teens! Here are some videos and pics!

We also had a great youth meeting on Sunday night. Cristi had a short message on how there is a time for everything. He encouraged the group to take this next year and grow spiritually and make good choices. After that one of the girls from our group invited us to her house and her mom cooked for us, we had some ice cream, and had a time of sharing our new years resolutions. Here are some pictures!

Today was the first day of school so tomorrow we start back our after school tutoring. The same hours from 2-4 and 4-6 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday with English lessons from 2-3:30 and 3:30-5 on Thursdays. This next week we will be hanging out fliers and posters all over the neighborhood to remind everyone of us and what we are doing.

We hope this new year goes well and are praying for a new facility either sometime this year or next year depending on our attendances and if it is God's will for us. Keep us in your prayers as we kick off 2010, and once again HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Year is coming to an end!

2009-12-26T17:31:00.002+02:00

Hey everyone! Well, the year is almost over! It has been a great year and God has definitely done some work here in Rimnicu Valcea.
This past week before Christmas we went with some of the teens from our youth group and Tim and Krista to the homeless shelter to sing some carols for them and give them some gifts. It went really great and the people there seemed very open and accepting of the short message that Tim had for them. Tim and Krista both said they wanted to do more there in the future. Here are some photos.

Yesterday afternoon Claudiu Nitisor and his organization, ProHelp, had a small event called Balloons for Jesus. He had a small stand up with balloons and he sold them at 4 lei($1.50) apiece and wrote the name of the person who bought one on it. Then at 3:15 everyone let their balloons go. Claudiu told everyone that this was to celebrate the birth of Christ our Saviour. Here are some pictures and videos

Last night Tim and Krista invited everyone over to their house for a sort of Christmas potluck, as we call it in the south, and fellowship. After everyone finished eating we went up stairs and Tim had a short message for everyone about Christmas and what its really about and what is really important. Here is the message if you want to see it for yourself.

After Tim had a message there was a short time of sharing of what God had been doing here in Valcea and how he had been working in peoples' lives this past year. Here are some videos of That and some pictures of the whole get-together.

I hope everyone had a merry, merry Christmas and hope you all have a happy new year! Keep us in your prayers!

Have a very Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T10:13:00.002+02:00

Hey Everyone! I just wanted to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year. May God bless all of you as we get ready to start this new year!

Our Christmas Festival went great!

2009-12-20T14:43:00.002+02:00

Hey everyone! We had our Christmas Festival this past Friday. It went well even though we didn't have quite as many people as we had hoped for. There were about 1200-1300 kids there and roughly 1600-1700 people there total including adults. This gave us a great opportunity to share the true message of Christmas with a lot of people and to tell them about our Savior, Jesus Christ. Here are the Pictures from the program and some videos.

We are stopping our English classes and homework help sessions for the Holidays, but we will pick them back up on the 5th after the kiddies start back to school. We are really excited about what this new year will bring for us here and we hope that God will really work in the peoples lives here in Rimnicu Valcea.

Keep us in your prayers!

Getting everything ready for this Friday's Christmas Celebration!

2009-12-15T20:40:00.002+02:00

Hey everyone! Well I would like to start off by giving some happy birthday wishes to one of the girls in our youth group. This past Saturday was her birthday and on Sunday we had a small "birthday party" for her at our organization's center. Here are some pictures!

Last night we had a meeting with all of the volunteers that will help us on Friday at our Christmas celebration. We made up teams and discussed how we will proceed with giving the gifts. Claudiu Nitisor told us that he had talked with several local television stations and a few national television stations. All of the local stations have confirmed they are coming and two of the national stations confirmed with one more that has not responded yet. He also went and talked with some of the local radio stations and newspapers and asked if they would cover the event and two of the newspapers accepted.

We will doing a "special panting" like I mentioned in the post before last if you want to see what I'm talking about just watch the video below.

We actually won't be doing the same story or message these people will we just took the idea with the painting. We will also have our kids that our Organization works with sing two carols at the Celebration. If you want to see the full program for Friday night here it is.

1. Opening and welcome Claudiu Nitisor
2. A Carol by our Group Cristi Ciuculescu
3. A shrot word from the city's mayor Mircea Gutau
4. A Choreography Mihaela Runceanu
5. About the Organizations who
put together the Program Chuck Harrod
6. A Puppet show Dana Nitisor
7. The "special painting" Group
8. A Christmas message Claudiu Nitisor
9. A carol by our group Cristi Ciuculescu
10. Closing and exiting instructions Cristi Ciuculescu.

After the Program ends we will have teams waiting at the exits. These teams will take the tickets we passed out and will give a gift in exchange. The only way to get a gift is to have a ticket, this way we don't have to worry about being short. We will go and pick up the gifts on Thursday and will come back that same afternoon and drop them off at the place where the Celebration will be held.

Keep us all in your prayers as we have this busy week ahead of us and pray that God will guide us.

Our Organization's Christmas program went great!

2009-12-12T21:19:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! We had our Christmas Program yesterday and it went great! Not all of our kids came but we had a little over half of them. All of the kids that had parts in the play came so that was a big relief. First Cristi gave an introduction and then we sang some carols, had the play, and sang 2 more carols. After that Cristi had a 25-30 minute message about the true meaning of Christmas and how we as people try to take Christ out of Christmas by filling it up with junk like Santa Clause and stuff. After that We sang one last carol and closed. Here are they videos of Cristi's sermon, some of the Carols, and some pictures.

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We are really excited about next Friday. At 7:00 P.m. we will start and hope to be finished by 10:00 with everything. Pray for us that everything will go well and that God will bless what we are doing.

Our Christmas Program is all lined out!

2009-12-07T21:28:00.001+02:00

Hey everyone! Well we have got our Christmas program all lined out and we are really excited! Actually we have two Christmas programs that we will have take place.

The first program is our organization's (Bunul Pastor) program. The participants in the program will be the kids we work with 4 days a week at our center in Ostroveni and our Church's youth group. It will take place on the 11th at the Casa Stiintei in Ostroveni at 7:00 o'clock P.M. This will just be our closing program for the Holiday's since this week is the last week of school. We expect roughly 60 people to show up. We will have some Christmas carols and play followed by a short message. We've been practicing for it this past week here are some pictures....

The second program is the big one that I wrote about in the last blog post. It will take place on the 18th of December at 7:00 o'clock P.M. at the city's indoor handball stadium. We will receive 2000 gifts from Samaritan's Purse and will distribute them at the program. The total time of the program will be about 2 hours, but will be split into tow parts. The first hour our group of kids we work with at our center in Ostroveni every week will sing some carols with Cristi and Irina, We will then have a special "painting", and Claudiu Nitisor will have a short message. The second hour we will distribute the gifts to Children between the ages 5-14. We already have about 20 or 25 volunteers and we need at least another 10 to 15, after all we are going to be giving out 2000 gifts. We will also have the city's gendarmerie there for security purposes (the gendarmerie is a division of the city's police force here). We hope that everything will turn out well and that the attendance will be good.

This week was my brother Chase's birthday. He turned 15 years old yesterday and we had a party for him at out youth meeting yesterday afternoon. We ate cake, played some games, and had a good time and then we all walked to town. Here are some pictures and videos of the party.....

This Saturday Mom had program with the mothers and daughters. About 8 or 9 mothers and 15 daughters came. Mom had a short message for them and then they did some crafts and played some games. Here are some pictures.....I had more but accidentally deleted some of them

This past Friday I went to help Claudiu Nitisor with 2 puppet shows that he had at the City Library and at one of the school here. We had really great attendance! Here are a few pictures...

Well thats about it, just keep everything we are doing and us in your prayers!

We've got a Christmas play coming!

2009-11-29T20:02:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well. This week went really well and we've started practicing for our Christmas play. It will take place somewhere around the second week in December at either the casa stiintei(hope my spelling is right) or the theater in Ostroveni. We will have some songs and a play followed by a short message. We have about 30-40 kids that we expect to participate in our program. We hope this will help show the children and their parents what the true meaning of Christmas is.

We hope to have another christmas program with the help of our friend Claudiu Nitisor and Samaritan's purse. We want to rent the indoor handball arena in town that holds about 2000 people or so and invite people to come and receive a gift donated by Samaritan's purse, we will receive somewhere around 2000 gifts. We hope to have help from some local volunteers and possibly the handball team. We want to do this so we can gather the people to share the love of Christ with them and the wonderful message of Christmas. This project is going to take quite a bit of planning in a short time period and lots of help from the Lord. This will be one of the biggest things we have done and definitely will be the most people we have ever had gathered at once.

Our youth meetings are still going strong. There were 9 present not counting myself, Cristi, and Irina. We did have 3 or 4 of our youth missing tonight but everything went well. We hope the group keeps on growing even thought it is growing slowly. here are some pictures form this week's meeting.

Just remember and keep us in your prayers this busy Christmas season we have ahead of us and pray that God will touch the lives of the people here.

Swine Flu!

2009-11-23T14:40:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! Sorry I don't really have much to write on the blog this week because since last Wednesday I've been sick with the swine flu (At least thats what the doctor told me). I had a temperature of about 102 F.(39 C.) at one point, but I'm feeling much better now and will be back at it tomorrow.

I do have one piece of news for all of you Romanian readers though. My friend Claudiu Nitisor, who writes the Dumnezeu este opinia mea publica blog, has moved his blog to a new address. He said he lost his old blog somehow and had to move it. Here is the link to the new address http://claudiunitisor.wordpress.com/

Keep everyone here in your prayers and pray that now one else will get sick. Have a blessed day!

Happy Birthday Anca!

2009-11-15T21:03:00.000+02:00

Hey everybody! Today was Anca's 31st Birthday! About 20 people or so came and we had a great time. Once again I want to wish Anca a very happy and blessed birthday, Happy Birthday Anca! Here are some pictures of Anca's Birthday......

This past week went really well, our attendance at Homework help and English were back up since the kids are all back to school. This week we had at least 20 kids everyday and on Friday we had 24. The weather is really nasty out and I don't think the kids got out much during the week, so come Friday they were all really wild. Here are a few more pictures of them during game time and lesson time.....

Yesterday night we went out with our youth group again. We went to a coffee shop/bakery in town and we just all "hung out" and talked. At one point Cristi was having a conversation with one of the teens about what we do with our lives and about following God's will and God's plan in our lives. Cristi used himself as an example, when he first started college he went to a christian college and he wanted to do music and be a musician. He went and took the entrance exam and he couldn't read the Notes. Cristi could play guitar really well and he knew the chords but he couldn't read music then, so he said at that moment he knew that it wasn't God's will for him to be a musician. Then he went on to do theology and know he is ordained and is serving here in Rimnicu Valcea. He told the particular teen that if you are God's child he will show you the path that you should take. He also said that what may seem right to us will not always be what God want for our lives.
Here are some pictures of our youth group.

Well, just keep us all in your prayers and pray that God will keep furthering the work here!

Back to school kids!

2009-11-08T20:07:00.001+02:00

Hey everyone! This past week went well, even though our numbers were a little lower. This past week all of the kids grades K-7 were out of school and several of our regulars didn't come. Since the kids were out they didn't have any homework, so we just had a short lesson for the kids and did some arts & crafts. Here are some pictures of them below.....

I just want to let everyone know that this week's post will be that last post translated into Romanian. As of This week Cristi and Irina will be doing all of the writing on the Romanian blog and the only thing I will be doing is taking some pictures every once in a while to post up. I will continue to write on the English blog but, I feel like Cristi and Irina will do a much better job than me if they write on the Romanian blog themselves.

Keep us in your prayers and thoughts!

Winter is upon us!

2009-11-01T20:52:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! Well today was cold but other than that everything has went well this week. We had about 30-35 kids at English tutoring on Tuesday and roughly 15-20 everyday at our after school program. Last night we went out with our youth group to a coffee house and we all had a good time......here are some pictures of our group.

This morning at Church we had about 14 or 15 present. Cristi asked me to do the Message today at church. I was pretty nervous since it was my first time to every do it. The passage was from James 3:1-12. I talked about our tongues and how we use them to shoot"poison" at others and then we turn around and bless others and God. I also said that we should treat and speak to each other with love and kindness, instead of hatred and slanderous words. Tonight at our youth meeting we were missing a few of our youth because of the colder and rainier weather. There were only 6 teens there tonight, but hopefully more will come next week! Next Monday afternoon we want to go with the group to the Philharmonic and see one of the concerts there.

Keep us all in your prayers!

Youth meeting was great!

2009-10-25T19:31:00.003+02:00

Hey everybody! Just got back from youth meeting and it went great! There were only ten of us but the youth that were there have been coming pretty regularly. I can see that God is really moving these teens and He is starting to work in there lives. Cristi talked about how we will and do have pressures and temptations in this world, but we must resist them and give our lives to Christ. That way we can be changed by Him and given the power to do what is right. This Saturday we want to take the group out to eat or something, so that we can show them that you can be a Christian and still do normal things like go out for ice cream. We hope to be a good and positive influence on them so that they will grow strong in the Lord and serve him here in Rimnicu Valcea over the years to come. Here are a few more pictures of the group for you.......

We have some more exciting news! We have someone who is ready to be baptized! Telu, our good friend that my dad and Cristi have Bible study every week, is going to be baptized two weeks from now on the 8th of November. We are really excited for Telu and pray that God be with him. We hope that he will grow strong in the Lord and be a good servant for Him here in Rimnicu Valcea!

This morning's service was good. We have this one man who is Telu's friend, Mr. Gigi I think I've mentioned him before, and we can tell that God is really working in his whole family. This morning at church his wife and daughter came with him and they seemed very attentive to everything Cristi said. The other night dad and Cristi went to visit them and they were very open to the Gospel and to what dad and Cristi had to say. We hope that God will take this family, use them for His glory and change their lives so that they will have a heart for Him.

Keep us all in your prayers and pray for the people I mentioned in the post. Pray that God will help them to see the Light that is His son, Jesus Christ. Pray that he will change them and mold them for Him and his purposes.

Some One had a Birthday?

2009-10-22T18:47:00.002+03:00

Hey everybody! Yesterday was Irina's 22nd birthday! We had the party in our apartment where we have church on Sundays and there were about 25-30 people. We played some games, ate some cake, the works! Everyone had a good time and once again I we want to wish Irina a Happy Birthday! Here are some pictures of the party......

All in all everything has been going good. On Sunday night I(Cody)did the devotion for the youth meeting. The passage was from Psalm 139:1-13 which talks about God's omnipresence. My devotion was about how we as people have those "hidden sins" we think no one knows about or sees, but God sees them and knows them all. Therefore our sins aren't that hidden. Here are some photos of our youth meetings.... I'll get some more next week and will post them up along with Cristi's ordination video.

I(Cody) haven't been able to go help Cristi and Irina this week but Cristi called me and told me today that they had 20 kids for the first session at English class and 8 or 9 for the second. We've also had more kids coming to homework help and we are soon going to be running out of space in our small apartment if we keep going at this rate, we pray that God will provide a bigger facility for us in the future.

I hope to start writing more on the blog about general everyday things that go on here. I hope this will help our readers from the U.S.A. understand what it is like here a little better. If anyone has any comments about any of the posts feel free to comment you just have to click on the green number beside the word" comment " at the top of each post. Well, Keep my family, Cristi and Irina, and the Ministry here all in your prayers!

Cristi's Ordination went great!

2009-10-16T11:30:00.002+03:00

Hey everybody! Sorry I've taken so long to write this post. I was trying to get some video of Cristi's ordination posted up but the video had some problems and I couldn't get it to work. I did however, get some pictures of the Ordination. They're posted below. I thought the ordination went very well and Cristi and Irina are very happy. Cristi was a little nervous but he answered all of Brother Rocky's questions and after that the Pastors that made up the presbytery laid hands on Cristi and prayed over him. Cristi said that he now feels confident and ready to lead in the ministry here in Rimnicu Valcea. We are really excited about the future Ministry here in Valcea.

Well, other than that we are doing good and have had an increase in our attendances at our after school program, English, and Sunday Morning Church service. Just keep us all in your prayers and thoughts!

(oh and I'll try to redo the video and see if I can get it o work and i'll post it up on the blog)

Cristi's Ordination is Tomorrow

2009-10-10T10:45:00.003+03:00

Hey everybody! Well Bro. Mike and Bro. Rocky made it to Romania safe and sound and Cristi will have his ordination tomorrow! I'll have Photos and a video of the whole Ordination posted up next week on the blog. We are very excited for Cristi and Irina and and I hope you keep them in your prayers.

Our Homework help has been going really well and we usually have between 15 and 25 kids a day. We have one little boy that comes to our after school tutoring and he is in Kindergarten,yet he has already learned to add and subtract. This is a big accomplishment for him since he won't be taught addition and subtraction until he is in the 1st. grade. We hope we see more cases like this in the with these kids, where they strive to do good and learn.

Our youth meetings on Sundays are going good also, we have had between 8 and 10 youth every week. I'll have some pictures of our youth meetings posted up next week. Until then keep us in your prayers!

Cristi's Ordination

2009-10-04T14:55:00.002+03:00

Hey everybody! Sorry I haven't written on the blog or posted any new photos up. My camera broke last week and I'll be getting a new one soon. Well we have some really good news for you all, Cristi is going to have his ordination next week! Bro. Mike Goodwin and Bro. Rocky Goodwin are coming to Romania this Wednesday and they, along with my Dad and some other Romanian pastors, are going to perform Cristi's ordination service next Sunday at 2o'clock at the Baptist church "Speranta". The service will end around 4o'clock followed by a short reception. We are all really excited for Cristi and Irina and for the future ministry with them here. I will have my friend Claudiu Nitisor video the whole ordination and I will post the videos along with some Photos up on the blog sometime next week.

I also hope to have some Pictures of our after school program posted up sometime at the end of this week. Until then keep us all, especially Cristi and Irina, in your prayers.

First week back to school!!!

2009-09-20T20:30:00.002+03:00

Hey everybody! Well we've got all of our after school programs and stuff up and going. We've had about 18-20 kids everyday for the after school homework help, roughly 15 for English(ages 6-13), and 6 or 7 for the English(ages 14-18). It is a good start and several other kids and their parents have promised they will come. On Friday when we had our homework help we had our first volunteer. One of the little girls grandmother stayed for the 2 hours her granddaughter was there and helped us grade the kids homework and extra work we had given them. She also promised that she would try and come at least once a week to help us out and try to get us some new extra curricular material for the kids. This was really encouraging for us to finally see someone, besides us, to volunteer their time and energy to help these kids.

I forgot to write in the last blog post, that anyone who would like to volunteer one day a week for 2 hours to come and help us with the after school tutoring. We will accept any and all volunteers the reason being, we want to be able to work more 1-on-1 with the children so that they can learn even more. If you Want to volunteer or have any questions feel free to call us at:

Irina:0746 627 808
Cristi:0788 687 309
Cody:0788 254 664

Today at our Sunday night youth meeting we had a fairly good turnout of 10 youth or so. Cristi had a short devotion for them from Ecclesiastes 11:9 which says "Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things." Cristi told them that you can go and fulfill your worldly and fleshly desires, but if you do then know that God will judge you in the final day. He also said that even though you try to fill your life with worldly pleasures that you will never be truly happy unless you have a personal relationship with God. They all said they would come back next week and that they enjoyed it so we'll see.

Next week I'll try and take some pictures of the kids to post on the blog.
Until then keep us all in your prayers!

Awana Is over and School has Started!

2009-09-15T19:53:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone! Well we had our Awana Closing program this past Friday. We had about 150 people, including parents and the kids that participated, come. You can see the videos and photos below. It all went well and we had a great response from the parents after the program. After we finished the Awana ceremony with the kids my Dad, Chuck, had a short Gospel message for everyone. It has been a great opportunity for us to share the Gospel with kids and parents alike this Summer and we cant wait till next year!

Since School has started back we have a new after school tutoring and homework help program. On Tuesdays we will have two home work help sessions from 2:00-4:00 p.m. and then from 4:00-6:00 p.m. On Wednesdays homework help at the same as time as Tuesdays and from 6:30-7:30 p.m. we will have English for adults. On Thursdays we wont have homework help, instead we will have free English lessons from 2:00-3:30 p.m. for children ages 6-9 and from 3:30-5:30 for children ages 10-14. On Fridays we have homework help again at the same times as Tuesdays and Wednesdays and from 6:30-7:30 p.m. we will have free English lessons for teens ages 14-18. Finally, on Sundays we have a short Bible study for all ages from 11:30-12:00 a.m. and from 5:00-7:00 p.m. we will have Youth meetings for ages 14-18.

This Summer has been great! We have gotten to know these kids and have been able to influence their lives in positive directions. We hope to see all these kids and their parents have a personal and lasting relationship with God. We want to instill wholesome and Godly values in all of these children so that they can grow up to be Godly men and women.

Well, keep us all in your prayers! May God bless you!

Awana Closing Program!!!

2009-09-06T19:08:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone! We had our last Awana Club meeting this Friday and our last Awana store(check out the slide show at the end of the post). The Kids are sad because we will not be having Awana meetings until next summer.

This week we will have our closing program. We've rented the Cinema in Ostroveni and we will have the closing program on Friday, the 11th of September at 7o'clock. We will meet with the kids one more time on Tuesday to rehearse for the program. Anyone and everyone is invited to come!

I want to remind you all again that we will be starting our after school tutoring program soon! I don't have an exact date and time yet but I'll let you all know. If you know anyone who has kids who would be interested in coming just give us a call or send us an e-mail!

Well, keep us in your prayers!

Awana is coming to an End!

2009-08-26T21:35:00.002+03:00

Hey Everybody Well our Awana club has almost come to an end! We have 2 more weeks left and then we will have a special closing ceremony. We are trying to get the Cinema in Ostroveni rented so that we will have plenty of room for the parents and Grandparents to come see the kids at the closing ceremony. I'll try to get the exact date of the closing ceremony in the next blog post.

We've had some new people coming to our meetings on Sunday thanks to Telu, a man that Dad and Cristi have Bible study with once a week. Telu invited one of his friends,Mr. Gigi, to come three Sundays ago and this past Sunday ,Mr. Gigi, brought one of his friends with him. So through Telu God has brought two more men to hear the Gospel. Telu had been asking Cristi how God was going to use him(Telu is in a wheelchair and doesn't get around much) so now we see how God has used Telu to show others the way toward Christ. It really is amazing what God can do through someone's life.

I'll keep you all posted!
Keep us in your Prayers!

Summer is almost over!

2009-08-19T19:20:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone! Well our Summer has almost come to an end! School starts here on the 15th of September so we only have 3 more weeks left of our Awana club. We've had a great turnout this summer in Awana, right now we have about 50 kids our so. Our English program for the kids has been going well also, we have between 30 and 45 kids that come regularly.

Once school starts back we'll be starting back our free homework help and tutoring. We're going to have this everyday from Monday to Friday, we don't have an exact time set yet but we'll keep you posted.

Yesterday at Awana we had some special guest. Claudiu Nitisor(check out his blog at http://cllodvl.wordpress.com/) and his wife Dana came and put on a puppet show for the kids. We had about 25 kids so we were pretty crowded. Here are some of the pictures below.

Well keep us all in your prayers!

We've really grown!

2009-08-08T12:50:00.003+03:00

Hey everyone just thought Would give a quick update on what's been going on. My grandma and my Great aunt have come to visit us for two weeks here in Valcea. We took them yesterday to see the kids at the Awana club. My Grandma ,who worked in Awana in the U.S., said that she wished the kids in Awana in the U.S. had as much desire to memorize the scripture as the kids here do. She said that the kids there just kinda zipped through their Awana handbooks and didn't really learn the verses by heart but the kids here do. For example some of the kids in our Awana club have completed their manuals and they're now doing the recap, which is basically redoing the whole book for a second time, and are going through it really fast because they took the scriptures in their handbooks and really learned them by heart. We should really count this as a blessing, that the kids here are really taking the scripture to heart.

Our Awana Program has grown quickly, this past Tuesday we had six new kids come but since we already have so many kids come on Tuesday we had to move them to Friday. Now we have about 40-45 kids who have completed their Entrance brochures and have earned their handbooks and uniforms and another 5 or so kids who are still on their Entrance brochures giving us a total of 50 or so kids. Mainly we need now is more sponsors and more space because we are at the limit of how many kids we can handle. Just keep praying for us that God will give us what we need if it is his will and pray that he will help us to be a good example for this kids and share Christ's love with them.

Awana Crazy hair!

2009-07-25T10:41:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone! We had Awana Crazy hair day yesterday. Some of the kids went all out and did their hair really crazy but some of them didn't participate at all. Since we had some that didn't participate we gave the ones who did participate ten Awana dollars apiece so that the ones who didn't participate this time will next time. Well here's a little sideshow of the kids and I should have a video of them up in a day or two.

Vacation!

2009-07-10T16:07:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone just thought I'd be sure and let you know we're going on a family vacation to Bulgaria. We're leaving tomorrow and we'll be back on Thursday. While we're gone some of Cristi;s Brothers are going to come and help him and Irina out with Church, Awana, and the English program. Next week when i get back I'm going to post a Video and some Photos of the Awana program. See you next week!

Keep praying for us!

What's been going on

2009-06-28T14:11:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone! Just thought I'd write an update on how things have been going. Well as you know we've been doing Awana club for about almost 4 weeks now. We have about 30-40 kids that come that we split up into two groups and one group come on Tuesday and one on Friday. 8 of the kids have earned their uniforms and handbooks. We've also been doing some extra English tutoring for the kids on Thursday. The time originally was from 2:00-4:00, but we had so many kids we had to do an extra group from 4:00-6:00. Today Irina's youngest sister is coming from Iasi to stay in Valcea for a week to help us with Awana and English. Her help will be Greatly appreciated. In two weeks we leave on vacation for 5 days and while we're gone Cristi is going to get some of his brothers to come help with the English and Awana Programs.

Our church attendance has been kinda low lately. Three Sundays ago we had 2 or 3 people come and the past two Sundays just one. That's a big difference of the 16-18 we had 4 or 5 weeks ago, but God is good and he has a plan!

Well that's about all we have going on at the moment. I'll try and put up a new post next week, in the mean time keep us all in your prayers!

Awana Club!

2009-06-16T16:50:00.003+03:00

Hey everyone! As you may know we started up Awana club today! We had 29 kids present out of the 31 that signed up. Today we just went over the rules, gave them there entrance books, and played some games. They seemed really excited about getting the uniforms, awards, and (most of all) the Awana money. Since the group is so big we will be splitting up into two groups, one on Tuesday and one on Friday, from 2:00-4:00. Like in the states we'll have something fun once a month like crazy hair day, crazy sock day, or something like that. For the first day i think it went very well and I hope that, even though our space is limited, our numbers grow. Either next week or Friday I'll try and take some pictures to post up on the blog so everyone can see what's going on.

Also tomorrow, Wednesday, we will be starting our adult english courses once a week from 7:00-8:00 and on Thursdays we will have english for the kids from 2:00-4:00.

Everyone remember us in you prayers!

Check out the new Blog In Romanian!

2009-06-10T13:42:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone I've gotten Anca to translate the blog so on the right side you should see a Romanian flag to click on and this will take you to the Romanian site. All future Blog post from here on will be written in both English and Romanian. We'll have some new post in a few days! Keep us in your Prayers!

The Blog is now in Romanian and English!

2009-06-08T13:05:00.007+03:00

Hey Everyone! I Just wanted to let you know the blog is now in Romanian too! You'll find the translate button on the Right hand side column. The Google translator does it and Yes I know it's not the greatest translation but at least everyone will be able to understand it. Hopefully I can get Anca to come and translate it correctly for us so you won't need to use Google Translator.

Sunday!

2009-06-07T13:47:00.003+03:00

Hey everyone! Today is Sunday and as some of you may know Cristi and Irina are on vacation in Turkey. Since Cristi wasn't there to preach today we had Mike Babcock delivering the message with his wife Elvira translating. I thought Mike did a really good job with the passage he taught from, 2 Timothy 3:16. In the passage it says:

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness

Mike gave an illustration that I thought was a good analogy. He said "some people view Heaven as a place on top of a mountain and that there are many ways to reach the top. This doesn't agree with what the Bible says though. The Bible says that there is only one way to heaven and that way is Jesus Christ". This is so true but so hard for many people to understand. Many people say or think they can get to heaven if they do more good than bad in their lives and can get to Heaven on works. Of course we know this not to be true and we know that the Bible says that our works are like filthy rags to God and that there is no way to get to Heaven by works. I thought Mike did a great job want to thank him for his time and effort.

This Morning we had 16 or 17 people attend our service and we hope for even more in the future. The area that we really need more attendance in is our Sunday afternoon youth meetings that are for teens from ages 14 to 18 on Sunday afternoon from 5:00 till 7:00. If you know anyone who wants to come just invite them and tell them to call me at 0788254664 and I can meet them in front of the Nr. 9 school so they can come. Anyone from 14 to 18 are welcome!

Oh and one more thing tomorrow I'm going to try and get the blog translated into Romanian so that everyone can read it!

Whats been going on.....

2009-06-03T14:32:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone just thought I'd give an update to whats been going on and what we have planned. We just finished up our homework help, the English program, and had our Skit(with the kids from the English class)for the parents. We had about 110 people or so come and this gave us an opportunity to gather all those people in one room and share the Gospel with them. I feel like it went well and we had a great opportunity to share Christ's love with others. I've already posted some Photos and Videos of the Program and skit we had, if you want to see more you can look there.

Now here's a list of things we have planned and want to do in the future. We will be starting the homework help back when school starts. On June 16th we will be starting our Awana program and we will have it two days a week, on Thursday and Friday, from 2:00-4:00. On June 17th we will start our summer English program for kids on Wednesdays also from 2:00-4:00. We've had quite a few adults ask us if we were doing adult English classes, we haven't been unfortunately, but starting June 18th we will be doing adult English tutoring every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 p.m. We also want to do more street evangelism and maybe some skits. We haven't been doing much evangelism lately because Cristi broke his foot back in February/March and it's hard to do without a translator but, Cristi is doing much better now and can walk on his own two feet so we should be getting to do some street evangelism soon!

We're really excited about the new English and Awana programs that we can use as tools to help share the Gospel with others. We have about two weeks of down time left until we start all of these new things then after that it's busy, busy so be in prayer for us, Cristi, and Irina as we get ready for this summer.

Our english Program

2009-06-03T14:21:00.000+03:00

English Program

Our English program

2009-06-02T19:42:00.004+03:00

Here's the videos of our English program we had

My new blog

2009-06-02T14:23:00.000+03:00

Hey everyone this is my new blog and in this blog i want to write about whats going on here with us in Rimnicu Valcea. Keep reading in the future for more post!