New Years Resolutions!

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!!!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.