Biola's Back In Town!

The same day that the CCC team left, the Biola team arrived!  That was a fast flip of our house!  This group of students/musicians brought young energy with beautiful music!  I went out to youth group at Peris with them one evening and some of the girls sang and played the guitar!  The kids absolutely loved it!

They were here for Children's Day so we planned a carnival for all the kids in Rosiori.  The kids especially loved it when they played the Romanian National Anthem.  Sadly, I don't have any pictures of that day!!

Bless It!!

We had a fun new team this year from North Carolina from a church called CCC!  We sure had a lot of  fun with them and they built lasting relationships with the kids and the staff.  They were able to spend a lot of time with the girls from GTH.  One of our favorite sayings while they were here was, "Bless It", said of course with a heavy southern accent.  They shared God's love by blessing everyone that they came into contact with.

Doing the-dye shirts with the girls from GTH and the boys from ATH 

Bible Study with GTH and ATH

The-Dye with the BTH boys

There are three things I do best: cook, drive and lifeguard!  On this particular day, I was driving!

This team blessed the girls with their very own netbooks!  WOW what a gift!!!

With the boys from BTH

These are my new cousins from North Carolina!!  We realized about halfway through the trip that we have the same last name, so, we must be related, right?

May 2013

Sometimes, in our down times when we don't have teams or we have only a few people here, I go hang out with the kids at the orphanage.  Here are a few pictures from hanging out with some of my favorite kids...

Playing cards....he cheats....I really have to watch him! 

Canada Team 2013

We here at Heart to Heart LOVE the Canada team!  They always come with such great ideas and always encourage us in what we are doing!!  This year was no exception!  The two weeks that they spend here every year are always so jam packed with activities; we really leave them no time to breathe! 

First event:  Girl's and Boy's Day!  We decided to combine them this year so that we wouldn't have so many events!!  We had fun sharing a meal together and then the boys and girls having separate times together.  Everyone also gets their picture taken by a photographer Dan or Debbie.  This year Debbie took the pictures and did a fantastic job!

Second event:  Wedding Dress shopping for our Ioana (one of the girls from the girl's transition house)!  The team decided that they wanted to gift Ioana by buying her wedding dress.  We had a fun day shopping.  Which one did she choose?  Stay tuned for a post about the wedding!

Third event: Prepping for Easter and getting the pool ready with the mommies (or throwing all the toys into the empty pool)!

Fourth event:  Easter!  This Easter was very special for us because two of our transition kids got engaged.  We have worked with Alex and Ioana for years and both of them were in our programs this year.  Alex decided that he wanted to propose to Ioana in a special way.  So, we set up not only a golden egg, but also a silver egg with an engagement ring that he would "conveniently" find.  He was so cute because he wrote a speech to say to her and memorized it and then had the ring in the silver egg!  She didn't really realize what was going on throughout the speech.  Only until he opened the egg with the ring did she realize what was going on.  

The Canadian team is always very generous and they didn't fail us this year.  They blessed us with money to buy a "new" used car!  Thanks, H2H Canada!!!

A Little Break to Prague....

Jen, Kirsteen, Mariana and I decided to take a weekend break to Prague before the busyness of late spring and summer teams came.  We went to visit our friend Lenuta who is studying in Prague until December.  We helped her celebrate her birthday, did a little sight seeing, and a little relaxing!  

Us with the Charles Bridge in the background

Astronomical Clock

Yummy ice cream

I LOVE Hydrangeas....and these just happened to be PINK!!!

Birthday Girl!

We kept thinking it was going to rain all weekend...it finally did on the last day!!

Mirela's Birthday

Mirela is one of my girls.  I like to do something special for her birthday.  So, Jen and I decided to take her out to lunch, shopping and to a movie.  I can't remember what movie we saw seeing that this was back in April and it is now August, but alas!!  She really loves the one on one attention and we love to give it to her!!!  Happy Birthday, Mirela!!

We wanted to buy this shirt for her, after all, she is Trouble #1, but we didn't like how it fit her and she isn't really a Heart Breaker!!  :)

Spring 2013

This spring was all aflutter with activity here in Romania!!  We kicked off our spring programs with a team from Black Forest Academy in Germany!  These young ladies helped us be the hands of Jesus!  We had a lot of fun with these students!!

This spring I was able to help out with several field trips that some of our staff coordinated with the orphanage kids.  It is rare that the kids actually get to leave the orphanage to go somewhere, so a trip to McDonald's is a real treat for them!!  They had a lot of fun playing on the toys (and eating hamburgers and french fries)!