Thanksgiving…Take 2!

I flew out to the U.S. just a couple of days before Thanksgiving.  My sister volunteered to host it at her house since she had recently remodeled her dining room.  We worked the whole week before Thanksgiving to finish getting it ready.  Our whole family was to be there, but, the day before, Lucy came down with the flu.  So, my brother and his family (with a new baby) decided not to come!  These things happen!  We had lots of food and Micah and I even made some cute little turkeys out of oreos….sadly, we didn't take a picture!

My sister's new dining room!  Still needs a little paint….but, it is beautiful!

Funny Faces!!

Lucy and I can both roll our tongues!!

Kind of a blur...

November was kind of a blur!  So many things happening and on top of maintaining a normal schedule we celebrated Thanksgiving here in Romania and I was preparing to go to the states for a month!

Jen and I, along with Steven, Haley and one of our interns, took a little trip up to the mountains to visit our former staff, Florenta and her husband.  She was helping Haley prepare for an upcoming conference on autism and working with special needs kids, so we decided to make a weekend of it.  We visited Dracula's castle and shopped, of course.  We went to Mark and Florenta's church.  Probably, the highlight for me, though, was hiking through these huge rock canyons.  It was absolutely beautiful!  God never ceases to amaze me with his stunning creations!

And then, we celebrated Thanksgiving!  Romania doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, but as a H2H family, we do!  We make all the fixings, invite all of the kids that have been through our transitions programs plus our current kids, staff and former staff.  All in all, we were about 75 people!  Try that for a family Thanksgiving!  This year for Christmas, we decided that we wanted to help the kids focus on "giving back"!  So, at our Thanksgiving gathering, we introduced the idea that we wouldn't be exchanging gifts with one another, but, that the kids would bring a gift of food, clothes, or toys for a poor, needy family.  We made a tree with removable, paper leaves with suggestions of things they could bring and the response was good!  

Finally, a few days before I flew out for the U.S., we celebrated Emi's 3rd birthday.  Jen, Corny and I  took Mariana, Emi, Alina and Ruthie to the movies.  For the little ones it was their first time at the movie theater!  They did great watching the movie "Planes"!  We had McDonald's for lunch and finished the afternoon off cake!!

Kinley Faith Johnson

Kinley Faith Johnson is my new niece.  She was born on November 4, 2013 in the Fresno area.  I, of course, was 10,000 miles away in Romania.  So, this happened…a virtual "visit" or "meeting"!

A few weeks later, I flew to the U.S. for my furlough visit and this happened!

In. the. flesh.  At Chick-Fil-A!!!  My heart was, is, and still is happy with all the good memories!!!

Princess Ruthie Turns 3!!

Princess Ruthie turned 3 last week!  She is way into anything princess, pink and girly right now!!  So, of course the theme was princesses!!  We made crowns, played pin the crown on the princess, ate pizza and cake and opened presents!!  Princess Ruthie loved the scooter we got for her!  The castle cake with the princesses was also a big hit!!  Ruthie stayed over the night before her birthday.  That morning she really wanted to decorate a pumpkin with the Mrs. Potato Head princess set that I have.  So, of course, we ran off to the market to buy a pumpkin!!

Birthday Breakfast: bread with peanut butter and a candle, of course!!

She wore this wig for a long time this morning....I think she liked it because she felt like she had long hair!

Emi is her very best friend and she couldn't wait for him to come to her party!!

Princess/Castle Cake

She loved this game and would have done it over and over again if we would have let her!

Happy Birthday, Princess!!!  I love you!!

H2H Staff

Here are all of our precious little faces!  Enjoy!

Fall 2013

Pumpkins and PreSchool at Voluntari

Since we don't have a girl's program this fall and no fall teams, Jen and I found ourselves with a little extra time on our hands (how can this be?)!  We decided that since the preschool kids at Voluntari weren't going to school yet, that we would prepare a program for them two days a week.  Wouldn't you know it?  The week we showed up with stuff planned for them, they started going to their school!!  We adjusted our plans a little bit and are still going to Voluntari with Corny and Talitha, just working with the school age kids instead.  We go on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and work with whoever is available for part of the time.  The other part of the time Jen teaches clarinet lessons and I work one on one with two boys who should be in school, but, are not.  I'll talk about them a little later.  Here are some pictures of the fun lessons we did about pumpkins and leaves:

Nica and Florentin are two boys at Voluntari who should be in 1st or 2nd grade, but, for various reasons like bad behavior and stealing, they are not allowed to go back to school.  I discovered that Nica did not recognize his numbers and could write his name, but doesn't recognize the names of letters. Florentin knows his numbers but is inconsistent and sometimes guesses and cannot write his name at all.  This is a disgrace for 8-year olds.  So, my mission for right now is to teach these boys!  They are thriving with the one on one attention that I'm giving them, even if it is only 1/2 hour, two days a week.  Both of them practically run into my arms when I arrive at the only place they know as home!

Nica

Florentin

New School Year

September and October always bring the beginning of a new school year here in Romania, but, it is nothing like how it was when I was teaching in the U.S.  Gone are the days of bulletin boards, teacher in-service, and back to school night, yet, in its place are schedule planning, interviews for the transition houses and an occasional team.  I always get a little excited at the beginning of October because I know that we have a new batch of kids coming into our transition program.  This year we have six boys; all six from Rosiori de Vede.  We opened the boy's house on October 1st.  I made the trip down south to Nenciulesti to help welcome them to their new home for the next nine months.  We took hygiene items down that they would be needing, some clothes and of course I baked a cake!  Everyone loved the cake and I of course had to give out the recipe!  The boys were both nervous and excited to begin this new adventure.  They have been there almost a month now and they seem to be adjusting.  Please pray for the amazing things God is going to do in their lives this year!

The boys from left to right: Vasile, Amo, Florin, Bogdan, Alex, Dosin

Staff with the boys