Last Day in Ivancea

Today was a very emotional day !! It was our last day to be at Ivancea, we can't believe it has gone by so quickly.  When we drove up to the orphanage, the kids were jumping up and down and waving at us, that made all of our hearts melt. We were throwing the kids a Big Birthday Party today and it was a  surprise for them.

                                                                                      

We went in through the back kitchen door and started throwing things together as fast as we could, since we were late because of buying art from a local artist .....AT HIS HOUSE!!!! (That is another story I will have to tell later!) 

 

Dan and Dorin (one of our translators) were guarding the cafeteria door  so the kids wouldn't come in. Once we had everything together, Dan and Dorin opened the doors and the kids ran (literally) in, it was so amazing to see their eyes light up when they saw the room. There were balloons hanging up, party plates, cups and napkins on the tables, also on the tables were goodie bags, party horns, pastries, cookies and juice. They were so excited. I found out after the fact that this is the ONLY birthday party that they have had at Ivancea.......the kids don't get a birthday party and some of the kids don't even know when there birthday is!.......How sad is that! (that breaks my heart!) We also gave the kids their very own Bible in their language....Romania. 

   

 Arlene told the kids a story of celebrating everyone's birthday .......when they are born and also celebrating their spiritual birthday.......the day that they except Jesus into their heart. It was great seeing the kids looking in their bibles to try to find some scriptures that we gave them. Towards the end of the party, several of the kids came up and wanted to comment on what the last 3 days meant to them. One little girl said that from the bottom of the heart she will always remember us and she loves us, one little boy told us that he is so excited now that he has a birthday to celebrate and a older boy got up there and told us that they will always be waiting for us to return to Ivancea and that he has God in his heart because of what we have done for them the last 3 days. We all lost it about that time, I'm not joking, just about every leader there either had tears in their eyes are were just flat out crying. I have really gotten attached to one little girl named Vera. 

                                            

She was watching me through the entire party...................I know this because I was watching her too!  She is absolutely precious and I could bring her and this one little boy home with me........Shane, get the back bedroom ready for him!!!!!! 

                                                                                          

God has definitely been working in my heart over here! I'm still trying to figure out why I had to travel half way around the world for it to happen..........ha ha ha. By no means am I complaining, I am hooked. I could do this all the time. It is such a great feeling to know that I had a part in putting those smiles on their faces and planting the seed of God's Word. 

When the party was over the directors had us come into a different room and honored us with a snack.......traditional Moldova food and drink. I didn't care for the "pies" but didn't want to offend them, the wafers were good and the juice was ok, we were really kinda worried about getting sick.....ha ha ha   Once we finished there, the directors gathered almost all of the kids and wanted a picture of us with them in front of the school. It is a great picture!!!       

                                                                                          

Then the dreaded time for us to leave came, the kids were waving and we were trying not to cry again. 

Tomorrow is another day and another orphanage! Heavenly Father, please give us strength to make it to the end of the week. Help us spread Your Word and help us do Your Will!!!

Til next time!!!

                                 Love you!

                                       Nita 

I got up at 6:00am this morning, it was another late night and early morning. I slept better than I expected to, I guess being exhausted helped......ha ha ha   

We started the morning off with a devotion from Dan. It was a very good one. He reminded us that with our full schedules that we all seem to have today that we have little time to study the Word of God and pray. Someone once said: "If the first minute of the day is for God, the whole day will be.  If the first minute is not spent with God, neither will the remainder of the day."  Wow!! Did that ever speak volumes to me!  I am so guilty of not making time. I really do plan on working on that. 

We then ate breakfast and had some personal quiet time and had to be ready to leave by 8:30am. Sometime in the middle of the night I was wakened by a cat meowing. Of course I don't remember the house leader, Sergio, telling us that they had a cat, but I know I heard it walking down the hall meowing and then it came to our door and meowed. Thank goodness our door was shut, I think it would have come in.....LOL. We found out later that there was a hole in the screen in the window of the utility room and we think that maybe that is how the stray cat got in because Sergio said that they do not have a cat.........ha ha ha

We loaded into the vans and our drivers took us to the orphanage in Ivancea. It seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere, we seemed to keep driving forever. When we finally got there, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting......it was a little better actually. As we were walking around the building to get in, there were some girls standing in the windows waving their arms out to us, it was so precious, they were saying "hi" to us. Once we were in, we (workers) gathered in the gym and started putting the beds together. There is a chuch from Orhei that came over to help us. I can't believe it but ALL 80 beds were put together. We definitely had an assembly line going, then the older orphan boys came in and were so excited and started helping us put them together. then we started putting the beds up in the rooms with the new bedding. They were so very excited and the smiles on their face proved it. It is wonderful to be able to be a part of this. We were finished by 12:40, so we went to lunch, which meant back to Orhei (30 minute drive) for lunch to this pizza place. We had to have our translator, Eugene, translate the menu. Arlene and I split a pizza, which was a good thing because it was about 12". 

We made it back to the orphanage and had craft time with the kids. In one word it was chaotic...to say the least! The kids were so happy to have choices, they all wanted a journal, frame or pencil to decorate (we ran out of the journals and pencils) We took ALOT of pictures, which if I can figure out how to put on here, you can see. But if not then I will show you when I get home.

Thank you for your prayers, I would have never made it this far without all of your support! 

Remember to take time to pray and read God's word. 

Til next time, love you and God bless you!

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Sunday, March 08, 2009

Hello from Moldova!!

This is a copy of the first blog from Moldova, Becca typed it and it's too late for me to type my own, so I copied and pasted.

Well, WE MADE IT!! :)

Its Becca again, writing from the team house in Moldova! At this moment, we are all sitting around the table making sample crafts for tomorrow. Oh the joys! :)Praise God for protecting us in our loooooong time of travel- 31 hours for the Texas kids, and 25 for Jon, Stuart (lovingly known as "Stewy"), and me. Wow, I was always confused about what time it was!Ok, to make this easier to give you our days, I am going to try bullet points:
Flight #1- Jon, Stuart and I left from Nashville while the other group left from Texas, and we all met in Washington, D.C.Layover #1- In Washington, DC. We hung out for about 3 hours.
Flight #2- Headed to Frankfurt, Germany (about 8 1/2 hour flight)Layover #2- We hung out for about 6 1/2 hours in McDonalds at the Frankfurt airport. :) Good times...good times.
Flight #3- Headed to Moldova (the flight was about 2 1/2 hours). Yay for Air Moldova! haha...it wasn't as bad as we thought- really! Although it did take FOREVER to drive from the terminal to the plane. Seriously....forever.Finally we made it, and THANKFULLY got through customs with no problems...CJ (who lives and keeps the IMB team house with his wife) came and picked us up and took us to the team house where we arrived at about 7:30 pm! yay!
We had a wonderful dinner made by our wonderful cook, Lilia, waiting for us when we arrived.As I said before, tonight we are getting crafts and everything ready. Hopefully we will be going to bed soon... I think I can speak for everyone that we feel very delirious... lightheaded... grungy... dirty... and someone has hair on their teeth (they were throwing all these things out at me, so I had to be honest).It is now 9:45 pm, and we haven't slept much in the past 24 hours! In the morning we meet at 7:45 am to have devotion and breakfast, then head out at 8:30!! We are first going to Ivancea (the boys and girls orphanage where the children have different cases of arthritis, bone, joint, and circulatory problems). We will be doing crafts and lots of fun things (like making them NEW BEDS!!), so please pray that everything goes smoothly.Thanks for the prayers. I am so excited to get started, and I cannot wait to see what God does here!!

It's countdown time!! In less than 24 hours I will be headed to DFW to start the mission trip. I am so excited and ready to go. I am going to try my best to blog daily while I am over there and will keep you up to date. Please continue to pray for me as this journey begins. Thank you all for everything that you have done in preparing to help me get ready.