Gearing Up!

Boldog Husvetot!

Happy Easter! Easter was powerful time for ministry here in Romania.

We had a number of opportunities to share about Jesus through many church services and events. It is still so neat to us how well Romanian’s “do” community here especially during the holiday seasons. Through the many shared meals, Easter baked treats and time spent celebrating, we felt so welcomed and connected with our community here. I felt like a local as I was able to take part in the tradition among young people. In Romania, young women will decorate eggs and give them to the young men when they come to the door to wish them Happy Easter. The young men will then spray the lady with perfume. It sounds nice enough right? But the tradition has evolved into the young men finding the most pungent perfume they can and then coating the ladies in it. I was spayed over 5 times by a pretty horrible smelling perfume—but hey it was all in good fun!

A major encouragement to us and the ministry here this past month...

was the opportunity to host our friends Derek and Tayler Gust who are a young Pastor couple from Brentview Baptist Church in Calgary. Paul and I were so pleased with the timing of their trip as they were a huge support to us in helping run church services for Easter, youth events and preparing for the Central Baptist Church mission team arriving today. During the past 2 weeks, they helped serve in 11 church services and 3 youth events. During one of the youth events we shared a Passover meal with the youth of our village Szentkiraly and were able to share a message and worship time with them as well. The villages were so welcoming to Derek and Tayler and we were able to share meals in a number of people’s homes including with some new families. We had many powerful moments serving with these two but a highlight was the youth event all four of us led in one of the new villages we are beginning to partner with. We had a number of the youth from the surrounding villages come together for a night of games, worship and teaching. All four of us were able to lead worship and spend some time teaching about discerning God’s call in our lives. After the night was over, many of the young people continued to hangout and we had the opportunity to further speak into their lives through individual conversations.

We're waiting in Budapest, Hungary now as we are less than 12 hours...

away from receiving the 52 team members a part of the Central Baptist Church missions trip! The team is already on route and will be arriving in Budapest today. The team will be staying with us for 2 weeks and serving in two major ways. The majority of the team will be working at the Camp and renovating the existing building. This is a huge support to us as it means we will have a building to run camp programs next summer as well as have a better facility to host groups who wish to serve at the camp during the construction development. The Central team was able to raise over $50,000 to go towards renovating the building, which will include a kitchen reno, 2 bathrooms renos, 2 bedrooms and a dining hall reno as well as a whole host of other jobs. We are so grateful to the team and their desire to serve in this way! The second half of the team will be running youth programming in the villages surrounding the camp to share the gospel and further disciple the youth. The team will have an opportunity to run an afterschool youth program in 5 separate villages in our region. The team will also be blessing some families in need in these villages with clothing and food donations.

As you can imagine, there is an incredible opportunity for ministry over the next 2 weeks. One practical way you can help support the ministry is through prayer. We would love to see a community of prayer warriors come around this mission team! Some tangible prayers are:

Safety for the air travel, the car travel into Romania as well as the car travel around Romania for transporting the team to and from the camp and to and from the numerous villages we will be visiting.
Safety for the construction team as they begin their renovation work in an unfamiliar environment.
That seeds be planted and hearts and lives would be changed as young people hear about Jesus through the youth programs taking place in the villages
That the Central team would be open to how God may be speaking to them during their time here in Romania.
Strength, endurance and wisdom through this exciting but busy next few weeks for Paul & I and Tamas & Tunde

We pray you are all well! Thank you for all of your support! We are so grateful for the encouragement this community is to us and the ministry here! Tanya and Paul