Spring is in the Air!
Spring is in the Air!
The weather’s warmed up, the village has come back to life, and the hens are a laying (we are at 8-10 eggs a day now)!! As we look out our window here in Szentkiraly, we see our neighbours ploughing fields, planting seeds, caring for baby chicks—life is happening. We’ve joined in by ploughing, hoeing and planting our own garden. We’re also eagerly awaiting 60 baby chicks to raise for meat and eggs!
March continued to be a busy and fruitful time for ministry. This past month my English class grew. I now have 2 new students in my younger kids English class. Also, one of the new student’s moms has joined my older English class. These 3 new students are from the Verveghiu village, which is about a 5-minute drive from us. They are not connected with the Baptist church that we serve in there, nor had I met them during any of our youth programs. The mom had wanted her son to learn English and she herself is wanting to learn as she is studying psychology and required to know English. She asked the teacher in the village if she knew of any English lesson opportunities and somehow this teacher had heard of me and my classes. It is so exciting to see more people from the community join and for me to have the opportunity to build relationships with them. I already have had a number of good conversations with the mom about why I am in Romania and why I would teach English for free. We have this same conversation every week as she still can’t grasp why I would leave Canada to build a camp, do ministry in Romania and teach English for free.
At the beginning of March, we were invited to teach at the Youth For Christ Romania staff retreat. We are truly enjoying our partnership with YFC Romania through our weekly prayer times but it is especially special when we get the opportunity to connect with their staff and leaders at these retreats. They asked us to speak on, ‘The Call and Character of a Servant Leader,’ as well as on, ‘Time management and Priorities.’ We had a great a couple of days connecting and encouraging them in their callings and ministries.
Camp development continues to move along. As we mentioned in our last update, we’re focusing on a couple main building projects right now. One is finishing the existing building extension, two is preparing for our water and sewage system, three is preparing for a renovation of an old farmhouse on the property to become a staff house. We had an exciting event happen this past month at the camp. In needing to be equipped for the upcoming projects, the camp purchased a 2007 JBC backhoe!! Needless to say the guys are pretty excited about the new camp “toy”! This has been an answer to prayer and a clear example of God’s provision for the camp as we had been praying for the right backhoe for the camp for months! We are also extremely blessed to have Vern Wagner a part of the team, as he is a well-experienced backhoe operator.
At the end of the month we hosted Dan Hamil, Executive Director and Norm Poehlke VP of Ministry Outreach for the North American Baptist Conference. They came to see the ministry and development at the camp as well as to further establish their relationship with the Hungarian Baptist Conference (HBC) leaders and pastors. Dan Hamil was invited to be the main speaker at the HBC’s annual assembly. It was an encouraging time to see both Baptist conferences come together to worship, connect and share about what God is doing in the midst of their churches. After the conference we met with the HBC leadership to check in and further discuss the NAB and HBC partnership. It has been so incredible to see God’s leading and provision in this partnership and we were extremely encouraged by our meetings and time with the leadership teams from both the HBC and NAB. This is huge for the ministry and mission here. God is providing a greater community around the ministry in the partnerships with NAB churches and HBC churches, NAB pastors and HBC pastors, NAB camps and HBC camps. We see such huge potential for how the NAB community can work together with the HBC in advancing God’s kingdom here in Romania! This has already been evident over the last number of years, as we have been blessed to see the fruit of this partnership in churches, ministries and lives that have been transformed. We believe this is just a taste of what is yet to come! Thank you for all of your prayers and continued support. If you think of us please continue to pray for us, the team and the ministry as we are stepping into an extremely busy time with camp development and hosting mission teams. Our first team is here from April 26-May 3rd, the second will be here from May 11-25th. Tanya and Paul
