Warm winter clothes for Sergei

Last weekend we visited Spiridon's home village and bought for 10 children winter clothes. One of the children was Sergei. He is 8 years old and just started school in September. He lives with his grandparents and when we went to invite him to come with us, his grandmother said that she couldn't come but that she was happy for us to take Sergei with us to the market. Sergei's mother died 6 months ago and after the death of his mom, his stepfather disappeared (his mother got divorced with his first father). Nobody heard from him or knows where he is. So since the death of his mother, his grandparents try to take care of Sergei but with a small pension it is often a struggle to provide in the different needs of the family.
So on Saturday morning Sergei got in the car and we took him to the market to buy warm winter clothes. Already the 6 km ride in the car was a big adventure and his shinning eyes said more than a 100 words, on how he enjoyed the trip. When we arrived at the market we asked him what kind of clothes he needed and yes, he came up with a whole list: shoes, jacket, hat, trousers, socks and sweater, etc. First we went to a part of the market where the second-hand clothes are sold. Often much better quality and cheaper. We were lucky (or probably better to say blessed...) cause we found from the beginning a nice warm jacket and a hat. After he tried on the jacket and the hat, he didn't want to take them off again so he kept the jacket and hat on. Than we went to look for some trousers and Sergei got quite enthusiastic. Every pile of trousers he saw, he would start pulling out trousers and without really looking at them, he would declare that these were fitting him perfectly! Gently we guided him towards two pair of trousers and after he tried them on, we bought both of them. Also we found a nice sweater and 2 pair of thick socks!

Now only some shoes were missing! In order to find some good fitting and whole-winter-lasting shoes for Sergei we went to the part of the market where they sell new stuff and there a lady was selling nice shoes with fur inside but she asked a bit more than they money we had left but guess what? She made a discount when she found out what we were doing. And so at the end Sergei got two bags full of good winter clothes! And as a bonus he got another ride in the car all the way home! What a day! When he came home he struggled a bit on how to open his gate cause in each hand, he had a bag full of clothes!

Praise God that Sergei could feel and see God's love for him in such a practical way! Let us keep praying for all the 10 families that were blessed, that they will understand that God is interested in them, He did not forget them and He wants to bring new hope in their lives!

The result is there!!

Today Spiridon got his Romanian passport so we can now start to travel much easier to NL and other countries in Europe...Starting next month with Germany! Thank you for praying with us. May God bless you!

Visiting different projects

This week two dutch guest from the organisation Mensenkinderen came to visit us and together with them we traveled to different projects, mainly in the North of Moldova. A couple of busy days but very blessed days. On monday we visited a Challenge-Into-Mission team who were just doing an evangelistic children program in a village nearby Chisinau.

On Tuesday we traveled to the North and visited an Elderly Care project, a Day Centre for children from social vulnerable families and a at the end of the afternoon we visited a family who started a microbusiness in growing tomatoes.

On wednesday we traveled again to the North and visited one of the local ministry teams of OM, handed out some winter clothes for children from poor families and as you can see on the picture, Maxim was happy with his new red jacket, new hat and also new winter trousers.





After that we went to visit a rehabilitation centre for people who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, smoking etc. A very impressive project that is struggling to survive with just a little money.

Today was the last day and our guest left back to Holland. Praise God for the good time and for the many projects through which the people of Moldova get blessed and see and feel God's Love!

Weekend in Micleuseni.

On Saturday afternoon we traveled to Micleuseni. When we arrived we started with a practice for the worship time with the teenagers in the church.

After that it was time for fun...Although many Christians in MD still don't agree with playing cards as Christians, we played in the church cards and had a lot of fun!

On Sunday morning we went to church and together with the teenagers and the church, we sung the songs we practiced before and praised God for His faithfulness and care for us. In the afternoon it was the harvest festival and as you can see many beautiful and delicious fruits and vegetables were brought to church. After the service everybody enjoyed a plate of food and many people again realized that we are blessed here in Moldova. Maybe we do not have everything or plenty of what we would like to have, but still.... we have enough and God blesses Moldova!

De automarkt

Vanmorgen de automarkt bezocht. Altijd weer een uitdaging....100-den auto's en welke kies je dan en natuurlijk is er nog een belangrijkere  vraag: wie gaat jouw auto kopen??? We zullen zien...Voorlopig rijden we nog even met deze auto maar misschien in de nabije toekomst hebben we wat anders??

A rainy sunday....

Despite the fact that outside it was rainy and muddy, the children in Micleuseni came to sundayschool with happiness and joy!
Today we started a book with 5 lessons about prayer. We talked this time about how we can pray and ask for God's help in any situation. God never sleeps so He is always ready to listen to us! A good lesson to learn for everybody but the thing that hit me while teaching the kids was something else...



During the handcraft time, normally there is a lot of chatting and laughter but this time it was much more quiet and when I looked at how the children were working on their coloring paper I realized that it was so quiet only for one reason: the children were deeply concentrated!
Everybody was aiming to do their very best and a question popped up in my head: how will I work this coming week in the office? Doing my very best or will I just do good??

At the end of our time together we made a circle and prayed together, asking the Lord Jesus to help us in school this week to do our very best and at home to be obedient and to help where needed.

The verse for next week to learn is from psalm 57:1b
For in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.

Winter kleren voor kinderen in nood.

Deze week gaat het project: winterkleren voor kinderen van arme families, van start! Meer dan 900 kinderen zullen een stel warme winterkleren krijgen en voor veel kinderen zal dit een super kado zijn waar ze de hele winter van kunnen genieten. Hieronder een link met een klein filmpje over het project:

Filmpje Winterkleren voor arme kinderen

Wedding in the weekend!

Yesterday we were at another wedding and praise the Lord the weather was very nice still. Today it changed and it is only 12 degrees C. So it was good that wedding was yesterday!

Our friends Petru and Leonida got married in Paicu. Because I forgot to charge the battery of our camera, we only have some random pictures of the happy couple.
And also the bright sunlight didn't really help to get the diamants and glitters on the dress, nicely in the picture!;-)

There was defiantly a lot of material involved in the dress!

Typical Moldovan wedding food...(not so much my favorite..)

More food...

And more food....too many food!

3 important papers = 1 passport?

It is a matter of a long breath but we are getting closer and closer to the goal: a Romanian passport for Spiridon! This week he received more valuable documents so now we have in the collection of paper works:
- a Romanian birth certificate
- a Romanian wedding certificate
- and a certificate of Romanian citizenship.
Next week with these important papers he can go and apply for a passport in Romania. Does our dream come true finally? Waiting for the final result....

A healthy virus

This week I was helping somebody with translating a prayer letter and this person wrote the following about being at OM and working at OM:

"It is like a virus - when you are surrounded by people who are dedicated to work for God than you cannot remain indifferent".

When I went home that day to I was sitting in the bus (cause our car is still not repaired) and thought about my life and how this week I am "just" working in the office at OM. But I realized again that this office job is very different from any other office job. It feels like, I am working in God's office and surrounded by God's people! And the goal of all the office work is to reach out to all those people in Moldova who do not yet know and recognize God's great love for them! So it is different than a regular office job!
And yes, as the lady wrote: it is like a virus, when you hear, see and read how God is working, you can not stay indifferent! The virus will catch you too!