Moving to America

Statistics say that every day around 106 people leave Moldova to look for work abroad or to start a new life in another country. This morning at 4:00 o'clock we said good bye to the Jenica, Spiridon's sister. She will start a new life in New York and we pray that God will bless her!

Christmas program with the children.

Christmas has passed! Although in Moldova of course we celebrate another time Christmas at 7 and 8 January. On Sunday (after Spiridon and I first faced some troubles like a car that did not start and needed to be pushed...) we arrived at 10 o'clock at the church. The kids shouted of happiness cause they had been waiting  since 8 o' clock for me to bring the clothes etc and to do a last practice...Quickly we dressed the kids and we were all ready at 10:20! We went in the church and all together it was a lovely program with 6 poems, 2 songs and a Christmas play. Praise God! The parents were happy, the kids were happy and I am thinking, Jesus was probably also smiling a bit!

Mary and the angel

The angels

Josef, looking for a place to sleep

The Shepherds

Singing a Christmas song

Snow in Moldova...

While traveling today through Moldova I enjoyed to see the first real snow of this year! The trees got white and the fields are covered with a nice blanket of white snow.
Together with some OM-ers I visited 2 Day Centers and presented a Christmas program. I am playing Mother Mary in the play and so today twice I gave birth and all went well!;-)
The kids enjoyed the programs a lot and of course the present at the end was received with a lot of joy!

Tomorrow we have another journey planned and so we can take more snow pictures from the car.
But I will try to make some nice pictures of the Christmas program too so you will be able to enjoy this too!

Christmas is coming!/ Bijna kerst!

Merry Christmas! A week has passed since we visiting the cross and I have been thinking what to put on the blog. What would be interesting to read for you? Well, I was just working the last week in the office and Spiridon was studying at the university so nothing very special happened but let me tell you about this morning in my sunday school class cause this was a nice lesson for me! We are preparing a christmasprogram with the children and just for you to imagine how this goes, let me descripe it.

Bible verse.
As soon as we entered the room, the 20 kids all staredt to tell me the bible verse they were supposed to learn. So after I calmed them down, in a more organised way, they told me the verse and everything was under control. Praise God! The verse was: we walk by faith and not by sight...2 Cor 5:7

Christmas song with a small fight.
We moved on to the christmassongs...we had 5 options but 4 of them nobody knew. So at the end we picked 2...while practising the 2 songs, 2 boys started a fight. Imagine: while 18 kids sing as loud as they can about the peace that Jesus brought on earth, 2 kids are punching and pushing each other! After I talked to the boys, and the promised to not punch each other again, the peace on earth was back!

Christmas Poems in speedy tempo and about Santa Claus!
We finsihed the songs and than we moved on with the poems! Oef, this is one of the hardest thinsg for me cause I do not like poems so much and besides that the poems in MD are normaly very loooongg and I keep loosing the point. A boy of 7 years old was the first to say the poem he knew and guess what? Didnt get the point at all!! Oeps! Told him to speak MUCH slower...he promised to work on it! So we will see next week!
Than another boy stood up and said a poem about Santa Claus who fills up our pocket with sweetness! Mhhh....what to say about this kind of poem? The boy that said the poem is not from a Christian family and so I didnt want to turn him down but during a Christian Christmas program a poem about candy in our pockets??? ;-) At the end we decided "democraticly" that 4 kids would say a poem!

THE christmasplay!
This was the highlight of the christmas practice of course! The main question: who would be Josef and who would be Mary? When I mentioned the word, christmasplay, there was no order anymore and every child was pulling my shirt and asking a question: What clothes should I wear? Can I be an angel? I have a baby Jesus at home, I dont know how to do my hair, I want to be Mary! Me too, me too...etc.....My ears couldnt handle all this enthousiasm!!! It was a very energetic moment! And all the kids were standing around me, pulling me and looking with hope in their eyes towards me ,like I knew ALL the answers! (And I guess, in their eyes I do know ALL the answers to their questions!) Well, we got the roles sorted out, we ran twice through the play and it will all be fine!

The end.

Driving back home, I was thinking about what had happened and how the kids were pulling me to get my attention and how they put their trust in me that I would know the answers....The question came to me: how often do I pull Gods sweater to get His attention and drop all my questions with HIM? And just look at HIM with hope and trust in my eyes hat HE knows ALL the answers...

Visiting the Cross

Last Saturday evening we went with all the teenagers from Micleuseni and Nisporeni to see a 35 meter high cross. Some months ago the Orthodox church in Nisporeni (Spiridons hometown) gathered money and build a cross on the top of a hill. During the night it is full of light and you can see the cross from far away.While looking at the cross, we prayed with the teenagers that this would not just be a place for people to come and look but that this cross really will make people think about Jesus and his sacrifice made on the cross for us.