I took four of the kids from the mentoring program to a Christmas concert last night.  They enjoyed it!

In front of the city Christmas Tree.

My friends and I were able to go the city center just before the fire works started.  There was music and lots of crazy people.  Here are a couple of pictures! Notice the election posters for the election on Sunday for the President.  Also, in the back ground you can see folks with Romanian flags.  The Christmas lights were turned on too…its so pretty.

Smiling in front of the Christmas Tree.

Notice the election "poster" that covers the entire side of the culture hall!

Romania National Day is December 1st, but since the kids will be out of school they had their program on Friday.  The 2nd graders sang and recited poems.  It was very nice!

Here are the children in there lovely handmade hats and scarves loving made by folks in Minnesota!  I think their faces say it all! I still have more to pass out to some of the little kids too small to come to group!  I am looking forward to doing that sometime this week!

So this Thanksgiving, I got together with some friends, including some American Mennonites who have a foundation on the north side of Suceava.  We had a nice time, eating, playing games, but there was no turkey.  Turkey is expensive here.  So I have decided that I need to raise some turkeys for next year.  However, my friend, who owns the farm, won’t let me keep them there because he doesn’t like the sound they make.  I hope he changes his mind!  I have even picked out the names of my turkeys: Thanksgiving and Dinner!

Yummy Thanksgiving Dinner on the Mennonite Compound.

Hi Everyone,

I have updated the prayer requests for December. www.melissainromania.wordpress.com and click on the Prayer Request tab.

Thank you for Praying for all of us here!

While you are all celebrating Thanksgiving this year, my apartment has been turned into Santa’s Workshop!  I received 180+ Christmas Shoeboxes for the children of Stroiesti this morning.  Along with the shoeboxes were lovely winter wear including handmade scarves and hats from a group in Minnesota, toothbrushes and tooth paste from a dentist’s office in PA, extra toys and school supplies and clothes for the children!  It is overwhelming.  Even more so that the boxes came almost 2 weeks early!!!  Praise the Lord.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be putting the names of the children on the boxes.  Each child will see their name on the box and know that it was packed with love and prayers for a wonderful new year.  Thank you to everyone who packed a box, make a scarf, and sent all the extras to the children of Stroiesti! 

Christmas boxes, clothes, toothbrushes, oh my!

Boxes of Shoeboxes

I have posted the link to an article about yesterday’s election here in Romania. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences between the Romanian and American electorial process.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34089368/ns/world_news-europe/

Yesterday, the children of Stroiesti were invited to an event in the city at a sister church. The event was kind of like a harvest-thanksgiving celebrations, kind of…..  35 kids from the village were there and there was 125+ kids in total.  There was a lesson about the tree that produces good fruit and bad fruit.  Followed by a game and then fruit eating.  The kids stuffed themselves with fruit.  They ate kiwi, coconut, and pineapple, some for the first time.  And it was only the kids from Stroiesti who decided to eat the veggies.   It was a fun event and the kids really enjoyed themselves.

Music time

Ionut playing "guess that fruit"

All the fruit was gone in 30 mins.

The boys eating peppersEnjoying Fruit

I found out yesterday, Bogdan’s father, Vasile, along with 11 other men from the village, will be going to Portugal on Thursday morning.  They will make the 3 day journey by bus and will pick up other Romanians on the way.  They will spend 3 months in Portugal picking olives.  They will be back in February.  While there, they will earn 35euros a day, about 2 1/2 times the daily wage here in Romania. 

This is the first time the kids will be apart from their father for longer than a week (camp) and of course everyone is sad.  The family sold their horse and will buy a new one in February.  It’s too expensive to keep the horse in the barn all winter, esp if it’s not being used. By going to Portugal, Vasile will be able to provide more for his family.  Please pray for safe travel and good working conditions.  Pray for the families who will be separated from loved ones, esp at Christmas.