Prayer update and pictures

Have updated the prayer requests for April.  I have also added a new page to my web site. This is a collection of cute pictures taken by the kids or sometimes me, but have no relevance to the a blog entry.  I just want to be able to share some of the lovely faces and aspects of the village. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Hey, Mom Look what I can do!

Yesterday, we celebrated Easter in Sunday School.  I wanted to have a little party for the kids and had prepared packages for them.  I had seen the weather report and knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty day.  A couple weeks before I had seen a silly game on CNN and decided it would be the perfect rainy day game for the kids.  I was right, the kids loved it.

The game is to get a cookie from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands.  Anderson Cooper could get like 3 in his mouth in a minute.

I had to show the kids how to do it.

Diana and Diana have fun laughing, even if the cookie fell.

 

The boys take a turn!

But don’t worry, the cookies that fell on the ground went to the dogs and the kids got nice clean cookies to eat! We had so much fun playing this game.

 

After this game, we played pin the tail on the Bunny! 

Liviu takes his turn.

Brother Florin has fun teasing the older kids!

After game time is craft time…the kids decorated crosses.  I was really proud of the kids, some of them got really creative.  Some even took the small pieces of foam shapes and cut them into other shapes to create their own designs.

Florin cutout arrows pointing to the cross!

Vlad pauses to pose for a picture.

We had a very nice Easter celebration, inspite of the rain.  And all the kids left very happy!

 

 

 

Spring has come

After almost 5 months of cold winter, a beautiful spring has come to Suceava.  The old man who lives at the end of my building, planted flowers in parking lot and seems to wash his car everyday, though I’ve never seen him drive it.  My crazy neighbor has been outside cleaning up the gardens and has used her time outside to be extra nosey.  The little kids in the building carry piles of leaves and trash to the dumpsters with the apartment dogs in tow.   The side walks are swept.  The park across the street is full of pensioners, mothers with small children, and kids hanging out after school.  It seems like all of Suceava is outside in the sun.

In the village, it seemed like the entire population was outside on Tuesday cleaning.  Sweeping the streets and preparing for spring. I saw some of the teen girls, who don’t go to school, cleaning for wages from the mayor’s hall.  I saw them the next day, on the main road (highway) collecting more trash.  On Wednesday, the school got out early so that the kids could pick up the trash on the side of the road.  This was amazing to me.  In Romania, and esp. in the village, it’s nothing to see people throw their trash on the ground or out of their cars.  The village had gotten grimy and muddy after the long winter; it’s so beautiful now.   The kids took pride in full bags of trash. 

Oh, and if you are curious, yes, the pollen is just as bad here as it is in Wilmington! 🙂

Having a back up plan

For two months, we have been teaching the kids about Moses.  Two whole months about Moses.  Ask my kids and they can tell you about the plagues of Egypt and the 10 commandments.  They can tell you what Moses means (drawn from water) and how long he was in the Pharaoh’s palace 940 years) and in the wilderness of Midian (40 years).  The kids really got into all the lessons.  They created pyramids and frogs.  They oohed and ahhed over the Tabernacle model I made and made grapes showing the best of Stroiesti in honor of the best of the promise land. 

SOOOO,  as a special surprise for the children, Ana and I found the movie “Prince of Egypt” complete with subtitles.  They could have watched it in Chinese because they know the story so well now. We finally found a projector and screen to borrow and were all set to show the movie. 

I was setting up the projector and turned on the power strip. No power.  This was my power strip from home, I knew it worked.  I tried some thing else in the plug.  Nothing.  I tried another plug, nada.  One of the kids, flipped on the lights, nothing.  There was no power in the building.  I made a call. And found out that the building closest to the main road in the village, was no longer being used so the owners stopped paying the power bill.  The building we use, an old disco, is the last building on the left on the short dirt road.   The power company cut the power line from the main road to the abandoned building cutting off power to the rest of the left side of the road.  No they couldn’t just cut the power to the abandoned building, they cut off all the buildings.  So there is no power in our building because the owner 2 buildings up, didn’t pay his bill.

So, what are we to do with 30 kids waiting to watch a movie?  We had no lesson planned. We had no back up plan, because we never imagined there being no power.  So we sing.  We sang almost every song we all knew and even learned a new one for Easter. 

Thank God, spring has come and it was lovely and warm outside .  We were able to have Sunday School on the covered patio. We had a guest come, who gave a short lesson about Easter. And Ana explained the meaning of the new Easter song.  We then played some games and the kids were very happy.

We will watch the Moses movie as soon as there is power.  We are told there will power after Easter.  I think there will be power before June! The problem now….we were going to do the Easter story next week!  Any suggestions for next week?

Kim’s Visit Update

We are having a very nice time.  Kim has fallen in love with my kids (who wouldn’t, they are great!).  Today, she helped me teach kindergarten and 2nd grade.

Last night, Kim lead a Bible Study on Esther.  24 woman and teen girls came.  It was great.  Kim was asked to give some of her back ground and she told the group about some of the other Bible Studies she had lead.  My friend Anca said, “wow, we never learn a book of the Bible; it’s always how to raise your kids or understand your husband better.”  Other commented, how no one had time to lead a study because there are few single women or women with out children here.   We are praying that God will raise up some one to lead the women in Bible Study!

Kindergarten

So, since I now know how to upload videos, I thought I would share this funny video I took last week in Kindergarten.  The kids are singing “10 Little Monkey’s Jumping on the Bed.”  Usually, they are better at singing it and can sing it without me singing with them.  However, they were VERY distracted by the camera, so this is what we got!  I love the one kid, who is just making up words in him own language; he’s so confident in his singing. So funny.  The kids in this class are my quickest learners and love to sing.  We pretty much sing for the whole hour.  It’s great.

VIDEO: Silvia preparing the lamb

A huge thanks to Tyler for showing me how to upload videos for free… Enjoy!

PS.  when I was filming this the video did not go sideways…it appeared normal in my display, sorry.

Melissa had a little lamb

Silvia’s family has sheep…lots and lots of sheep. This morning they were butchering sheep and they gave me a small lamb.   I told Silvia’s mother it was too big and I didn’t need a lamb, but she insisted. And it would have been considered extremely rude to refuse.  Well, I have never cooked lamb before, especially one that was just butchered.  So Silvia and Anca showed me how to do it.

Silvia and her lamb

Silvia is an expert at cutting up the lamb.

So Silvia cut up the lamb and Anca washed the parts, and put them in boiling water. Silvia added spices and we boiled the lamb for 20 mins.  Then we put it in the oven for 2o more mins with onions, spices and fresh garlic.  Anca made the rice. We added smantana or sour cream.   Then we ate! It was the best lamb I’ve ever had.  And to think, just this morning the lamb was running around the paddock and now it’s in my belly.

Yummy Yummy Lamb!

 

Charades

One of the best ways for the kids to practice vocabulary is by playing games.  We play hangman, Bingo, and their favorite charades.  We were using the Culture House for the 4th graders because of a scheduling switch at the school.  The guy with the key was running late, so we started playing outside.  We, of course, moved in as soon as he got there.  The vocabulary words this week were animals–farm and jungle.  Here are the funny shots!  We have a fish,  crocodile, and a giraffe.

 

 

 

And Here I Thought It Was Spring

Yesterday was lovely…blue sky and temps in the 50’s.  This morning, the blue skies were back.  I went to the school and was teaching English and this is what I saw:

Village center in Stroiesti

The temperature went from 45 to 28 in only 3 hours! This is the view in between the apartment buildings.  My building is blue/green and white.

Snow....again!!!

I admit, I cried when I saw the heavy snow falling.  Please pray that it will melt soon and it will be warm again soon!