Autumn is here...

Well, it looks like autumn is here - the days are getting cooler and the nights are cold enough now to need a heavier quilt, but not cold enough yet for a fire....putting that off as long as possible :-)

Lee and Andreas have gone off to Sweden to meet up with a group of sponsors - it's always strange when they go away - things slow down a bit and there's a bit of an empty space...  Andreas will be back on Tuesday, but Lee doesn't come back until the 19th, then that weekend - we'll be hosting musicians and sound engineers in a place called Targu Mures - which if you remember is where Karen and Liz prayer-walked to...  At last count, there were something like 60 musicians and sound engineers coming - but that could still change :-), musicians are very busy people and don't often reply until the last minute.  This year's Drumfest will have a very different feel to it - more intimate and no public - focussed just on the musicians themselves and it won't take all of us to run it - so only a few of the crew have to go and serve there - and the rest of us will stay here and keep plates spinning.

Lots of people are really tired - we've spun lots of plates this summer with fewer people, so prayer that we keep finding grace and staying in unity with one another :-). 

Karen comes back from vacation tomorrow night and that will be a good thing - she is a really stable influence here and I really miss her when she's gone.

Most of last year's missions students are already back, there are three more who will come back soon and then we're complete - the new missions students will be here by the 21st of September and missions training will start up again - which means a change in the way our work week looks again - it's a bit unsettling but at the same time really good to change things up and shift things around - keeps us from getting in a rut and creating "religion".

I am going to preach this Sunday (Lee, Andreas and Steve were busy and no one else wanted to) so prayer that His words and not mine come out... :-)

The work on the Farm is progressing, lots of plumbers, electricians, etc...wandering in and out.  The work up at Taut has started - so we'll have drainage again next year.  The women who work with Dece (our hat project) have gone on vacation for two weeks, so that will give Sofia and Kari time to finish sorting out hats and getting a better system in place.  James has done some amazing things to the Dece webpage - (go to www.networks.org.ro and click on the link Dece hats and it will take you to the store).

Gemma and Mery have been visiting the women in Siria and they've kept the work that Heather started going - so they meet with the women who are breastfeeding and support them and spend a lot of time with the women in community.

School is gearing up to start again, so the girls are getting ready to start things like homework clubs and pre-school groups - Anna-Maaike has been producing some really nice pictures and posters for the walls....and they're going to start a music program - which will be amazing.

Alfa is still a work in progress, Nige's crew spend really long days cleaning up the site and getting it ready for the containers, which should be coming soon. 

Steve and Julie are back, as are Camilla and Julia, so Checheci will reopen on Monday and start gearing up again for all the things that happen down there and Lorena (our social worker) and Ellie (pre-school teacher) will be joining the missions school program this year - so that will be exciting.

This year's missions training group will look very different to last year's group - it's much more diversified in age and gender.  We've got two married couples (Hans and Mery - they have 6 kids and James and Gemma), Anne-Maaike - who's one of Hans and Mery's kids, Caroline and Linnea from LM Engstrom (Swedish school), Albin - from Stockholm, Sarah from Ireland, Neville, also from Ireland and Lorena and Elllie, and this year they range from mid-40's to 18...so it should be quite an exciting time.

We've also got the leadership track running - which will include a lot of last year's students.

Sam has been amazing at setting up external speakers and getting things up and running in Goga street - not sure if a lot of what happened would have happened without her input :-)

....reading through this, I realize it seems a bit disjointed - but the day has kind of been like that anyway, so hope it makes sense to you and love all of you very much...

It would be really great if you could subscribe to these posts - I think if you go all the way to the bottom of the page, there's an option to subscribe to ATOM - which will let you know when I post things here...

Take care.

Cows, horses, chickens and castles...

Life in Romania can be interesting...and what's more interesting is how quickly things become "normal"...  We recently had a visitor with us from England - she'd never stayed with us before or been in Romania - so everything was "cute or interesting" and she really, really loved the cows wandering down the street and the chickens scratching under her window in the  mornings...all things that I take for granted now...so, since I probably have never shared what a "normal" day is around here...

Life here in the village can be really hard, the women especially, work really hard - they're always out tending their gardens, washing clothes by hand, walking for a kilometer or more to get water and then trying to keep a house clean that's nothing but dirt floors and mud walls - but they are always grateful for what they have, they smile a lot and sing (not that they don't cry or get mad - but even though their lives are "miserable" by our standards - they are just joyful)...so a normal day for a Romanian Roma (Gypsy) would be getting up before dawn, if they have a cow, she's the one who gets to milk it and then she sends it out the door to join the rest of the herd that the cowherd is gathering (more on this later) - then she'll get all the kids up (most families have between 6 and 16 children) - and then try to clean up the house - which is really difficult, especially if you have toddlers - Romanians, in general are quite house-proud - they want things to look nice and even go as far as sweeping their yards (which I don't do very often and is often a source of sorrow for my neighbours).  They'll feed the chickens and then they'll work for hours in their gardens - hoeing and weeding and getting rid of insects and snails...  But they also take time to sit outside their houses and eat with friends and neighbours, they sing, they dance, they play music and love their families... 

It's amazing to me how "relative" poverty is - because even these Roma are poor by our standards, they are still richer than their relatives in Checheci (the ghetto in Arad) - because in Checheci, there are no gardens, there are no chickens or cows for food and life is a struggle every day...  and when life is a struggle, one does whatever one can to get by - and in Checheci, that means sending your children out to beg...because "strain" (straeen (foreigners)) will look at the "poor, sad child" and give them money, whereas, they'll yell at the adult or ignore them or give them loads of grief...or scrounging for whatever you can find to sell (scrap metal, building supplies, watches, phones, whatever is sellable) - and this is a way of life - the truth is, that it's not pretty and it's not good - but it is what it is - and it's mostly because of the way the Roma are thought of (lower than dogs, animals with no soul, thieves, liars, baby-stealers...), which, if you think about it - was (and still is, in some cases) how people thought about Jews (how they justified the pogroms and the Holocaust) and the Native Americans - and how they justified wiping out entire cultures around the world...

Roma are different, they have a different value system than we do (most Roma won't break into your house to steal something from you, but if you leave it "unattended", that must mean that you didn't really care about it, so it's ok if I take it, if I have a use for it) and while they are fiercely loyal to their families and clans, don't often form attachments to anyone outside their clans - most Roma are related to one another in some ways and they are fiercely proud of their heritage... and they have their own justice system and way of doing things - which means they have little use for our laws...which, if you think about it - is a little like being a Christian - we're supposed to be "outside of the world" even though we live in it - so while we are supposed to give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's, everything else we do should be for Him - and sometimes that means living outside the box - which is what the Roma do :-)...albeit in a different form.

Hmmm...this has turned into a little bit of a rant...sorry about that...but hey - a blog is where you put what is on your heart for the world to read...so...

Anyway, back to the subject of "normal" - so normal for me, means waking up to chickens scratching under my window, no water, because they've decided to work on the mains for the 3rd day in a row...but they aren't actually doing anything :-), walking to work - skirting my way around the cow poo, because all the cows in the village (yes, they actually keep cows, chickens and pigs in their backyards - even though now, since we entered the EU, it's technically illegal) have been let out and have been taken up to the hills to graze (it's really fun to watch them walk home - because they all come down in a herd, and, as they get to their house, peel off and stop at their gate - I have no idea how they know, but they do - the cowherd doesn't do anything - they just peel off and stop - and if there's no one home - then they just graze outside their gate until someone comes home and lets them in)...and then I stop at the little grocery shop (called Dorin's) and I get some apa minerala carbogazoase (fizzy mineral water) and then I walk the rest of the way to work.  The walk takes me by people's gardens all full of cabbage (varza), peppers (ardei), corn (porumb), onions (ceapa), and a host of other vegetables (legume) - which, at this time of year, are all ready to be harvested - so there's lots of color everywhere.

A few weeks ago, the walk to work was filled with the aroma of rotting cabbage and manure - one of my neighbours had harvested her cabbage and left the remains in the garden and then went along behind and spread cow manure - lovely smell - cow manure is fine...but cow manure and rotting cabbage is enough to make me vomit :-)...  The good things about my walk - fresh air (most of the time) - beautiful views - you can see the hills and the castle the whole way - the women I meet along the way (sometimes, on the way home, I stop and sit and speak with them about life in general - they don't always understand me and I don't always understand them, but we do seem to get by), the girls in Dorin's shop - they're lovely girls - smiling all the time and pleasant - watching the seasons change and experiencing the way God works...

So, work for me consists of helping Lee in whatever capacity he needs, so sometimes that means research, or building webpages, or sending emails, or calling people, or accounts, or making coffee, or tracking visitors, making sure they get here safely, have all their paperwork in order and have a place to stay..., fielding people and making sure that Lee isn't interrupted if he doesn't need to be, interacting with people who come into the office - there are always people looking for "Andrash" (Andreas), because he runs community and is the final say when it comes to whether people get help or not...it might also mean helping out Andreas, or Kari, when they have stuff to do in community - truth is, my job here isn't very exciting - and not glamorous in any way shape or form - but it's all essential to the smooth running of an office - and it's something that a lot of people won't do, because everyone wants to do the "cool" jobs - running homework clubs, helping people, building stuff...  But God put me here and this is what He wants me to do right now...so I do it and gladly (plus, I'm kind of good at it...go figure).

Then after work...mostly I just go home, hang out with Karen and Liz and, lately, Sofia (she's staying with us for a while), read, watch a movie, cook food, eat...go to bed....  On Wednesday's we have Bible study and I sometimes lead those - which for me is always a challenge - since I really don't like to speak in front of groups - but God is good and will always give me a topic - the challenge for me is to let Him choose the topic - because when I try to lead them, they aren't nearly as good as when He leads them....  Saturdays are street church in Arad - where we meet up with the young men and women who live on the street and spend time with them and Sundays are church in Siria...

So, that's my life - cows in the street - horses and carts driving down the road, chickens, other people's gardens, sunflowers covering fields, castles in the distance - God all around, in the air I breathe...it's a lovely, life - even when there are days when it's really hard to get out of bed - when you can't really face another person who's life is much harder than your's and all you want to do is go home to someplace where you don't have to build another fire - chop your own wood, go without water or shower for days at a time or struggle to try to share a concept you have no language for... 

I just want to thank all of you who support me here and allow me to stay - you are all wonderful faithful people and I love you all...

ANP NetWorks missions training video

Karen and Liz are prayerwalking

Karen and Liz are prayerwalking from Cluj to Targu Mures - here is the Facebook link to let you know what their progress is...please keep praying for them...

"http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=6444520871"

Love to all of you.

On Prayer

Thought this was worth sharing - quite thought provoking...

On Prayer
Kahlil Gibran

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."

Wave coming...

Lee keeps talking about a wave that's coming that will lift us all into a higher level of intimacy with God and a deepening of His work here...and he keeps using a surfing analogy - which does absolutely nothing for me, since I'm terrified of deep water...but here's what it feels like to me...

It feels a lot like hangliding, that anticipatory moment when you're first waiting for the winds, and you KNOW you need to gather all your strength and get ready for that run and leap out into the unknown, not really sure if the wind is going to catch you and take you up or if you're going to plummet to your death...  So you gather your courage, get the adrenaline pumping and take off - there's that first little bit, when you start heading towards the ground - thinking - uhoh - this is it, I AM GOING TO DIE...and then...WHOOSH, the wind catches you - and you head higher into the blue - and you realize how free you are, and how alive you can be...you're circling around, feeling for the currents and you KNOW, that there's nothing finer than that moment in time...

Hanging around with God and letting Him lead you is a lot like that - there's nothing greater in the world or more challenging...  He points out all your character flaws and refines you all the time...and He shows you just how powerful HE is...awesome, majestic, powerful, but so loving and kind and full of grace at the same time.

There's a battle coming, and it's up to us to stand in the gap - so prayer warriors, sharpen your weapons :-)

Love you all lots...

Another beautiful view

Just another view of where I live...not as beautiful as Bonners Ferry or parts of Montana or northwestern Canada, but still very beautiful in it's own way...

Thank you to all who enable me to stay here and serve our wonderful Father...

The picture in the header...

This is a picture of Siria (the village where I live). I have seen the sky look like this and the colors of the sunsets and sunrises are fantastic...but honestly, I think the pic's been colorized a bit...but gives you some idea of where I live.

When you walk up the hill and look back out over the plains, you can see forever...it's always a reminder of how BIG God really is - especially if you get caught out in a thunderstorm...

Love to you all...

It's cooler today

It's much cooler today, the weather has been just right for t-shirts and jeans, and I haven't sweated at all :-).

The rain is good for the plants, everything was starting to get a little wilted...but as usual, it makes things harder in the communities where we work - lots of mud, hard to stay clean, construction gets behind schedule...you know the drill.

Karen has moved from her little, dark office in the back of the building out front into the big room with the rest of us office drones - it's nice to see a bit more of her. Andreas just got back from vacation in Sweden, Kari and Liz were really happy to see him back - and so were lots of people from community. The first day he was back there were something like 20 people waiting outside the doors to see him...this was written on the 27th of July... the rest is added today...

Last week the weather turned hot again...we were sweating buckets and couldn't get a cool breeze anywhere... Andreas, Kari, Liz and some short-termers spent all week long buried in hats, gloves, scarves and yarn - DECE is taking over the world :-)

Our old accountant, Nico, is leaving soon (she was supposed to leave last week, but didn't feel that she could leave the new accountant on her own...please pray for Tamara (new accountant), she really doesn't understand what we're about and can't really wrap her head around the fact that we're all just a bunch of volunteers who really don't know a lot about business or the way offices are "supposed" to be run - she's not a Christian, and has very little patience with "oamenii saraci" (poor people) - so prayer for patience and understanding and that God will touch her heart. Also, it would be good to pray for peace for Nico and an easy and safe delivery - this baby is a gift from God (she was told that she wouldn't be able to have any more children - so this really is a miracle and a blessing for her...so give her the peace to go home and have this baby and not worry about us... She was and is a blessing and a real part of our family.

This week, DECE is still taking over the world, but we've also had some amazing worship times and are getting a lot done, in terms of building up for fall. Lee and the leadership team have been sitting in meetings for several weeks, looking at budgets and work that God has asked us to step into - we're clearing ground in Alfa to build a community center and gradinita/homework club area - it will be a place for people to come and get help with buletins (ID cards) and other social work kinds of help and a place for children to come to get help learning - very similar to what we already do in Checheci and in Siria.

Work on the farm is progressing, and God is providing the provision that we need in order to pay for the work...it's slow and we could use some skilled volunteers (e.g. tilers, plasterers, carpenters, electricians) to help move the work forward but we're sure that God will provide them when the time is right (if anyone at church feels the need to take a trip to Romania to help out...then feel free to let us know :-) ) The hope is to have the farm open by Christmas, and the general feeling is that it is possible.

Last weekend, we had a day out for street church - about 30 men, women and children from the street showed up - we had sausage and mici and chips (fries for us Americans) and watermelon (lebanitza). The guys played football and swam a lot, us women mostly sat around and chatted and just relaxed...we had some worship and then Cipri brought a short message - it was an amazing time and I was really proud of our guys - they behaved very, very well - even when they had cause to act up and behave badly, they didn't (we went to a public park and as you can probably guess, a bunch of not so nice looking, ruffians didn't go over so well with the "locals" )... Continue praying for them - they are getting touched by God all the time and some of them are beginning to step up and want to change their lives - but it can be really difficult, especially when you've lived on the streets most of your lives and hidden behind a bag of aurolac (paint thinner), the pain of life can be more than one can bear...

I'm doing fine, looking forward to coming home for a visit in October and the return of cooler weather...

Love you all very much and will write more soon.

Beth

Oh my gosh!

I am so sorry, I really meant to keep this blog up-to-date...but as usual, life gets in the way.

Thanks to everyone who continues to support me, even though I don't say it very often - you are all amazing people and without you, I wouldn't be allowed to continue to do what the Lord is asking me to do.

Life here has been pretty hectic since April - lots of changes. Many of the missions students went home for the summer - a lot of them will be back in September, which is nice - they already know their way around and can speak some Romanian...so much more helpful than newbies :-)

It looks as though Drumfest isn't happening this year - Lee and the NetWorks' leadership did a lot of praying into it and felt as though God was saying to be quiet this year - and just do something smaller with the bands...so not sure when that will happen, but it looks like it might be in early September (???) but that's not official :-).

Lots of gardens planted, Dece has taken off like crazy - lots of women working from home crocheting hats and sewing fabric hats - we've even started a t-shirt line, which is pretty cool. Andreas went to Sweden a few weeks ago and sold around 200 hats at festivals around Sweden, we've had orders for several hundred hats at a time and have a few full time distributors now, with lots of people making special orders...so it is an amazing time.

We've seen lots of people being prayed for and healings happening - lots of people believing and knowing that He is King...as a team, we're all being challenged to move up a level...which is wonderful, but scary at the same time. This means that new giftings are appearing, that old giftings are being enhanced and becoming more powerful and that His Kingdom is appearing more and more often - somedays, all you have to do is lean a little bit and you enter into His Kingdom...pretty amazing stuff.

I've been leading more and more bible studies, which has often stretched me to breaking point - but He is good and never gives me more than I can handle. I often wonder where I would be if He hadn't challenged me to be here...

We're preparing ground for a schoolroom in Alfa (which is a small community of people squatting on top of a rubbish tip (dump site), it should be ready to be open in the fall. The farm has had some ups and downs in terms of getting done, but it looks as though it should be ready to re-open around Christmas-time or maybe before. Mums and babies is pretty quiet now, it looked as though Mariana might be leaving, since her husband just got out of jail, but unfortunately there was a glitch in that plan too, so Mariana gets to stay with us a while longer - which makes Garafita pretty happy, but not so much with Mariana ;-(.

All of us are pretty tired - the weather has been hot and humid (upwards of 100 degrees), so that makes it harder to move and harder to keep on an even keel - but we all operate with grace (or try to) so that makes it a bit easier/harder :-).

We've launched two new videos on youtube - you can see them on our webpage as well - go to www.networks.org.ro one on the home page and one on the missions training page - they're pretty cool.

Not a lot in particular happening with me - loving it here, most days, although there are a few days when I wonder really what the heck I am still doing here - it's hot and muggy and there are too many bugs, not enough takeout food or conveniences....all the distractions of home get in the way, but honestly, I wouldn't change what I do for anything and I am SO lucky that you all support me and allow me to stay...it is a real privilege and honor to be able to work for Him.

Love you all very much, hope you are well, write sometime and let me know how you are all doing...