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.
