As we write today we trust that each of you have had a wonderful Merry Christmas and are experiencing a blessed New Year. We have had a very low key holiday season with the girls as the doctors encouraged us to do so. This has given us a bit of time to reflect back over this past fall as I have been able to reintroduce myself to the ministry here after a long season of health challenges. Since my return we would testify that we have seen the Lord bless as the church has continued to press forward for the glory of God and the furtherance of His kingdom here in Romania. Below we will try to get you caught up on all that God has done.
When we say, 'learning to ministry again', we mean that we are learning to do ministry in a way that satisfies the doctors and in a way that is still useful and beneficial to others. This has been a bit of a change as we have had to learn how to do things with less emphasis on the amount of time invested and more emphasis on improving the quality of the time invested. This has certainly stretched us and to some degree has caused us to have to learn to do things in a way we have never had to do before. During our time away many in the church stepped up and served in ways that they had never served in before just to help the church continue. Upon my return there was a temptation to return to my role as it was before. Yet I have had to learn to let the Lord use others in the ways that He was using them during my time away. This certainly has freed up a great deal of my time to focus more upon things like study, prayer and helping those in crisis. This was not an easy thing for me to learn, but it has certainly been beneficial to us as a family and beneficial to the church as well.
The end of October we had to return to the states for a short visit. During our visit I had a follow up visit with my cardiologist. We do praise God as we received a very positive report from the doctor. He gave me permission to go back to our work without any real limitations. In addition, while we were there Mina say her endocrinologist as well. They ran a new A1C test (which is the test to determine if one is diabetic) and Mina's results were almost perfect. This was a great encouragement to Naty and we praised God for what appears to be great progress with Mina's health as well.
Once we returned back to Romania we went back to work at the church. Soon after our return the men of the church went away for our annual retreat with the men of the church. It was a great few days as the men of the church were challenged to adopt the disciples of becoming a godly man. What was most encouraging for me personally was the involvement that many of the men had in personally helping and conducting the retreat. From my observation, many were blessed and challenged as we returned to our lives back in the city once the retreat came to a conclusion.
The Men Enjoying Some Biblical Encouragement Around The Fire
The Men Having A Good Biblical Discussion
As we entered into the month of December all the festivities for Christmas began. The second Saturday of the month we celebrated at the church our annual Christmas Celebration. Many visitors from the community came and joined us as we celebrated the birth of Christ. A few weeks later the church celebrated Christmas day as well. It was a wonderful month of remembering all that God has done for us in Christ.
This Is A Clip From One of Our Past Christmas Celebrations, Enjoy!
During the Christmas season this year we challenged the church to do more to assist those less fortunate in our community than we had ever done before as a church. Therefore, we collected and distributed almost 100 gifts this year to children and families directly around us. We were thrilled that the church embraced this challenge and that so many were exposed to love of Christ and the good news during the Christmas season. We would ask you to pray for these families that they will soon respond to the message of the gospel that was shared with them.
Above Some Members of The Church Collecting Gifts
With the arrival of the New Year came an abundance of winter. Some are thrilled with all the white stuff, yet for me, I am thrilled at the safe return of many of our members as they make their ways back to Romania from their holiday travels.
Our Recent Weather In Romania
As we enter this New Year we want to take a moment to thank you for your continued partnership and friendship in the work of ministry here in Romania and Moldova. We are thrilled that God has given us this opportunity, some might say a 2nd chance, and we trust that God will continue to bless the work He has given us to do. We pray that God will bless each of you with a New Year full of fruit that will last for all eternity to the glory of God. We thank you once again and trust that you will know the rich blessing of our God in 2017.
