Avadanei Family update January 2020

Dear Friends, family, and sponsors,

The year 2019 passed by quickly especially with the fact that our children are growing so quickly. Emily is 3 1/2 and Ruben is 1 yr 3 months. Here is a list of 2019 activities that we coordinated together with the city church (Sfanta Treime Baptist Piatra Neamt, where Luci helps lead youth group), the village church (Vestea Buna Garcina) and the surrounding Piatra Neamt area.

May 12, 2019– Tenth Anniversary of the inauguration of the Baptist church in the village of Garcina. The church hosted a meal afterwards with between 40-50 villagers attending. We saw 12 children from our children’s program & saw a few older ones from years past. In the Sunday morning program, we had as special guests the MBK gypsy choir, with Eduard Teodorescu directing. They sang also at our home church in the city on Sunday evening. Pray for the village church to continue to spread the gospel in the village. (Photo 1,2)

June 1 2019– Children’s Day event at our church, organised together with the Children’s ministry worker Gary, with city, orphanage, and village kids from Garcina and other villages. We had four hours of games, worship, a skit by the leaders, pizza, cake & confetti. The skit & theme of the day was based on Max Lucado’s book “You Are Special.” (Photo 3,4)

July 2019 ‘VBS for a day’- together with a medical team from SC, USA we had kids activities & crafts in 5 villages  (Garcina, Bodesti, Bargauani, Borca, Bicaz Ardelean) & kids in the orphanage & our city each place one day for a week’s time.

August 26-31, 2019 At Youth Camp we had 62 teens from our county & neighboring counties. We took 18 leaders from our church. Twenty youth were from our church, some were from other churches in the area, and some participants were unchurched. The week’s theme was “180 degrees: A Radical Change” about the life & ministry of Paul. This year’s camp has been scheduled for Aug 2-8, 2020. (Photo 5,6,7)

Nov. 30, 2019 Church Families Banquet. A chance for the married couples in our church (Piatra-Neamt) to get together for  dinner and fellowship. The youth served meal. We initiated this event last year & had a good response so we continued again. (Photo 8)

Dec. 13, 2019– Christmas Dinner for Widows. Following in the same spirit as the meal for families, this year we had a special time for widows/ elderly members of our church. We had asked the families attending the other banquet to serve the meal/ donate some items. It was a good turnout (about 30), a family sang Christmas carols, and other church members served the meal.

Dec. 14, 19, & 20– Christmas programs at three places this year. In the village of Garcina, the Together Again Center in Piatra-Neamt for homeless families, and at the Ion Creanga Orphanage in Piatra Neamt. We had carols and handed out shoebox gifts. Wonderful to share God’s love. At the orphanage, again we invited our friends the Quo Vadis choir to come and sing some carols & help hand out boxes. (Photo 9,10,11)

Dec. 19, 2019- The Quo Vadis choir gave a concert at our church in the city (Sfanta Treime Baptist in Piatra Neamt.) spent the night, and the next day served at the I.C. Orphanage handing out Christmas boxes, and continued on to Suceava where they had another concert. Praise the Lord for their enthusiastic service!

Regular meetings of Garcina kids program Fridays, 3-6 kids. In village of Garcina.

Regular meetings of Ion Creanga Orphanage kids Saturdays, 15-20 kids. In city of Piatra Neamt.

Regular meetings of adolescents (12-14 years) Saturdays 10-15 kids. Baptist Church in Piatra Neamt.

Regular meetings of youth group(15-19 years) Saturdays 15-20 teens. Baptist Church in Piatra Neamt.

Regular visits to Casa Ray Orphanage for english lessons (ages 7-15) Tuesdays. (Rebecca & the kids going)

Regular work (once monthly) in Preschool Sunday school (Rebecca) at the city Baptist church.

Prayer requests: There were three baptisms in our church this year in August of the teens who have been coming to camp & church programs: Petru G, Cristina B, and Denisa B. All three continue to come to church & functions. Pray for them to remain firm in their faith. Pray for Cristina C, who has been devoted to helping us especially in our orphan ministry for two years, that she can deepen her spiritual walk. Our next furlough we are planning for the spring of 2021. If you and your family would like to meet with us then, shoot us a message!

Praises: We were able to move into our house. This gets us out of renting, which we have been doing for 5 1/2 years. The kids are already enjoying more play space it offers. The year 2020 promises more interaction in our city, as we have Youth camp planned for Aug 2-8 and are planning to do a VBS in July with children, besides ongoing orphanage, village group, and youth group meetings.

Thank you for praying for our family and sending your financial gifts through My Brother’s Keeper as we seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus, together with the local church in Piatra Neamt, Romania! Blessings to you in this new year,

-Lucian & Rebecca Avadanei

Emily & Ruben

My Brother’s Keeper missionaries

Children & Youth Outreach

Piatra Neamt, Romania

My Brother’s Keeper International

PO Box 11

Roxbury, PA 17251

Any donations please write “Avadanei family” on the memo line and it will get to us. There are 7 other families working through the mission agency, so please don’t forget to specify. Thanks 🙂

If you’d like to get in on our camp fundraiser, we are accepting sponsorships of $130 to the same address write “Avadanei camp” on the memo line.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

 

http://www.adventuresinromania.wordpress.com -Our Personal blog

My Brother’s Keeper International Ministries|Pennsylvania|Missions -MBK staff blog

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Our Routine~ Spring 2018

May 5, 2018

We’ve been back in Romania now from our furlough a month and a half. We’re back into our ministry and family routine, and one new thing this spring is that Emily has started preschool! Another news is that Rebecca is expecting,(5 months) so we want Emily to be occupied when mommy is with the baby in the fall. 🙂 Luci is continuing with nursing school (2nd year) and youth group & mentoring some teens, and I am giving English lessons 3 times a week. We are also still doing our Awana program in the village of Garcina on Saturday, and now that we’ve been back we are making up for lost time! The kids there felt our absence for four months, and now we’re trying to repair. We’ve taken them to the park and played volleyball & had pizza, and we are pouring into new songs and reviewing material they have learned with us. A typical week for us:

Monday- 8am-3pm Luci clinicals, 8am-12pm Emily preschool, Rebecca home.

Tuesday: 8am-3pm Luci clinicals, 8am-12pm Emily preschool, 3-6pm Rebecca English at Casa Ray.

Wednesday: 8am-3pm Luci clinicals, 8am-12pm Emily preschool, 6-8pm prayer group.

Thursday: 8am-3pm Luci clinicals, 8am-12pm Emily preschool, 3-6pm Rebecca English at Casa Ray.

Friday: 8am-3pm Luci clinicals, 8am-12pm Emily preschool, 2-3pm Rebecca English lesson home.

Saturday: 2-4pm L,R,&E at Garcina kids program, 6-9pm Luci youth group.

Sunday- 10-12 church, 6-8 pm church.

Also on some days, Luci meets with a group of young people for breakfast & prayer before school, 6:30-8am.

We hope the Lord is guiding you & your families as well in things that please Him.  Remember Daniel 1: 8-16 where it says how Daniel chose how to stay pure. “But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.”  Keep in your prayers our camp in August for young people, the theme is going to be “How to Discover the Will of God”, and a VBS in July for village&city kids in our area. We have a few people coming from the States to help with those. Blessings!

 

Our Routine~ Fall 2017

Along with fall comes the back -to-school schedule, which affects both of us, Luci in his 2nd year of nursing school here in town, and I helping with English homework among the kids we know. 🙂 Emily has grown, she is now almost 1 year and 5 months, and had a fabulous summer with all the activities we had for the kids, also a great time with Lily, our babysitter. 🙂  Here is an example of our week this fall:

Monday- 3-4pm Becca tutoring at Elena Doamna Orphanage, 8am-3pm Lucian at clinicals
Tuesday- 3-6pm Becca tutoring at Casa Ray Orphanage, 8am-3pm Lucian at clinicals Wednesday- 3-5pm Becca tutoring home, 8am-3pm Lucian at clinicals, 6-8pm prayer meeting.
Thursday- 3-6pm Becca tutoring at Casa Ray Orphanage, 8am-3pm Lucian at clinicals.
Friday- 3-5pm Becca tutoring, 8am-3pm Lucian at clinical.
Saturday- 3-5pm Village kids program in Garcina, 6-8pm Lucian at youth group (leading along with 2 other guys).
Sunday- 10-12 church, 6-8pm church.

Also every morning, Lucian meets with youth from villages of Negresti & Garcina at 7-8am for breakfast & prayer before school.  Ones who come to youth group &/or have been with us to camp. They have read through the book of John & Proverbs, and have started Matthew.  Pray for the kids we know to come to an understanding of the saving knowledge of God & his Son.  Also for us as a family to remain steadfast and to continue growing in patience and sharing.  Thank you.

With Lily, our summer babysitter.

Emily Joy

Our Routine~ Spring 2017

Welcome to 2017!  We have been enveloped in the spring buds and new flowers, as well as the traditional Romanian mărțisor, as the spring takes it’s place. It is beautiful here in the spring, particularly because the winter is so long & cold. A lot has changed for us in the past year. We have welcomed a little daughter in our midst, (she’s 9mo now) and with that have changed some activities. Mostly regarding the English lessons, we are doing most of them from our home, and not so many activities at the Elena Doamna orphanage.

A typical week’s schedule looks like: (Emily goes with mommy all except the kids club- it’s too cold right now)
Monday- 2pm Becca tutoring, 1pm-8pm Lucian at school.
Tuesday- 10am Becca tutoring home, 1pm-8pm Lucian at school, 3pm-6pm Becca tutoring at Casa Ray Orphanage
Wednesday- 10-12 Becca tutoring home, 1pm-8pm Lucian at school, 2-5pm Becca tutoring home, 6-8pm prayer meeting.
Thursday- 1pm-8pm Lucian at school, 3pm-6pm Becca tutoring at Casa Ray Orphanage.
Friday- 1pm-8pm Lucian at school, 2pm Becca tutoring home.
Saturday- 12-2pm Becca English lessons w/ Elena Doamna Orphanage, 3-5pm Kids village program in Garcina, 6-8pm Lucian at youth group (along with 2other guys they lead).
Sunday- 10-12 church, 6-8pm church.

Also every morning, Lucian has been meeting with youth from 7-8am for breakfast & prayer before school.  They have read through the book of John & have started Proverbs.  They have also started to pray on their own.  It has been going well.
Scripture has taken more of a place in our home as we follow our church’s reading schedule. Also been reading bits from Elizabeth Elliot’s Keep a Quiet Heart and Edith Schaeffer’s Common Sense Christian Living. We have many youth in our home for tutoring, so these practices have been helpful to us.

🙂 We hope the Lord is with you as well this spring, teaching you and guiding you!!!! God bless!!! 🙂

Romanian mărțisor that is given between 1-8 March to females.

 

 

Year-end letter 2016!

Here is our Year-end THANK YOU letter & report.  If you are sponsors, you will be receiving it in the mail in 1 week. 🙂
THANK YOU !! 🙂

Consider getting involved by going to www.mbk.ro, sending a child to camp with a $120 scholarship, or COMING to camp next year.  Any donations should specify for “Lucian & Becca Avadanei.”

year-end-report-2016

English Clubs in the Spring

English Club at Elena Doamna and Casa Ray Orphanages went on as scheduled in the Springtime, Tuesdays at Casa Ray and Fridays at Elena Doamna, less in months May & June as I was preparing for the birth of our daughter :).

At Casa Ray every Tuesday afternoon, with 13 students in 4th-8th grade, we spent time reviewing their homework and vocab- 4th grade just a few verbs, 5th grade learns 30 verbs, 6th& 7th grades learn 70 verbs, and 8th grade 70 verbs plus all the tenses. We also read in English.

With Elena Doamna students in the Spring, we met every Friday afternoon. We studied Past Simple & Past Perfect together, having times to practice, also fruits & vegetables, prepositions, and adverbs. Sometimes we had a challenge to speak only in English. We then spent time helping with homework. We hope these short meetings can help these students have a better understanding and working knowledge of the English language.

Nov. English Club at Elena Doamna

In the month of Nov and start of Dec, we spent a number of weeks on teaching the Simple Past tense.  The students also had fun with a mid-term test, where we tested their retention of possessive pronouns, prepositions, and family members that we have been studying thoroughly.  As most of them are in the 7th and 8th grade, we are working on getting down the basics before moving on to more difficult stuff.  Through the use of formulas and reading from a storybook written in the past tense, we were able to understand how to form past tense sentences.  Through all of our repetition, let’s hope they hold onto past tense sentences as they enter Christmas break!  Next topic:  Adverbs ! 🙂

 

Here’s a cute tool 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euQWu0tQW14

 

Starting English Club 2015-2016!

English Oct ’15

Our English club with the Elena Doamna orphanage students started on Friday, Oct 2 and went off without a hitch !  We are reviewing what we went over last year, namely verbs in the present tense, pronouns, possessive pronouns, adjectives, and prepozitions, and practicing reading.  This is the same group we worked with last year, mostly in the 6th-8th grade, and we look forward to advancing their talents this fall!   We opened up a small space that we are renting close-by to the Orphanage to have the English lessons, as opposed to going into the Orphanage like last year.  We find we can have more control over the classroom if it is in a neutral space.  We also started up an open English club on Thursdays from 4-6pm in response to the request for helping more students with understanding English.  The students who come Thursdays are from the Elena Doamna and Ion Creanga Orphanages.  We have 12 students this year in our Friday club, and between 6-8 students on Thursdays, but we are spreading the word.

    
Preparing the classroom
  
The first class on Friday
  

Pray for them as they learn to be smarties!!

English Club for May & June

English club for May & June
In the month of May, at the English Club at Elena Doamna Orphanage, we learned about prepozitions (by, from, to, for, after, before,), we repeated the possessive pronouns, we spent time on the family members, and learned the difference between ” to make” (to create) and “to do” (physical activity). In the 4 weeks of May, we also tested their vocabulary with a weekly spelling test, and we finished the school year with a final. It’s amazing what can be learned in 6 months since we started in January!

We made crepe paper flowers in May to brighten up the room!

In June, we met 2 times. The first week, we gave the final and played Scrabble. The second week, we went over their work and explained mistakes, and gave each a diploma with their final grade for the semester. Then, we had a small party. We hope they retain what they learned over the summer and are prepared for advancement in the fall!

The boys with their diplomas and final grade.

English Club in April

English club
This month, we met less often for English club at Elena Doamna Orphanage because of vacation around Easter. The times we did meet, we learned 3 more verbs in present tense, to feel, to make, and to like, and practiced making sentences with them, and we worked on the days of the week, the months, and the seasons. During Easter break and because we didn’t hold regular classes, we decided to do something together with the kids from English club. After we recited a poem about Easter for the director of the orphanage, we went bowling together. They said their 8 line English poem with courage, but we still have some work to do on pronunciation.  Afterwards, we had an outing of cakes and juice at a cafe, and went to the bowling alley. Through stories, songs, and poems the children at the Elena Doamna Center are hearing more and more English on Fridays, and it is our hope that they begin to grasp it easier. It seems the thing that most children here have difficulty in is putting sentences together, although they have a wide knowledge of vocab. We are still working with them, pray for them in their studies!

       

The children at Casa Ray continue to be devoted in their studies and are very attent when we hold weekly lessons.  I have English lessons with classes 3 & 6 on Tuesdays, and 4,7, & 8 on Thursdays.  We also took a few of the kids bowling during Easter break, who were sick last time we had an outing.

English lessons at Casa Ray Orphanage ( private)
with the 7th grade boys.