Happy Easter! 🐣✝️🙏

Happy Easter to you and yours!

Let us celebrate new life and the forgiveness of our sins! ✝️🕊🐣💐

Love, the Avadaneis

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Youth Evangelism ~ Some Youth Outreach Work…

Praise God!

We recently mentioned there had been some new youth from the Ion Creanga Orphanage who had been coming Sunday nights to our church. Once after the service, we went to McDonald’s & had time for a chat. For some of them it was just an experiment seeing the differences in the Orthodox and Baptist churches. For some, the Lord spoke to them through songs and the choir’s message. Some of them were coming for 2 months! We pray this experience will have been a beginning for these young people on some more firm ground, and they will continue to seek God in their lives.

Some of them will be coming to a Youth Evangelism this Saturday, put together by Luis Palau team of Evangelists.  Luci will be joining them, and available to them for questions and discussion.  It will be in the evening, hosted by our church but at a hotel conference room. We hope they stay sharp & enjoy the learning !

Thank you for praying for us!!

Dear friends and family,

We thank you for praying for us and keeping us in your hearts.  In Feb we had mentioned about a job opportunity for Luci, and you can read the original text here.  He has had some different options come up in the past few months, but about a month ago started with a delivery company, something like UPS or DHL in the States.  We are thankful that it is a local job and he stays here in our town, but it has been quite a fast-paced job.   Keep praying for him as he adjusts to the schedule and gets to know coworkers and clients!!  Thank you!

Penticostal Church event 5/10/2015

Last Sunday, we prepared a special program at the Pentecostal church involving a handful of teens from the orphanages and some members of our team.  The purpose of the program was to celebrate and thank a family from our team who are moving!  The pastor also had a nice message for the teens on Jonah which showed Ninevah’s readiness to repent.

We sang 4 songs, peppered with some verses in Isaiah, and had some testimonials from the team.  It was a great chance for some of the kids from the orphanages to be in front of the church to be kept in heart and prayer.  The pastor particularly prayed about the orphan children’s salvation and for them to find knowledge of God and his son Jesus .

Afterwards, we had a snack of juice, homemade foods by the ladies of the team, and cookies.  There were 7 girls from Elena Doamna and 4 girls from Ion Creanga.  Praise the Lord that they had this opportunity to interact with the people from the church and hear the word of God preached!

The girls practicing their songs.

Little Adjustments

Interestingly, this culture’s laid-back attitude does not make me more reflective as I would have thought. Rather, the quiet sunny days speckled with birds’ songs open the way for more reliance upon the deep structures learnt in childhood which guide my life.  Romania’s ventures into innovation has yet to take speed, and a laid-back attitude sometimes permeates society, thus I feel propelled to offer structure when needed.
“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.  They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.”  Prov 1:8-9

1st Picnic! ~Want a chance to meet others from the MBK team?

Hello friends,

We would love to have any and all of you in the Lancaster area come out to 1st Picnic Lancaster on March 6th at 6:30pm!  You won’t see us, but you’ll get to meet people who work on the State-side involvement of the ministry, plus hear a speaker who directs the pro-life counseling center in the west.  First Picnic is the big event of the year that MBK hosts to generate interest and spread info about the latest happenings of the ministries.  Location is Cross Roads BIC Church. CROSS ROADS FAMILY LIFE CENTER, 800 Donegal Springs Road, Mount Joy, PA, 17552.  You can find details on MBK’s website, mbk.ro located along the right hand side, or simply type 1st Picnic Lancaster into your web browser.

Reservations can be made through Dallas Wolgemuth at the following:

Phone: 717-285-5959

Email: mbkreservations@embarqmail.com

Thank you!

Rebecca Avadanei

My Brother’s Keeper Ministries
Orphanage ministry
http://www.mbk.ro

Spring cleaning and planning

It is wonderful the sense of accomplishment you gain by doing the work that needs done in the yard. Seeing the progress of leaves and brush go away makes you feel you can clean up other areas that need tending, too. So, I am taking that attitude as I work out the details of discovering what it means to do full time work with the orphans in Romania.

We recently found a mission group to go with that will help us accomplish our vision of working together for the good of the Romanian people. By teaming up with My Brother’s Keeper, we hope to do more in the way of orphan awareness and positive reception by the community, as well as regular homework help (more about MBK later)

I look forward to the lives I will help and the kids in the orphanages I will get to know.  The medium of providing homework help and English language study will allow me to show them patience, structure and love as we meet regularly. Please pray for these future children, to develop a sense of duty and learn about kindness and honest hard work as we meet. Happy spring cleaning!!

Post-Evangelizare (Evangelism) prayer request

22 April, 2013
We have evangelisms every so often, organized by the brothers in the Evangelist churches for the country of Romania.  Some last for a week, and some are held in many different towns, and some have guests from other countries.  I would like to share a story about an evangelism we had in our city a few weeks ago, the week of Fri April 4.    This one was held for a week featuring a guest speaker from England.  During the week, different groups met to have services for specific things, example a meeting for teachers, a meeting for workers in the medical field,  and Friday was for youth aged people.

I didn’t plan on going at first, because I didn’t feel strongly drawn to it.  But the morning of the meeting for the youth, I woke up and sensed that God was telling me to take a specific person from the orphanage.  He had made this opportunity possible and He was telling me now I have a reason to go.  I made the arrangements of transportation and where we would stay at the night, because it would finish late, and asked permission from Mama and Tata.  They were happy  and were trusting that there would be a good outcome.  As Alexandra and I waited for the bus, we got to talking about favorite verses and parts of the Bible.  We also talked about the camp the kids in the orphanage go to in the summer, the kids learn a lot from the Bible, but sometimes is hard to learn more when they come home.  I told her I hoped this night would be different, that the Lord would make things clear to her in the stories the speaker would use.  Her excitement bubbled over as we anticipated seeing her sisters at the meeting, eating pizza, and the thought of ‘an event!’  We  sat with one of her sisters, and it was really sweet to watch them interact together.  They live in different orphanages and don’t get to talk enough or spend enough time together.  They both payed attention well to the words as they were told about gospel in a simple direct way. 

The man from England shared some interesting stories about different people from different walks of life.  He had had the privledge of meeting them and talking with them about their faith.  His own story included an addiction to gambling, but told how the Lord vindicated him.  He then had a visual illustration of sin, how it entered in the world and contaminated us (he showed a pure china cup), sin made us broken (he smashed the cup with a hammer), and he explained about the purpose of Jesus (another perfect china cup) why he entered the world to take our place and be sin for us (he smashed the cup), and how we are now new in God’s eyes (he showed a pure china cup that he didn’t smash).  It was a really good illustration, and many of the people in the audience understood about Jesus better.  We then had a quiet evening with friends, and Alexandra was able to think about what she had heard, and discuss a little bit with us.

Pray for Alexandra’s faith, that it would continue to develop.  Pray that she continues the path of searching for the Lord and learning about him.  Pray she would receive more easy messages for her to digest.  Most importantly, pray that she senses her Father’s presence near her every day, and can live with hope.  The Lord bless you! : )

Happy Easter!

4 April, 2013

Greetings!

I trust you all had a good Easter!  In Eastern Orthodox countries, Easter does not fall until May 5 so I must wait to find out how they will celebrate.  But I told the kids that on Sunday I would be celebrating Easter in my heart.  I have  been explaining to them in the past few weeks at our Bible studies some of our observances in America:   my church has a Maunday Thursday service and cross walk on Good Friday.  I also explained about Easter egg hunts- they don’t have those!  🙂  I read pieces of the Easter story from John 17, 20 and Luke 23, and sang some hymns to them in English.  They liked hearing all about it, but one said we will be bored when Easter comes for us!  No, it is okay to learn about different ways of celebrating this most special day.  So that was for the past couple of weeks in our Bible studies.

Then at the church on Sunday, I went up front when they had the poem and song time for the congregation.  I had done this once before, in the winter,where I introduced myself and told what ministry I am doing here, and then shared Psalm 71 in English.  I wanted the church family to know me better since I am staying here a whole year.  So on Sunday, I went up again and re-introduced myself and said I have 3 more months here in my work.  I have by now made acquaintance with some members.  I explained that since today is Easter in America, I want to share a song.  I sang “Crown Him with Many Crowns” and to my delight, they started humming in the background.  Turns out they know it in Romanian 🙂  While I was singing  the verses, the pianist meandered up and started to accompany me, and they looked for the words on the screen for the congregation.  After I was finished singing the song in English, the whole church family sang in Romanian, and it was beautiful.  One girl said to me after, “I think that is what heaven will be, all of our attention focused and worshipping the Lord together.” 

So, I was determined to have a special Easter, to not let it go by unnoticed, and it was!

Hope your Easter was memorable and led you to understanding the great love of our Lord a little bit clearer.  Blessings, Becca

Passport adventure to Bucuresti

Some of you know of my ordeal of losing my passport on the flight from US to London. This is an email I wrote Mike Heisey on Aug 3, updating him on the situation about how things were working out. I was issued a temporary passport in London so I could continue my travel- that was way back in June when I was just on my way to the orphanage. Then, later on, I was to get a real passport in the capital city when I got to Romania. Here is how the story pans out…

I thought I’d update you on my passport adventure to Bucuresti. All went well, I spent a good 4 days down there and was well received by the Iancu family that lives there. (it is 6 hours south of the orphanage) We visited some parks and had a good time even though it was hot down there, 97/98. It didn’t matter, it was still a nice way to observe the city. The day of my appointment at the Embassy all went very smooth; I had all the papers I needed and the attendants were very helpful and kind. I found out I will have to wait a good 2 weeks to receive it though, they have to send the information to America and will ship the passport to me at the orphanage address in Dobreni. That’s okay, I can wait. I will wait to do the visa until after I receive my passport. (a visa is required for non-citizens of Romania who want to stay longer than 90 days)

Thank you for your prayers, and if you would be in prayer for my visa when I start to process it in two weeks, I would be very grateful. Some news, little Rebeca has arrived from Germany just today. Her father and brother will stay longer to do some recouperation and therapy. She came with a man who is from Piatra Neamt , but was visiting Germany for a short while. It was providence how the transportation worked out. I don’t know for sure, but I think she will be very glad to spend some time at the orphanage and with her Grandma and Grandpa again. Continue to pray for their situation, as I am sure she will miss her dad and brother during this time.

That is all, I hope all is well with you and you are making the most of the summer with memories. Oh, since the copii mici have been away at camp this week, Kim and I have been cooking a good bit! (there were only 10-15 people to cook for) Its been fun, we made mac n cheese today, and pizza and cookies yesterday, and stirfry with chicken the day before. They are getting a good taste of what we like to eat in America . Tomorrow we will make beef barbeque and have smores when the kids get home.

Talk to you later, al rividere!

**UPDATE: I received my passport in the mail on Tuesday and it looks great! 🙂 Now I will plan when to go to town to do the visa. It just depends on when someone is free to come with me to translate.