“LORD, I HAVE HEARD OF YOUR FAME, I STAND IN AWE OF YOUR DEEDS, O LORD, RENEW THEM IN OUR DAY, IN OUR TIME MAKE THEM KNOWN…”(HABAKUK 3:2)

Truly, we stand in awe of the awesomeness of God and the mighty deeds that He has done in the past and as we enter 2006, our prayer is, ‘let us see more of your mighty deeds Lord, that people might believe and come to know you!’

We greet you in this year, 2006, although our newsletter is late – we have not forgotten you. We constantly give thanks to our Lord for you and pray that He would bless you all abundantly and that you too might see His mighty works and that He would become first in your (our) lives so that His Kingdom might come to those around us! We thank you all for the lovely greeting cards we received for the Holidays, for the many e-mails blessing us, for the gifts we received, we can not stop being grateful to God for the awesome family He has blessed us with! For those of you who have written by e-mail I think we have responded, those of you faithful snail mail letter writers, how we love to receive them but how difficult it seems to be to answer them! We will try to do better this year!

We have been waiting with anticipation for good news from our lawyer that we could pass on to you about Valentina’s adoption and our citizenship. However, his promises of getting back to us did not materialize before Christmas and we still have not had any word from him. He tells us that no one will communicate with him because no one knows what is happening!!!!???? We received word this last week from another source that Romania is making it more and more difficult for foreigners to receive visas to stay in the country. They are putting many laws in place to make it more difficult to maintain our foundations and to do humanitarian work here in the country. We do not know where all this will lead nor what it means for us or for the other Christian organizations working here in the country. We covet your prayers – believing that God is going to work this all out so that we can concentrate on His work rather than on the bureaucracy.

Plans for the Bible School are going well and our Romanian board and pastors in the area are very excited. The connection with Holland’s School for Harvest and Ministry is a big blessing and we look forward to the opportunity to teach many more gypsy men and women the basic Bible principals so that they can reach their own people with the gospel. The next session will be in May and we are praying for many applicants.

The first semester of school is ending here in Romania. Valentina is doing exceptionally well. She has to do some extra studies to get rid of her Canadian accent while speaking Romanian but the teacher can not believe how intelligent she is and how quickly she learns. She is also a good example to the others and she is very well accepted by her peers, in fact, so much so that they fight over whose turn it is to play with her! Dana, however, is receiving the worst marks she has had since coming into our care! She seems to have lost her desire to learn and has no plans for her future, at least not that she is sharing with us! We struggle at this time to understand her thoughts and feelings and to know how best to deal with the situation. Bianca is finishing her grade 12 this year and although her studies are going well, she is having some trouble with attitude! However, we must leave this in God’s hands and pray that He will make clear the way that He would have Bianca to go from here.

We continue to thank God and you, for the vehicles that He provided for us this past year. The Partner is such a blessing and so much more comfortable to travel in. The Mercedes helps us with the bigger jobs and does much transportation work. And ‘BOB’ is also a blessing. For those who have not heard from us – ‘Bob’ is our newest addition. An ATV which takes Valentina to and from school and helps Elvira ‘run’ up gypsy street and around the village much quicker and with much less pain. The people in the village still do not know what to think when their ‘Doamna’ drives up on her flaming red ‘motorcycle’ – they think it is something like a UFO!

Our medical room was finished in October and it is such a blessing! We are still waiting for some more storage closets where the supplies can be stored without mice getting into them. However, we are so thankful for the help we received in doing the work and for the beautiful place to receive patients who we help with medical assistance or counseling.

We had a wonderful, although busy Christmas. It started off with our Christmas presentation in the community centre on December 17^th. Although it was scheduled for the 18^th, we had to change the plans the morning of the 17^th because of the death of a villager who was to be buried during the time our program was scheduled and it was not allowed! Therefore, our attendance was down slightly from previous years as the villagers had to attend the wake and some were not notified. However, God blessed and the children and teens put on an awesome program and we believe that God’s word will not return to Him void!

Shauna, our homemade daughter, was able to join us for Christmas! Although her flight threatened to leave her stranded somewhere, she did arrive nine hours late. The time with her was very short and we missed her so greatly once she left, but she was a blessing and we are so thankful to God for allowing her to be with us.

Rita, our eldest Romanian daughter, was also able to come home for several days at Christmas. She spent most of her time at home with Albert, learning to parallel park! Just before Christmas she had taken her driving test and failed the parallel parking and so got ‘papa’ to teach her properly! We will see how she does on her next test!

Three young men from Holland also blessed us with their presence at Christmas. One of them is studying in Romania and two of his friends wanted to visit for Christmas so we included them in our family! It was lots of fun to have so many young people in the house. All the visitors went Christmas caroling with us on Christmas Eve and then the teens had a party in our spacious kitchen until us old people could not stay awake any longer! It was lots of fun and Valentina enjoyed lots of attention! Valentina’s and the ‘Dutchies’ prayers were answered several days before Christmas when we received quite a large snowfall. This allowed them to build a very large snowman in front of our patio doors and all were very happy and content!

For those of you who know our ‘homemade’ children: Karl has received a job transfer back to Edmonton, Alberta. While this is an answer to prayer for him, he had to leave his wife and 2 children behind in Manitoba until they could sell their home. We thank God the house is now sold and they plan to move in February so they can all be together once again. However, the stress of selling the home and remaining behind with the children has been very difficult for Patricia and she has been having much abdominal pain, blood in her stool, etc. The doctors fear she may have Chron’s disease. However, it has not been confirmed at this point. Please pray for them that they could get moved, settled and that Patricia would be healed. Also pray for Kaleb and Meghan as they will have to change schools and make new friends.

In April we plan to tear down part of the structure at the mission house and to rebuild a large section, adding dorms, a meeting room, washroom, office and a nursery. For anyone wanting to come and help us, we would appreciate it very much as we do not feel we can do it on our own as we did the majority of our kitchen. We ask you to seek God’s will for any time you may have to come and help build for the Kingdom of God!

Once again, my pages are full and it seems I still have much to share with you. However, be assured, God is working in Romania even though we often feel we are going backwards! We thank you for your prayers in the past and covet, with renewed intensity, your prayers for the coming year! Satan would like to shut down and stop the work of the Lord, however, we look forward to seeing the awesome deeds that God will perform in our midst in this next year, 2006! We pray God’s blessings on each one of you and wait to hear what God has done in your midst!

EHM PRAISE REPORTS AND PRAYER REQUESTS

1. HEALTH: We praise God that He is all that we need! Although we continue to suffer some pain, God has been faithful and gives us the strength to do as He asks! Continue to pray for complete healing in every area of our bodies!

2. BIBLE SCHOOL: God continues to give vision for the Bible School. He has also been providing more people to be on the board, to teach, to advise, to give direction. Please pray that God would send the students to study His word!

2. BUILDING: We thank God for His provisions in the past year to help us build the new kitchen, storage shed and to renovate the medical room. We pray this year for physical help and funding to build onto the mission facility to assist us in our ever growing programs.

2. Web site: We thank God for advancement in technology! We are presently working on setting up a web site to keep you better informed. However, we can still not do this through the conventional methods. Pray for direction and discernment as we go ahead with this endeavor.

2. FINANCES: We continue to stand in awe of God’s faithfulness in the financial area. We know that He works through you, His servants! We pray for continued support so we do not have to focus on this area of the ministry. God is so good!

2. VISAS: Please pray and believe with us that God will move His hand to help us with the bureaucracy and legal system in Romania so we can renew our visas and get our citizenship and Valentina’s adoption finished!

2. HOMEMADE CHILDREN: We thank God for His faithfulness in providing for and protecting our children. We pray for healing for Patricia, our daughter in law and for the children to adapt to the move without stress or setbacks. We pray for a new church home for them and that God would direct their lives.

“LORD, I HAVE HEARD OF YOUR FAME, I STAND IN AWE OF YOUR DEEDS, O LORD, RENEW THEM IN OUR DAY, IN OUR TIME MAKE THEM KNOWN…”(HABAKUK 3:2)