Wednesday, January 21, 2009

OSCER in Iasi and Suceava

Last week Mike traveled up to the north-east corner of Romania to visit the student groups in Iasi and Suceava. He was with Alex Ilie the OSCER national director. Overall it was an encouraging trip. The groups in both cities are growing. One of our goals in going was to help the group in Iasi to prepare for an outreach event we will have in April with a team from the UK led by Luke, a former teammate who now works with UCCF, IFES in the UK. While talking with the students they said that this fall they had felt God calling them to get out and do more in evangelism. They see this event as an answer to their prayer!! We were very encouraged to be with them and a prayer meeting with 25 students. The leaders apologized that there were so few students! They said they usually have 35 students!



Meeting with Students in Suceava!

Please pray for this event in April that God would give wisdom to Ionel, volunteer staff, and the students as they begin to plan and talk with a few churches about working together on this event. Thank You!!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Christmas Sights and Sounds

Just before Christmas break the elementary students at BCA made gingerbread houses. Kris organized this event for 25 students. All the children had a Great time!!






During December all the student groups across Romania had a special meeting to celebrate Christmas. Students invited their friends to the meetings and they sang carols and had a short presentation of the meaning of Christmas and how it is relevant to us today! Here are a few pictures from these meetings.
Students in Pitesti


Students from Bucharest

Students from Brasov

As we have lived in Romania we have become familiar with the Christmas customs here. One is going Christmas caroling on Christmas eve! Another one is that children come around singing Christmas carols at your door the weeks before Christmas and expect money or candy. Also there are folks who go around with a small band and someone dressed as a bear or a goat and play some kind of unique melody and wait for people to toss money to them out of their apartment blocks. Since we live on the ground floor we got these videos from a friend here in Bucharest! Enjoy!