My Prayer Update

Friends,

I have been in Romania now for more than three months. I can't believe it.

I finished language a couple of weeks ago and have since begun working on some mobilizing of students and preparing for one group that is on the way here in May for three weeks. I got 100 on my language evaluation, and I'm thankful for the gift of the language. Now if I just had more opportunities to use it, that would be good for me to practice.

I went to Galati (pronounced Galats) the weekend I finished language. Galati is a city in Eastern Romania close to the border with Moldova and Ukraine. I was very encouraged by what I saw my colleagues doing there and am excited to be able to hopefully work with them some during my time here.

Thank you for your consistent prayers for me and I ask that you continue lifting me up. I have seen the Lord work in my life in many ways over the last three months and I know it is because of your prayers for me.

I will be meeting this week with my new supervisor and talking about some options for me to be involved in ministry here in Bucharest. We are having a lot of changes in the whole organization as well as a change of personnell here in Bucharest. A lot of coming and going of people is happening within the next few months and I'm sure that this will pose a change in the dynamics here in Bucharest, which may not be a bad thing.

I apologize for not keeping you all updated as I should. Hopefully some super exciting things will start happening soon and I will be able to keep you more up to date.

For now, please join me in praying for all of the changes going on in the IMB as well as here in Romania. Also please pray that the Lord would be clear with me in showing me His purpose and plan for me here in Romania and how He intends to use me in impacting lostness here. Pleas pray for the students that He is calling to join us here in ministry. Pray that they would hear the call, recognize it, listen to it and obey it.

Blessings,

Angela
http://2yearsinromania.blogspot.com

The last couple of weeks...

God has certainly blessed me already in 2009. I have never seen His hand move in my life in such a short amount of time than just the time between Christmas and now.

I made it through Christmas, like I said, without any major crises. He was truly good to me. And then He blessed me with a fun relaxing time with friends, which I posted about a couple of weeks ago.

Soon after that, He handed me some friends here in Bucharest.

I finished language last week. I scored 100 on my evaluation, which is crazy. I had never tried to learn a language before now, since Spanish comes as naturally as English, and I learned both of those at the same time. Romanian has come easier to me than I expected, and the great advantage of having Spanish is that it helps immensly with my pronunciation as well as understanding concepts in the language that don't make sense to those who speak only English. For example, I understand the concept of masculine and feminine (though it threw me off when they threw the neutral in there), and I understand the conditional form and how it is to be used, as well as the subjunctive. Some lessons, my teachers would tell me that Americans have a hard time with this, and it usually doesn't come until the next book (which I wasn't going to get to), but they would teach it to me anyway. More often than not, my response was, "we have that form in Spanish, so I know what circumstance I need to use it in." Now I don't have any excuse not to use my language. I'm thankful for this gift.

On Friday, I heded East to Galați (pronounced Galats), on the border with Moldova and Ukraine to see what's going on out there as far as ministry goes. I came back so encouraged. The team out there has a very specific plan that has cost a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get off the ground, but after almost three years is picking up momentum. I was tempted to stay there and not come back to Bucharest because it got me so excited for what's going on out there. Major props to the Galați team. I think I can honestly say that after catching their vision, my life and thinking of how to do ministry in Romania, and Europe in general has completely changed. Not that I had any thoughts on it before, but I will say, I have seen the light. Check out their website if you have time here.

Now I must be off to run errands. Have a great rest of the week, dear friends!