Quick Update...

So Orientation is almost over. In one week, I will have been commissioned and I will be getting ready to fly back to Dallas the next day. What a whirlwind this has been. It feels like I got here yesterday, yet I've learned so much. I'm reminded more and more every day that I need to make Him a priority. I'm reminded of it even more when I don't.

Every time I'm put in a new situation, I learn more and more about myself. This time I have been reminded of how God has blessed me to make friends easily. I did not have a hard time making friends when I went to college, nor did I have a hard time in the last 2 months making friends. I know He is faithful, but I still am afraid of what my friend situation will look like once I get to Romania, simply because I won't be taking classes (except language, praise the Lord!).

I guess I'm just afraid of the unknown. In my flesh, I am afraid. I know God is already there, though, and that is good for my spirit. It is not the unknown to Him, and therefore I try not to worry. But my flesh worries. I need to live in the Spirit and not worry. So pray that I will build relationships once I get there with other people my age. There is no one in my city that works for the same organization that I do that is my age. Pray that I would have opportunities to even meet others.

One of my biggest desires (besides learning the language) is to also build relationships with nationals. I don't desire to surround myself only with other GCCs (Great Commission Christians) from the United States. I know that other GCCs will be important for my spiritual growth, especially where Christian fellowship comes in, but I guess my MK instinct is to want to blend with the culture and become part of it.

I know this post is everywhere, but it's been several hours since I started writing...I went for coffee and a wal-mart run in between, so I've had some time to think and come back with a different perspective maybe.

Oh quick request before I go....this nasty 24 hour stomach bug has been going around this place like crazy. I don't normally get stuff that goes around, thank-you to my iron stomach that was developed while living in the middle of no where. Anyway, I don't want to start now. It seems to have a 1 week incubation period after being exposed, 6-8 hours of continuous "getting sick" at least hourly, and then major fatigue...followed by being perfectly back to normal 24 hours after it's showed up. Pray that I don't get it, because I dont'want to be sick on the plane, visiting friends, or meeting my niece for crying out loud.

Thanks friends...I love you all.

Shopping Fun...

Yesterday a group of us went down to Willamsburg to the outlet mall there. I didn't plan on getting anything, but when I saw these things and their prices, I knew it was meant to be. I did it only because it was like an act of God. He truly does not want me to freeze during my first real Winter ever...

I found the only pair of snow boots in the women's section of L.L. Bean right in my size. Turns out they are technically men's shoes, but the price was right ($100...they were on sale, people!), they fit perfectly, and I have since learned they are REALLY GOOD snow boots.

I also found an UnderArmour outlet which had base layers on sale, also! Praise the Lord! I will not freeze in Romania! Each item was $30, so I bought two pants and two shirts...and on top of that, since I was spending over $100 in that store, I got a 10% discount! I was really excited about that, too.

The third item that I found were some socks made out of something called smartwool. They are pretty much the best socks ever. They have different intensities of cushion for different activities. I just got the medium cushion for hiking, even though I'll wear them around town under my amazing new snow boots. I figure they'll work. Oh yeah, and they were a really good price, too... $7.95/pair, which normally I would not pay that much for socks, but their usual prices run close to $10-15 a pop.

So there you have it. I will not freeze in Romania. Praise the Lord.....Now if I can only figure out how to get this all back to Dallas without having to pay an arm and a leg for overweight luggage...

I'm an Aunt Now!

Praise the Lord! My niece was born yesterday afternoon!!! Her name is Sahara Xiomara (Sahara pronounced with the second "a" sound like "ah") and she was 6lb 8.9oz and I'm told perfect in every way. I sill have not gotten any pictures, but I'm thankful for this precious life and already love her so much!

Please pray with me...

Friends, Please pray for my brother, his co-workers, and students as they deal with the loss of my brother's cooperating teacher in Irving.

My brother teaches 2nd grade, and tomorrow will have to help 30 2nd graders that he and this other teacher team-taught deal with the unfortunate loss of their teacher.

She and her husband, who have been married just over a month, were killed in a car wreck overnight in Dallas.

Here is the link to the Dallas Morning News article

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/090208dnmetcrash.32a228ca.html

Here is the link to the NBC 5 report

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/17358829/detail.html?rss=dfw&psp=news

Thanks so much!

I've Been a Terrible Blogger...

Well, maybe not terrible, just not amazing, either.

Since I last posted, I've had 2 "shot days," almost two weeks of information overload, and two days of lecture on the Persecuted Church. Wow.

Shot days were weird, because normally in the afternoons when everyone is free, there are children on the playground and people wandering around. Not on shot day. Everyone is told to stay in their quad until it's time to make the walk of doom. No one knows how many or what shots they'll be getting that day. I've been lucky and had to only get one shot so far. I did get the TB skin test, but that's not really a shot...it's just a bubble on my arm. Most people had to get Typhoid shots, too, but since I had a reaction to the Typhoid shot when I was little, I scored and got the oral Typhoid preventative. This consists of 4 pills taken every other day on an empty stomach with a full glass of water an hour before eating. So basically a pre-breakfast appetizer.

We've had several sessions on Church Planting Movements (CPM) and what they look like in different parts of the world. This information is interesting, but a lot of it is hard to process and put in a mold of how it will fit in Romania, or anywhere in Central and Eastern Europe for that matter. We've also had some sessions on how to attempt to start a CPM, and that too is difficult to implement with the cultural and religious implications of where I'm going. I know though, that God is in control and makes a way for His Word to spread to all corners of the world. We get that promise from Revelation.

So the Persecuted Church. Wow. These sessions were by far my absolute favorite so far. The speaker was very dynamic. I won't say anything about the nature of the speaker's job, but it seems like an amazing job that takes very special people to do. I'm sure it's scary at times, too. I really loved listening to these sessions as they were very informative. It made me thankful for the freedom I have to be a Christian and to share my faith and to relate with whoever I want. It also helped me to understand a little bit of what some of the people I may be working with may have gone through during the time of Communism.

Well, with all that said, I'm thankful for the last couple of weeks, and I can't wait for what else the Lord has to teach me. Thanks for keeping up with me. Love you all!

August Prayer Update

Dear Prayer Partner,

Thank you so much for partnering with me in prayer as I begin this great adventure that is ahead of me. I am so grateful for people like you who love the Lord, love missions, and love me! I hope to share my life with you as best as possible in the upcoming months through these prayer updates and my blog, http://2yearsinromania.blogspot.com .

To start off, I would like to let you know a little bit about what has been going on with me in the last couple of weeks. I am currently at Orientation in Virginia at the International Learning Center. The last few months leading up to this time were spent greatly anticipating the time when I would finally be surrounded by others who share my passion for the nations. Since arriving at ILC, I have learned a lot about what will come up against me once I get to my field of service. We spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the first full week of our time here in sessions dealing with Spiritual Warfare and discussing different ways that the enemy will try to attack and hinder the Gospel from being spread. These were some heavy sessions, and required a lot of patience to get through listening to everything that the presenter had to say. Most recently, we have been briefed on different services that are available to us and have had the opportunity to fellowship with others who will be going to the same region.

As far as prayer requests go, I would like to ask you this month to pray for a few things. First, though I would like to give you a brief description of what the work in Romania looks like and what my job will be. The work in Romania is primarily focused on church planting, but there has been little success reaching the younger generation. Most existing evangelical churches in Romania are dominated by older, pre-communism generation which does not appeal to the younger generation. Student volunteers are frequently used for projects geared toward reaching the young people who are not churched. The students do a good job, and now we are seeking to use them more strategically and effectively.

My job will be to bridge the gap between the church planters in Romania and North American student volunteers. I will mobilize and facilitate the volunteers and help the IMB church planters to develop and implement strategic projects in order to utilize the student volunteers effectively. This work will be focused more on urban areas with the goal of starting and multiplying small groups that will eventually become multiplying churches.

That being said, here are some things that I would ask you to pray for this ministry:

-Pray for the young people who are flocking from the villages to the cities for educational purposes. Pray that my colleagues and I would know how to best engage them with the Gospel in order to have some small groups started.

-Pray for the younger generations of Romanians not to be consumed by materialism but to remain open to the Gospel.

-For God to awaken the Evangelical churches in Romania to have a passion for Christ and for the lost and to be willing to let go of their traditions and legalism.

-Pray for God to call students out from the United States to go share the Good News with their other young people in Romania.

I feel that the Lord has given me this task because He plans to fulfill His purpose through it. I know that I am not able to do this task on my own, and that’s why I need God’s help. This being said, pray for me:

-Pray that I would be receptive to all of the training I am receiving at ILC.

-Pray that I would know who to seek out for expert advice as to how to mobilize students to come join the work in Romania.

-“Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel,…” Ephesians 6:19

I would also like to ask that you take some time to pray for my family:

-My parents are on the mission field in Guatemala, and my brother Tim and sister-in-law Elisa live in Irving, Texas. It will be a new experience for my family to be in different continents and hemispheres these upcoming months.

-Tim and Elisa are expecting their first child, a girl, in September. Please pray that Elisa’s

pregnancy would continue to be healthy and that the baby will be healthy, too.

-Pray that I would be able to focus on what I’ll be learning during Orientation when the time comes that my first niece is born.

Thank you again for committing to partner with me in prayer as I strive to live in obedience to the call that God has placed on my life. I can’t wait to share my adventure with each and every one of you.

La revedere! (That means goodbye in Romanian!!)

Thanks for praying!

-Angela

God is still Faithful....

Friends, one of my concerns heading to orientation has been the requirements about fitness that they have here. Though I played soccer off and on through the years until the end of my Sophomore year in high-school, I am not the most athletic person in the world. In fact, by playing soccer off and on I mean I was the official bench-warmer.

So, since then I have not really kept a habit of exercising on a regular basis, and this is bad. Very bad. I have worked out in the fitness center at DBU off and on through the college years, but never consistently or habitually.

Here, there is a requirement to have 4 hours minimum of aerobic activity each week. For some people that's not a problem...For me it is. So all week I had been thinking in my mind that one of these evenings I would start walking. They told us the other day that if we walk from some flag poles to the gate and back it is two miles.

This evening at the dinner table, I was talking to a sweet girl that is in my small group and in the same living area as me. She mentioned that she was going to walk and I told her I would join her. Y'all...God could not have been more Faithful. We both confessed to each other that neither of us had exercised habitually in the last few years and just talked about it. It really was a blessing because we were able to walk at the same pace and didn't run out of things to talk about. For two whole miles.

It took us almost an hour to do the whole thing and get back to our quad, and as we walked back we looked at the lightning in the distance hoping that we would get back before the storm hits. We made it back and it's still not raining.

Please join me in thanking God for putting someone that walks at my pace to walk with. We made a goal to walk every day at least the two miles. We might even try running eventually, but we're going to try to work up past the two miles before that and get up our endurance. Please continue to pray that we would be diligent in attaining this goal of walking the two miles consistently every day and that the Lord would give us the discipline to build up the endurance to handle more.

Thanks, friends!