January 2010
Dear Friends,
I know I have already mentioned this in past letters, but this month there will be a team leaving from Romania to begin a new Word Made Flesh field in Moldova. We are all really excited about the part we get to play in helping to start this new field. Moldova is a small country bordering Romania and Romanian is one of two official languages spoken there (Russian is the other). There is already a team of six ready to hit the ground running. They are planning to leave on or around the 15th of January and I would like to give you a brief introduction to the team in hopes that you will be praying with us as they prepare and as they venture forth.
Rachel is an American that has been serving with WMF-Romania for over seven years. Magda is a Romanian that has also been with our community here in Galati for quite some time, just over five years. She and Rachel will both help provide the new field in Moldova with a great measure of stability right from the start. John is an American that has been in Galati for nearly two years. He also spent a year prior to that in Moldova before joining WMF. Iosif is a Romanian that has volunteered with us in Galati for several years. He has also been involved in our community in another way. It is his family that took in Eleni and Florin several years ago to live with them (they still live there, by the way). Annie is an American that did a Servant Team in Galati this past spring. WMF-Moldova will be her first field as a full-time staff member. And finally there is Adriana, a young Moldovan woman who was John’s Romanian teacher for the year he spent in Moldova. She has already visited Galati so that we could get to know her (and she, us) and I can say for sure that she will be a great team member.
Please be praying for this team as they follow the Lord’s calling into Moldova. Pray also for us here in Galati. These are dear friends and fellow laborers that will be greatly missed. If you remember, some months ago I talked about us being in the midst of transition, or perhaps it is better said several major transitions one after another after another. In this past year we have had three weddings involving five staff members (including Ana and me – woohoo!), a long-term family that returned to the U.S. (Joel and Monica and their two sons), the birth of a baby (Josh and Robin’s son Lukas), one staff member on a six-month sabbatical (Rachel as part of her transition from Galati to Moldova), and these three staff members leaving for Moldova. Needless to say, we have done a lot of adjusting this year. We have hope that 2010 will be a year of reestablishing our baseline, so to speak. Please continue to pray…
Love,
Paul and Ana