March 2010
Dear Friends,
This month’s letter will be another short one. It’s been a rather hectic month and Ana and I have another very busy two weeks ahead of us. Our big news this month: we moved! After spending our first year of marriage (it’s our one-year anniversary this month – woohoo!) in an apartment, we finally had to face the facts that our budget just wasn’t working with the rent we were paying. An opportunity came up for us to move into our community house here in Galati (it’s the house that was the boys’ home at one time) and we decided it would be a great fit for us. We spent a couple of weeks working to get our space ready (painting, tearing down a wall, etc.) and then moved in the last Saturday of January. It has been great. It already feels like home and having three other community members (Lau, Vali, and Anca) in the same house is a lot of fun.
Sometime in the next week or so Ana and I will again go to the American embassy in Bucharest to apply for a tourist visa. If you remember, the folks at the embassy gave Ana a rather hard time last year. She did receive a visa, but only after being accused of actually wanting to sneak into the U.S. to work illegally. However, according to the embassy staff, if Ana went to the U.S. and returned to Romania on time (which she did) it should be pretty straight-forward getting a second visa. Please pray with us, especially for Ana as she is the one that has to stand and take whatever the embassy staff decides to throw at her that day.
Ana is applying for another visa because we are planning to visit Omaha again this summer. However, while last year our main motivation in coming was for Ana to meet everyone and for everyone to meet Ana, this year we will be attending two separate conferences. First, there is a Word Made Flesh conference in Nebraska City from July 12th to the 22nd. This is the conference that brings together all WMF North American staff members once every three years or so. And then Trinity Church is having a conference in Omaha from August 1st through the 8th for all of their global workers.
We are very much looking forward to both conferences. And we will also have a week or so between those two dates to hang out with some of you all. Since we will already be in Omaha for longer than usual (with the two conferences plus the time between) we likely won’t stay too long before or after those two dates. I imagine that means we won’t get to see everyone this time around, but please do let me know if you are interested in getting together.
The children are doing well. As I write the second school semester has just started, but I’ve already heard summer vacation brought up a few times. Please continue to pray for these amazing kids. The Lord is working in their lives and in the lives of their families. Pray that He will bring to completion every good work He has started.
Love,
Paul and Ana