Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Jonathan and Kristy's update 2/8/2016

NEXT GENERATION PREPARATION
„But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;” I Corinthians 1:27

2/8/2016
 
Through all the trying moments, exciting happenings, and busyness of our lives and ministry, it is a great comfort to know that people are praying for us all over the world! It is a great comfort to know that God hears His children’s prayers and answers them!
 
An answer to prayer is that the children have not been quite as destructive and disruptive in general. We still have to keep an eye on things, but there were a few services where they weren’t as bad. Please continue to pray that the children will behave.
 
It was exciting to have Adi (Oddy), Gina’s son, and Lusi (Lucy), his wife who recently got saved, come to a church service recently. Lusi is learning from the Bible and growing. Many times after our services, we sit around and talk with people and have a time of questions. Ana, an unsaved older lady from the neighborhood, has had many questions. Lusi adds to these conversations, and it is encouraging to see the understanding she has of spiritual things. Please pray that Ana will understand the Gospel and be saved. Please pray for Adi and Lusi to be faithful and follow the Lord.
 
We have not been having reading classes, as Ica (Eeka), our only student at the moment, comes just every now and then to the services. Our plan was to have reading class after our mid-week service. We trust that the Lord is working, and hope that Ica will have a desire to read, and that she will come and learn.
 
Shortly after the New Year, we took a trip to Germany to visit my sister and her family, Joanna and Bruce White. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, and while it was short, we enjoyed spending time with them and the nieces and nephew. Cory thoroughly enjoyed meeting his cousins. Please enjoy the recent picture of our little guy. :o)
 
Speaking of Cory, when we returned from Germany, the passport control didn’t want to let Cory enter the country because he had been in Romania (before we went to Germany) more than 90 days and didn’t have a residence permit yet. Because he was born in Romania, we didn’t think this rule applied to him, as it does to other foreigners. It wasn’t even possible for us to get him a residence permit within 90 days of his birth, because it took about that long to get his birth certificate and passport, which we need in order to get the residence permit. We were praying that they would allow Cory into the country. After many phone calls and people explaining to us what the problem was, as well as us trying to explain how it wasn’t even possible for us to do what was necessary, they decided to allow Cory to come into the country. Praise the Lord for answering prayers! We are working on getting everything together for Cory’s residence permit, and we appreciate your prayers that everything will go well and smoothly.
 
The children at our English class are learning, in spite of not having the best behavior at times! They got a strong reprimanding by the staff the other week for being bad, so thankfully, they were better for our last class. We are grateful for the opportunity this allows us to be a part of the children’s lives, as well as to get to know more children.
 
Please be in prayer about our house/land situation. We just learned that, although we are the owners on the contract, the law says that only citizens of EU countries can own land in Romania. We can legally own the house. But if someone contested that we are not the legal owners of the land, we could legally lose the house and the land, since those are on the same contract. We hope to soon have this resolved, which will mean re-doing the contract with the previous owner as legal owner of the land. The owner will then have to give us the rights to the land. Please pray that the Lord will work this out quickly and smoothly.
 
This week, we are attending a course by Jeff Welch about teaching children. We are excited about all there is to learn, and are trusting that the Lord will use this time to make us more effective as we minister to the Gypsy youth here in Romania!
 
Thank you for your prayers for us and for your part in our ministry! We trust that the Lord is blessing you as you serve Him!
 
In His service,
Jonathan, Kristy, and Cory