Spring – the season of rebirth

March is a month, where things start to come to life. Buds start sprouting, and  spring flowers start to appear, making you feel like their perfume brings you joy. It seems as if everything is reborn and that this brings us much more energy; it wakes us up from the numbness of winter.  This month, we also had a few special events that I desire to tell you about.      

On March 8th (Mother’s Day in Romania), we bought flowers and took them to the mothers of those who come to our English club. We used this opportunity to get to know the youth’s parents better. We rejoice that through this opportunity, we were able to spend time with Laura’s parents, where we stayed 2 hours encouraging her family. Rachel spoke with her grandmother, while I spent time with her father and brother. After Laura, we went to Florin’s, so that we could also give his mother a flower. (Even though his parents are a little more strict, they still received us in their home.) His parents felt free to open to share with us their family problems, as well as their health problems. They shared with us what Florin went through before being adopted and how things are now.  We felt very encouraged, because we were able to create deeper relationships with these families.

One of the youth (Florentin is his name) that comes to English, and one of the boys that Cornel does discipleship with, had his birthday recently. He lives only with his mother, because his parents are divorced. His mother, the only person who works and takes care of him, pays rents for a small apartment and they do not have a good financial situation. For this reason, we decided to organize his birthday party. He was so happy when we told him that we wanted to have a birthday party for him at our house. We told him that we would organize the event and all that he had to do, was to invite some friends. When we told his mother that we would like to have a birthday party for him,  she started to cry and she thanked us. She told us that this is the first time that she wasn’t able to organize his birthday party, due to Florentin’s grandmother being sick and confined to a bed and that needed to take care of her. 

Together with 5 youth that come to English (and church), we started to study the Bible this year. Here we learn about the books of othe Bible and it is an easy way to understand the Bible better. They have said that they want to start reading the Bible, therefore we said that we would help them by creating a Bible reading plan, so that they could read something every day. We created a Bible reading plan for 3 months for each of these 5 youth, having them read 1 chapter a day. It is such an encouragement for us to see how 12-14 year olds want to read the Bible and desire to search for God all the more, let alone in the context that neither youth or adults don’t really read books anymore. 

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for the mothers of our youth who received flowers and the Lord Jesus would bless all the mothers.
• Please pray for the parents of those that we invest in to open their hearts even more, so that they can know Jesus as their personal Savior.
• Please pray for Florentin and his mother that the Lord would protect them.
• Please pray for the youth that have decided to read the Bible and that what they read would have an impact on their lives!