Isus te iubeste! (Jesus loves you)

Buna! (hello!)

Its been quite awhile since we've updated our blog and we are really sorry. However, we are having a blast here seeing God's work be done through others and even ourselves. We don't want to bore you with all the details of this past month, but we will update you on the major events. 

Mainly we have been continuing with the same schedule that we filled you in on on  last post. As some of you know we were able to skype Jalene's church quite awhile ago. It was awesome to be able to talk and see everyone. We hope we helped answer any questions that you may have had about what we are doing here.  Since then, we went on a bit of an excursion with a few people here. We were able to see a bit more of Romania and realized just how different some of the country is from Timisoara. Dawn took both of us and another missionary couple that is living here in Timisoara, Cal and Karen. We were able to see a few of the castles, and yes, even Dracula's castle. But sorry to disappoint, it really has nothing to do with Dracula We were also able to go into a part of the mountains where there was still snow.  It is amazingly beautiful up there. We had a great weekend exploring parts of Romania, but when we got home on Sunday we were ready to go back to our regular schedule. 

A few days later we helped a girl we know write her testimony in english. It was a perfect example of how God works in everyones life differently and how he always provides for us even when we are young and have heard nothing about God. 

Working at the refugee camp has been going really well. We love teaching them english and we love how enthusiastic they always are. A couple weeks ago, we were fortunate to learn some arabic! 

Ana Omery Tamal Tesh Sunna

That means "I am 18 years old".

The last weekend in May we got together with a couple of Peace Corp workers. The original plan was to have us go to the refugee center and play games and have english lessons with the refugees because they can't go out of the centre. Things didn't go quite as planned. It's kind of a funny story, but what happened was the lady who was supposed to get us security clearance went on vacation with out doing so. The refugees, who we thought weren't able to leave the center, were able to meet us at another building. But again, instead of having the 200 refugees we had planned for, we had 10 kids the first day with 9 volunteers. On the second day, there were 10 adults, to again, 9 volunteers. It still worked out though! The kids and volunteers had a lot of fun playing games at the park. While the adults had a great time learning lots of english the second day! We learned that God can sometimes have completely different plans but things always end up working out better with His plan. 

Having this be our last week here we are very busy as we prepare to say good bye to all the amazing people we have met. Please continue to pray for us as this is going to be a tough week! Please also pray for safe travels to Ireland and then back home. 

Thank you so much for all of your support!! We could never have had this awesome experience without you!!!!

See you soon!

Jalene Nydam

Erin Muller 

Growing in the Word of GOD!

Hello again!
Once again we've had a pretty busy two weeks but as always also enjoyable.
We've been busy at the refugee camp both weeks. Last week sometime the refugee camp had more refugees come to stay for only a month or so. They are from Pakistan. Since they have their own religious standards we will be teaching the women and the younger children english while Cameron will be teaching the men english. This past Tuesday was our first time teaching the Palistinians, however the men ended up not wanting to be taught. The women we taught were mainly beginners but one or two of them knew basic english. They were enjoyable to teach but not as eager as the Sudanese people were. So after our class with the Palistinians we went to another classroom where Cameron was teaching the Sundanese and we helped with those two classes. First we had them bring out their homework. Their homework was to talk about someone important and why they were important to them. A lot of them wrote about a couple people including parents, wives, God, best friends and some wrote about us! We found it very heartwarming that we truly have an impact on them and they appreciate our help. The rest of the class was lots of fun because we were showed them what real American and Canadian money looked like. Then we had a little 'shop' where they had to 'buy' items off of us that we just brought from home. We gave them the money and they had to figure out what bills to give us and how much change they would need back. They really enjoyed it.
This past Monday we went to the girl's house. We taught a few of them english and took care of some of the young kids as other people needed to get work done or were at school. We had a lot of fun and look forward to helping there in the future because it was only our first official time teaching them and some of the girls really opened up to us. It's amazing what God has done in their lives and we hope to learn from them also.
For the past two weeks every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we have been going to the Potter's House to help with their daily routine and to also play games with the kids. We really love it there because the kids always enjoy our company and have fun playing with us. The staff are awesome to work with too becasue they have such a strong love for God and truly love helping these kids. We got to know some of the staff there more this past Saturday when they invited us to go out with them to the forest park to play games with them and their friends from Vox church and elsewhere.
Also, that Saturday we went with the girls from youth group for a beauty night. We had a great time doing our nails, make-up, hair, sewing, and making earings and at the same time learning about the true beauty of how God made us.
Dawn came home from Africa this past Monday and we are glad that she had a good time in Africa and came home safe.
Its also been a good past couple of weeks spiritually for both of us. We've been learning to be more patient and to truly rely on God's plan and to stop trying to make our own. For a couple of weeks we were wondering what God's plans for us at Potter's House was. At first we were just at Potter's House helping with random things but not truly doing much. We prayed a lot that He would give us patience and reveal His plan to us. He deffinatley taught us to be patient, to wait for his plan and to stop trying to make the plan ourselves. Last week He answered our prayers. We are now in charge of games everyday at the Potter's House and we are making a shedule for the next two months of the games we will be playing with the kids in case we can not go some days.
Thank you to everyone who has continued to support us with their prayers. We are enjoying not only teaching God's word but to also learn more about God as we go.
We hope you have good weekend!
Jalene and Erin!

A busy two weeks gone by.

Hey everyone!
Sorry we haven't updated the blog in a while. We've been pretty busy and since Dawn left for Africa and took her laptop, we've had to go to an internet cafe. Therefore we haven't had a whole lot of access to the internet. So, here is our update for the past two weeks!
Sunday, April 6th, we had house church in the morning, and later on in the evening we went to another church called the Capitol for Lord's Supper. That week, week took the disability kids out a few times, to the mall playground and the zoo! It was a lot of fun, and the kids really enjoyed it. Tuesday was a pretty fun day. It was the first day going to the refugee camp! There are a bunch of Sudanese refugees there, and one Korean waiting to go to Canada or the US. We had a beginners class, and two intermediate/advanced classes. It was fun because they were enthusiastic and eager to learn! They call us Teacher Erin and Teacher Jalene. It's really nice weather here, we have been wearing shorts and t-shirts, however, the refugees all had hats and sweaters on!! We also spent a bit of time at the Potters House that week. It's always fun there because the kids love to meet new people and try to teach us the Romanian language while we struggle with learning it. We helped with the weekly craft that they do. The kids always enjoy doing new crafts because at school they don't get the opportunity to. Dawn left on friday to go to Africa, and from then on we have the apartment to ourselves!
This past week, we went to the Girls House. This is a home that two missionaries started where girls from the streets have come to live with them. The two missionaries feed them, help them get into schools, and other various things to help them get their life back on track. We don't know all the details of the house, such as how the girls came to live with them, and if they take in new girls evey once in a while. But when we find out more information we will let you know. There are about seven girls living at the house, along with the two missionaries and their two daughters. From now on every monday, we will be teaching a few of them english and helping out with various activities. We went to the refugee camp again this week and even more people showed up for the classes. They were again, all eager to learn. This week we made them cookies because it is a new food to them and they enjoyed them a lot. The rest of the week we spent at Potter's House. We taught them new games such as hide- and- go- seek, did a Bible lesson with them and made tye dye bandanas.
This weekend we took it easy because it's Easter weekend here. We got to go to a shopping center that was like a flea market. It was weird because they had such a range of brands that you wouldn't think they would have like Puma, Nike, Gucci, and various others. We were wondering how they got these items to sell. Sunday was a lot of fun because we went to church, then had a big picnic with the entire church. It was a lot of fun! We played volleyball, frisbee, and ate a lot of good food. It had a real Romanian feel to it because we were right by a flock of sheep with their shepard, and we got to try some real Romanian food.
We've been pretty busy here, and having a lot of fun. Thank you for your continuous support and prayers! We finished our language lessons on friday, but please continue to pray for us with the big language barrier we are still struggling with. Jalene prooved that to be true, when a girl at Potter's House was trying to tell her that the water was hot. However, the word hot in Romanian is "cald" so Jalene thought that the girl was trying to tell her the water was cold in english. We didn't realize until the next day, what she was trying to get across. We've also had a few experiences when Romanians try to randomly talk to us on the street. All we can say back to them is "nu inteleg Romana", which means, "I don't understand Romanian."

Things are Falling into Place

Hey Everyone! 

So this week went by pretty fast! First, on monday morning, it started off bringing kids from another disability center to the mall to play in the mall's playground. We had a few new kids with us and they were all lots of fun to play with. The only trouble we had with them was trying to get them to leave. The next day we met with another volunteer that is here, to do inventory at the Potters House. We needed to see what crafts supplies they had, what we would be able to work with, and how much of it we had. It turned out to be a bigger job than we thought, and we did not get as far as we had hoped. After this, we got to eat lunch and meet a few more of the kids that go there. We also got to see a bit of how they run things and their routine. After this, we were able to have a meeting with the workers there to figure out our schedule and a few other things. Wednesday we were able to take different kids to the mall again to play and again, it was a lot of fun. Later on in the evening, we met up with Cameron, a peace corp worker who we are helping teach english to refugees from Sudan in the local refugee camp. We are grateful to have an opportunity like this because the refugee camp is military operated. Some of these refugees are headed to Canada, so it will be nice to teach them about our culture ahead of time. 

From Thursday- Saturday a few of the volunteers that we work with had an opportunity to go to Budapest, Hungary, and invited us along. We were very fortunate and were able to see a few historical buildings, different churches and also got some shopping in! 

This coming week will be even busier because we are starting up new projects and will be getting more active in the children centers we are involved in.

Your continued prayers are necessary and appreciated for us, the many children, and our finances. We sincerely appreciate the prayers and e-mails with the words of encouragement.

You are in our thoughts and prayers!

Erin and Jalene!  

Our first week in Timisoara!

Hello Everyone!

We arrived in Timisoara last Saturday night at around nine o'clock. We went through three different flights and arrived in Budapest, Hungary, where we met Dawn Elenbaas. She is the person we are staying with and who is getting us involved in all the organizations we will be working with. Dawn drove us from Budapest to Timisoara, which is a five hour drive, where we arrived at our new home for three months. 

For those of you who don't know what we are doing we are volunteering and doing missionary work in Timisoara, Romania for three months. We will be working with different children from different centers around Timisoara. Some of the centers we are working at include the children's disability center, The Potter's House, possibly street kids, and possibly a baby hospital. The Potter's House is an organization for underprivileged kids who may come from a very poor family. They go to the center after school and eat a  large meal, learn new crafts, get help with their homework, learn english, and learn a few computer skills. Since we just got here last week we haven't completely figured out a schedule. Last Wednesday we got to meet a few of the kids we will be working with. In the morning we took five kids from the disability center to the new mall that has a children's playground on the top floor. Then in the afternoon we went to the Potter's House where we had to fill out a few more forms. While we were there we got to meet a few of the kids that go there regularly. They were all very polite and spoke a bit of english. Which will be very helpful since we don't really know how to speak Romanian. 

We live in an apartment with Dawn. It is a very nice apartment. We share a small room with two single beds. We'll be putting pictures up of the apartment so you can see where we stay.

We actually have a few different churches that we have attended already. We go to a small house church every second Sunday and "Big church" every other Sunday. There is another service the we go to that is for english speaking people. Every second Friday we go to youth group, where also thankfully a lot of people there speak fairly good english. 

This week has been a more relaxed week trying to get settled in, getting over jet lag, and figuring out different schedules at the different children's centers. Hopefully next time we update our blog we will have more information on the centers we will be working at. 

We both would like to thank you for all the prayers and donations that you have blessed us with!

Talk to you soon!

Jalene and Erin!