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!