We've moved!

Life for us has been pretty hectic since our last post. We moved to the Charlotte, NC area!

Charlotte skyline (photo credit)

Ed got a new job, so we relocated and are still getting settled. It's nice to be closer to family again, and Ed is enjoying his job. We have some friends who live in the area that we haven't seen in a while (including my BFF, Alexis), so that's exciting for us, too! We will miss the many brothers and sisters in Christ in northern Illinois whom we count as friends, but we know that we will see them again, one way or another. What wonderful hope we have in Christ!

In other news, I went on a couple of trips to Europe in April and May. I'm working on those posts right now, so they are coming soon! We have a lot of catching up to do on here!

Seedless Blackberry Jam

Here's another one of the jams we made forever ago that I never got around to posting. Ed doesn't like seedy jams (neither jams with seeds nor jams of disrepute), so I made some seedless blackberry jam using this recipe. It took a little more work than usual (to get the seeds out), but it came out really well.

The consistency was similar to apple butter, but a bit thicker. It's good on toast or with peanut butter in a sandwich.

Here's the label:

Would definitely make this one again!

Cabled Coffee/Mug Sleeve

I can now check off #3 on my list of knitting goals. I knitted a cabled coffee sleeve, or mug sleeve. Cabling is actually pretty easy, but it looks like it could be difficult. This was also my first attempt at knitting buttonholes.

I used a pattern called Pumpkin Spice (available for download on the right sidebar here). Once I got to the buttonholes, whatever I did didn't look right, so I found this video on YouTube. The girl in the video actually knits the very same pattern, so you can see how to do it and follow along. She has the most helpful knitting videos I've found so far.

For the green one, I used a cotton yarn and followed the pattern exactly. Then I noticed that it was kind of a tight fit or didn't fit on some mugs. I checked other people's comments on Ravelry and found that they also had the same issue, so they did an extra cable or two to lengthen it. So, on the orange one, I added an extra cable. The orange one is acrylic yarn, so it's also a bit stretchier than the green one. They're kind of like two sizes, so hopefully with the two buttonholes on each and two lengths, they'll fit almost any cup or mug.

I gave these to my coffee-addicted BFF (Alexis) for Christmas, so I'm thinking they'll get a lot of use!

Romania Mission Trip, Part 2

We had some fun with some teens and H2H staff at a park in Bucharest (I believe it was Herăstrău Park) one afternoon.

View of Casa Presei Libere (The House of the Free Press) from Lake Herăstrău

We also had the privilege of witnessing the baptism of one of the young women from H2H’s transition program. The transition program helps young adults to transition from orphanage life to independent adult life by providing a temporary place for them to live, training in life skills, and opportunities for job training, with a biblical focus.

She read her favorite Bible passage before she was baptized

It was nice to see how big of a celebration it was. Lots of people came, and the celebration after the baptism ceremony included food, cake, and flowers and gifts for our new sister in Christ. We should do this more in the U.S. It helps to show how special and important it is to identify with Christ in His death and resurrection. It is something we should rejoice over and celebrate!

Toward the end of the trip, we took a day to do a little sightseeing. First, we stopped at Romblast glass factory. We bought some handmade "friendship balls" to bring back as souvenirs for family. These were traditionally made by Old World glass blowers at the end of their shift and given to family and friends to hang in windows as a token of friendship and good luck. There were many sizes and colors to choose from.

"Friendship balls"

The main sightseeing attraction was near Sinaia at Peleș Castle, in the Carpathian Mountains. The weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful. This was the royal residence beginning with King Carol I. It is now a museum. The team took a guided tour of the ground floor. If you go to this web site, you can take a virtual tour.

 

Street vendors selling souvenirs and handmade items lined the path near the castle.

Just a short walk from Peleș Castle is Sinaia Monastery, which was founded in the late 1600s and still houses Eastern Orthodox monks. Jim gave us a quick tour, discussing some of the practices of the Eastern Orthodox church.

Sinaia Monastery

The bell tower

Biserica Mare (The Great Church), built in 1846

We really enjoyed getting to see how God is working through H2H in Romania, and we'd love to go back some time. It was clear to us that God is using H2H's ministry to meet spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of many orphans in Romania. H2H staff and team members are the only people who regularly spend time with, pray for, and otherwise minister to many of these babies, children, teens, and young adults. Will you join us in praying for H2H and the kids they minister to?

Romania Mission Trip, Part 1

Late last August, we went on a short-term mission trip to Romania with a team from our church. We were hosted by Heart to Heart International Ministries (H2H) and got to work with them for a little more than a week, ministering to orphans and abandoned children. We met Jim, a co-founder of H2H, and Corny, one of the Romanian H2H staff members, at our church about a year before the trip. H2H is one of the ministries our church regularly supports, so they were visiting for our missions emphasis program. They encouraged us to come on a short-term trip, and we knew we had to go. We had talked for years about going on a ministry trip together, and we finally felt like God was clearly calling and enabling us to go to this place at this time. Our motivation for going was to participate in the work that God is doing in Romania and to share His love and His Word with the children there.

We flew into Bucharest, Romania, and the H2H staff took us to their team house, which served as our lodgings most of the time we were there. It was very nice and spacious.

Team house

The H2H staff briefly trained us and Jim took us on a tour in downtown Bucharest. He talked about the Romanian revolution, which helped us to better understand the orphan situation in Romania.

Arcul de Triumf (triumphal arch)

Piața Revoluției (Revolution Square), an important site of the Romanian Revolution of 1989

Statue of King Carol I in the square

Palace of the Parliament of Romania

To summarize briefly, economic conditions deteriorated during the Communist rule in Romania. While the country is slowly recovering from this period, the effects of many years of repression still exist. Due to many years of control, many of the people still lack the knowledge and the will to better themselves. Thousands of Romanian children are currently living in state-operated orphanages, some are living on the streets, and many babies and children are relinquished to state care each day. Many of these children and youth are not taught basic skills to prepare for adulthood, and many physical, emotional, and spiritual needs are not being met. H2H reaches these children through several programs and through short-term ministry teams.

We went to a few orphanages several times throughout our stay and played, talked (through H2H staff, who served as translators), did Bible lessons (also translated), led games, and did craft projects with kids of varying ages. They also enjoyed making bracelets, coloring, getting piggy-back rides, and playing soccer. They were very energetic and wore us out!

Making paper flowers

The girl on the right styled my hair in a French braid

When we would go to an orphanage for the first time, the kids would get really excited and were eager to play and visit with us complete strangers! It was an indication to us that H2H has developed and maintains a good relationship with the orphanages and with the kids.

Ed enjoyed talking about spiritual things with this young man, with Rebecca (H2H staff member) translating

This boy also braided my hair. They really liked doing my hair!

Bible lesson for the younger ones, given by a couple of our teammates

We went to a baby hospital one afternoon. Smaller groups of three or four team members went there throughout the week. We cared for several babies by holding them, feeding them, and changing their diapers. While we were there, I overheard Corny say "Jesus loves you" to a baby in Romanian. It was really touching. (Sorry, we were told they didn't want us to take photos.)

Some of the people on our team, including us, went with some of the H2H staff to a town a couple hours' drive south of Bucharest for a couple of days. We got to visit with some more kids there, and we also got to lead a Bible study time during a youth group gathering. Ed taught them about when Paul and Barnabas disagreed and parted ways and how a seemingly bad situation turned out to be good, because God used it to expand the church. We had some good discussion with the teens about how they can apply what they learned, and some of them were asking questions about the Bible and spiritual things. This was definitely a highlight of the trip for us.
 

Making bracelets

Longest paper chain winner

 

 

We really enjoyed talking with her about the Bible at the youth group gathering.

It was cute watching him figure out how to blow up his balloon.

 

 
In the last photo, a couple of things were happening. While everyone was bouncing balloons around the room with paddles they had made and decorated, Mark (H2H staff member) was amazing the kids with science. He rubbed balloons on his hair and stuck them to the ceiling. Then they wanted to do it, too. This kept them entertained for a while!

There's more to share, so I'll do another post in a few days to wrap it up.