BCA Campus Project

BCA is in the process of fundraising for the building of our new school. If you have a site or blog or know someone who does, please pass this along to them. You can post this on any site including Facebook and MySpace.

Overheard over Breakfast

"Be quiet Black Manta, Lex Luthor is speaking!"

I guess the kids are watching to many SuperFriends episodes!!

Welcome...Just Don't Steal Our Mat

Back in Bucharest, fresh off our first week of school, we found ourselves browsing a home improvement store today. I caught myself marveling.

When we first came to Romania in 1999, we were working with a team of plumbers who were replacing the lead pipes in an orphanage with copper pipes. Just a few days into the project, we were first stunned and then frustrated to find that the fittings the plumbers needed to connect the pipes simply could not be bought in this country. Nowhere.

Being Americans, we understood "No" to mean "Try another way." We fanned out. In pairs, we scavenged through the few plumbing parts stores we could find - although indeed we barely believed it was possible that an entire European country could keep their toilets flushing with such slim pickings. Surely, something was being lost in the translation. How do you say Home Depot in Romanian?

In 1999, the answer was "FedEx." From Germany. Today, there are several possibilities: Brico Store, Practiker, and our friendly (OK, maybe not), local Mr. Bricolage. Which is where, today, I was so easily impressed just to see a selection of welcome mats, and in particular an array of mats that had a plastic fitting for a threshold, to render it theft-proof.

Now, most Romanians in Bucharest live in bloc apartments, built by the communists, with signature communist aesthetics. And if you cross the street from Mr. Bricolage and take a right at the Butane Gas station, you'll pass through a corridor of 8-story blocs until you come to the one where the Barbusca family lives. As my son says, "In Romania, we live on the third floor, but in the elevator you have to push 2 to get there."

Anyway, Bucharest has an abundance of many things - most of which are some variation of brown or gray in color, either because they are canine (still plenty of wild street dogs, though their numbers are declining) or because they are covered in dust in the summer and mud in the winter.

You just don't understand the dirt in Bucharest. It is everywhere. In the summer, the sweltering heat forces your windows open and it floats in clouds, just daring you to dust the bookshelves again. In the winter, when you are truly thankful for the opportunity to shut the windows, it wraps its arms around your family's shoes and smears its lipstick from your front door to the nearest pile of shoes.

Every Romanian family has two things by the front door: a mat and a shoe rack. They don't call them welcome mats, and I don't think I have ever seen one that says "bine ati venit." Instead, if they all said, "Wipe your filthy feet," no one would be offended because it is true.

When we first moved into our apartment three years ago, I found an old bathroom mat that had managed to cross the Atlantic with us, and put it outside our door. Romanian friends took bets on how long it would be before it was stolen.

"Stolen? A dirty rug?" I asked.

"Yes. It is too nice. Ours has been stolen three times. Just use an old towel."

Several months later, with the rug still there, I was feeling full of Christmas spirit and set a live poinsettia outside our door. It must have been too much for whoever was watching. The plant was gone in two days. The rug stuck around a little longer.

So I lingered over the theft-proof welcome mats. I actually imagined myself putting one in front of our door and fixing it in place. But the thought of having to anchor my welcome mat just seemed a little too, well, un-welcoming.

Life in the Moooo S.A. :)

Whew! What a whirlwind our time in the U.S. has been so far! We started with a visit to Tony's parents in South Carolina (with a few touristy days in Tennessee for fun), where Tony shared at Cornerstone Assembly of God. Then we drove south to Orlando, where we made new friends at Orlando Church where Tony was honored by Pastor Dave to have an entire Wednesday night service to introduce ourselves and talk about how God is moving in Romania.

From Orlando we continued to Miami for two weeks with Tony's sister, Chris, and lots of visits with old friends. The Lord blessed Tony with the opportunity to speak to the youth at our home church, Words of Life Fellowship, and He moved in some very special ways on the following Sunday morning at Harvest International Church, with our friends, Pastors Brian and Lena Miltenberger. Before we left Miami, we even got to visit Keys to Life Church in Miramar, where our friend Arthor Jackson is the pastor. (Arthor sang at our wedding, over 12 years ago!) At the end of last week, we left Miami for Bradenton, FL, and just a few days ago, Tony spoke at Bethany Baptist Church, which has supported us faithfully and generously since we returned to Romania in 2005. We were also especially blessed to attend a deacon's dinner at Bethany Baptist and to get to know several of the beautiful people who serve at that church.

In addition to the privilege of sharing our heart for Romania and kids with so many people, God has granted us many many marvelous times with family and friends. Tony's parents took us to a beautiful aquarium where the kids touched horseshoe crabs and saw live sharks. Grandma Dee, Aunt Lorrie, Rhianan, and Nick surprised us with a fun visit in Orlando. In Miami, they chased their cousins everywhere, and we got to experience Wii bowling and tennis with our friends the Caballeros. Chrissy attended a bridal shower tea for our dear friend Patty Garcia, who is getting married next week. And now in Bradenton, we were just blessed with tickets for our whole family to go to Busch Gardens! God has been so good to us!

We will be in Bradenton for another week and a half, then back up to South Carolina to prepare for our return to Romania on Aug. 5. If we haven't connected with you yet, please contact us via email or on our Vonage phone at 941-803-8303, which we forward to our new location each time we move. We will be mailing out a more detailed update within the next week or two, so please watch your mailbox for that. (Or if you don't currently receive our paper newsletter but would like to, please drop us an email!)

GRADUATION

The BCA Class of 2008 has officially graduated! These six kids (yes, they're still kids to us) are all dear to us, and now they are all off in different directions: Kyle (the valedictorian, pictured above with Tony) is heading to Trinity Western in Canada; Lauren (the salutatorian) is going to Minnesota; Kyle is headed to Union in Tennessee; Rachael is going to college in Salem, Oregon; and Sean and Christina are staying in Bucharest one more year to attend a local university that has a degree program in English.

Tony MC'ed the graduation ceremony on May 30, and Chrissy helped with rehearsal and the closing benediction. That last week of school, with the yearbook presentation on Wednesday (Chrissy is the yearbook adviser), Field Day on Thursday (Tony is almost completely recovered from his injury. Whose idea was it to do a relay that requires you to spin around the number of times equal to your age???), and graduation on Friday -- it left us speechless on the way home Friday night: simultaneously proud of the graduates, exhausted from all the late nights, and sad to see so many students and families leaving Bucharest.

It is the nature of our work that relationships develop quickly, run deep, and are faced with frequent separations. But what a blessing to be part of the body of Christ in such a unique, boundary-crossing way!

BACK IN THE USA!

Well we made it. Three planes, 10 bags (only 9 made it), and a two-hour drive brought us to Anderson, S.C. where Tony's parents live.

It was a pretty smooth trip with all 3 kids and we had nice new planes with plenty of room. And even the missing bag was eventually found. (They even gave us $150 for our inconvenience - thank you American Airlines!)

Our time here will begin in South Carolina where we will speak at Cornerstone Assembly in Anderson. Then a family vacation in the Tennessee mountains with Grandma and Grandpa. Then we head south to Orlando, Miami, and Bradenton, where we will speak at four more churches.

We have been having a great time so far watching the kids play with their grandparents and sliding down the slip and slide. We thank God for this time we have to tell others about Romania and what God is doing there. We still have some time open if you have a group or church you think would be interested in hearing about missions or Romania. We are also looking for people who are willing to host a dessert night in their home as a more informal opportunity for others to learn about our ministries in Romania. If you would be up for hosting a dessert night, please contact us ASAP.

The best thing about being back (besides being with friends and family) is the great gas prices! No joke; we pay about $6.25 back in Bucharest!

Who Needs a Crib?

Our little girl Gianna has moved to her toddler bed! She loves it and spent the first hour of her first night in the dark looking around and trying to figure out this new sleeping contraption. She has adjusted well and it gave us an opportunity to give her crib to a British couple for their new baby girl who is due any day. They are here working with a Christian organization to get a hospice facility built here in Bucharest. It is fantastic to see how God is working in so may ways with so many people to help Romania.