Sunday in Romania

On Wednesday, July 25^th, a group of 26 people (21 teens and 5 adults) left to serve with the Groza family in Romania. They arrived in Fagaras, Romania, on Thursday night, and hit the ground running on Friday morning! It’s been so exciting to hear bits and pieces of what they have been doing.

This morning in church, we were able to see (via live video stream), the evening church service in Fagaras, Romania. (Isn’t technology wonderful?!) It was great to be able to see our group, and also to see some of the people they have been so graciously welcomed by.  Romania is 8 hours ahead of us, but I did get a quick phone call in to my mom this afternoon. She told me a little bit about their day: Both morning and evening church services in Romania are 2 hours long. My mom said they both went by very quickly. Between morning and evening church, they went to some villages and held church services there. Many of the children in the villages have lice, and lice are a very real possibility for the people in our group as well. Pray for our group, my mom included, that they would be persuaded to love on these kids, without being concerned about the possibility of lice.

 At one point during the evening service, the teens were singing in English while everyone else sang in Romanian. Getting to hear this on the video feed was incredible—singing in 2 different languages at the same time knowing we serve the same God…does it get better than that?!

Please continue to pray for the 21 teens and 5 adults we have in Romania. I’m praying that God will use them for His glory. I pray everyone will come back with a new perspective of how big God is and see the importance of being a bold witness for Jesus, whether you’re in Fagaras, Romania or Chetek, WI. 

In the last 14 months...

I’ve become another one of those lovely people that makes a blog and then never updates it! Here’s a post that will bring you up-to-speed on everything that’s happened in the last 14 months! Ok, not really at all…but if you’re interested in my most recent ramblings, read on J

The last time I blogged was back in May…of 2011! I had just graduated from Heartland Community College with a 2 year degree, and was stressed to the max. (There were several factors involved, but we won’t go into all that…) To sum it up for you, I was ready to quit school (indefinitely) and move back home. So, the day after I walked across the stage at HCC, I moved back home for the summer. At that point, I had been accepted into the nursing program at ISU (which is exactly what I wanted), but had no intentions of actually moving back to Illinois and going back to school. My parents, among others, knew I would move back to Illinois and go to school, but I did NOT know that yet J

My summer at home was awesome, and it was exactly what I needed. I learned so much during those couple of months, and decided to move back to Illinois J In late July {2011}, I applied for several CNA jobs in Illinois; I got hired at Apostolic Christian Restmor and started in the beginning of August. I was looking for a full-time job, and they hired me at 24-30 hours a week. Initially, I wasn’t too thrilled about that because I desperately needed more hours. However, Restmor was offering more hours than the other places that called, so I took the job. The Lord had that all worked out, too, because I got full-time hours the very first week! Those hours continued until I started school again in January, which allowed me to gain valuable work experience and save money.

Last fall flew by! I was working full-time, enrolled in one online class, and was busy with weekend trips home and to Indiana. If you don’t why I was going to Indiana, I’ll gladly fill you in J (In the future, I’ll have to blog about my very first trip to Indiana…)

In January {2012}, I started nursing school at Mennonite College of Nursing @ ISU. I was completely petrified. You’ve all heard the horror stories about nursing school—no sleep, no social life, nothing but homework, everyone fails. Basically, it’s like torture that you’re paying a lot of money for! And some of it’s true—nursing school has a way of taking over your life! Now that 1^st semester is over, I can say this: It was the most challenging semester of school I’ve ever had, and I absolutely loved it! It was a lot of work, a lot of studying, a lot of late nights and a lot of early mornings, but at the end of the day: it’s manageable…and fun J

I’ve now lived in Illinois for 3 whole years, which just seems crazy. I still miss living in Wisconsin, and part of me always will—it’s where I grew up, and my family is still here.  Maybe I’ll live here again someday?

One more thing—Please pray for me! I start school again in less than a month, and am still waiting to hear back about 2 more scholarships for the fall semester. I’m trusting God with the outcome—of how tuition will get paid, and with everything else.