Forgot to include this: there will be a xanga that is updated by someone who will have internet access so check out the Romania site for details during the trip!
20-Mar-2006
Well folks, this is it for a while. Bright and early tomorrow
morning Stacie and I are headed out for Romania! Leaving the our own
local airport around seven, we should arrive at our final destination
by noon the next day. Our route will take us through Dallas, Detroit,
Amsterdam, Hungary and finally Romania. While there we are going to meet
with officials from different cities, work in some public schools and
children’s hospitals, and mix with the gypsies a little. Of course,
we’ve all been told to include flexibility on our packing list because
all of these activities are subject to change.
Stacie will turn 21 en route and we’re hoping to get the
stewardess to sing happy birthday in their native tongue. We ask for
prayer for our flight to Detroit because we hope to have some
witnessing opportunities. We also ask for prayer during our trip, we
will be under scrutiny as ambassadors for Christ, the U.S., IBLP, and
the products of “character training.”
I love you all and should update with pictures upon my return.
For now, I’m going to celebrate all the long hours I will spend sitting
in a plane by doing a practice run for the triathlon – 9 mile bike, 3
mile run, 500 meter swim! Ciao!
17-Mar-2006
Happy St. Patrick’s day! Are you wearing green?
This is for all of you that are running up there in Flint!
Have a good run – we’re with you in spirit and we ran 3 miles
in memory of the race today. Let me know how it went!
16-Mar-2006
We are back! And what an incredible, God-filled couple of days! The
team of college students we were privileged to work with were such an
inspiration and sharing fellowship with these on-fire Christians was
uplifting to our spirits.
Each afternoon we did some sort of work project; the first day we
unloaded the pre-made walls for five houses. The second afternoon we
painted the Habitat for Humanity office, and the last day we
sheet rocked and painted at a church that had suffered a fire. (This
church still needs work for anyone interested, I will hopefully be
going back to help some more.)
Stacie and I had some issues with the sun, but hey our tan is
going to be that much better – fringe benefits for working for the Lord
Stacie also went to great lengths, managing to get those last spots that couldn’t be reached by ladder.
In the mornings we put on a VBS at a new apartment complex. A lot of
the families were from New Orleans and as a result there was quite a
bit of inter-relations among the kids. These two little guys were my
favorites – QwenDarius and Jyran. We centered the whole thing around
the verse where Jesus says “I am the light of the world” and tried to
teach the kids the difference between light and darkness and what
impact that would have on their lives. We could really see that God was
at work here because, amazingly enough, the favorite activity during
the VBS was story time. We even had some older boys coming who were
15-16! Sometimes the parents or older teens would just watch us from a
distance or come and ask why we were doing this. Hopefully we were
lights not only to the kids, but the whole community as well.
12-Mar-2006
This is going to be the last post for several days because I’m doing a
mission endeavor here in my home town but most likely won’t have
computer access. Our work started on Saturday when all of us Jones
people joined with the college group of First Baptist and worked at an
international outreach. There was pampering for the moms, car washing
for the dads and a joy jump for the kids!
I think the kids had a blast and I did too! (Even though I slightly twisted my ankle in the joy jump – all in the line of duty 
)
I made some new friends and learned three new words in Chinese – kick,
throw and good job! But even though our verbal communication was
limited, I could definantly show love and they understood that loud and
clear.
David was awesome with the kids too!
The next day we decided to celebrate the warm weather by breaking in my
brother’s jet-ski. I’m telling you, zipping along at 60 mph really
makes you glad there’s a big guy to hold on to!
Tubing is the best! (though Katie and Tim aren’t so thrilled with it)
Stacie and I are experts – or so we thought. Egging Michael on by
holding on with only one hand, he got faster, and faster. Either we got
tired or he got wild but he managed to flip us and I flew through the
air landed on my back and literally skipped two or three times across
the water before I stopped. All in good fun (though I think my neck is
going to be sore).
