Scenes of Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful time with friends and family celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ! Christmas was a very busy time for me, with lots to do at church, caroling, dressing up as Santa Claus for kids at a local hospital, and of course, eating wonderful food. I was blessed to spend Christmas with my very near and dear Romanian family. Here are some pictures "out and about" during Christmas time in Romania. Every Romanian Christmas meal includes the traditional bread called cozonac
In the villages, people dress in traditional costumes, and go caroling on Christmas Eve

The piaţa is where most people go to buy their Christmas tree, and then transport it on public transportation like the trams or subway

On Christmas Day, the children of my church led the service--my Romanian mom made their costumes

The entire stage was transformed into the manger scene

The music team

Our sleeping baby Jesus

Santa and his reindeer outside of the national theater in the city-center of Bucureşti

Romanian Kids-Choir =)

Came across this video of kids singing Away in a Manger in Romanian. It's refreshing to hear children singing about the birth of Christ, rather than a red-nosed reindeer.

Corul Biserici Bunavestire - Dormi copile

One of the Songs we sang at our concert last weekend. Enjoy!

An Evening of Carols

We had more than a packed house for our Christmas concert. It was a blessed evening of carols, various ensembles, poems, trumpets, Scripture, and prayer. One of my favorite things about Christmas is the music and tonight we sang my favorite Christmas piece (O Holy Night) featuring a baritone soloist from the Romanian Opera. And let me tell you, this song in Romanian is just gorgeous! Also, while waiting for several hours to send a package at the post office this week, I invited everyone in line to the concert--and praise the Lord-- some of them came! It's amazing what doors God will open when you just strike up a conversation. Thank you to those who prayed for our Christmas preparations. It was a special night where the true meaning of Christmas--Christ, the Saviour of the world's birth--was declared! Now it's time to go out caroling around the city...fun times!

Our Choir: Biserica Buna vestire (Chuch of the Good News)

Silent Night: O Noapte preasfinţitã

Investing in the Lives of Youth

Thank you to those of you who have been praying for our youth meetings; they have been going pretty well. We have been able to discuss topics such as discipleship, grace, forgiveness, pride, the wrath of God, etc., in open, lively, and truly profound Biblical discussions. We sing, we laugh, we pray together, and throughout the week, we share life together. We have a saying at our youth meetings Vorbim mult, dar trăim prea puţin (We talk a lot, but don't share life together much). Thus, one of our goals this year is to invest in one another's lives through encouragement, prayer, and simply sharing life together. Last Saturday we had a gift exchange with some pretty hilarious gifts. We had fun, but also made sure to discuss and look at the true meaning of Christmas. One of the highlights was seeing Alex receive a new guitar. Alex is a student in Bucureşti from the city of Oneşti, Romania (birthplace of Nadia Comăneci) and has been very involved in service to both the church and the community. We know he is going to use his new guitar for the Lord's glory! That's one of the purposes of our work in Romania--to invest in the lives of Romanians to be a blessing for others and to further carry the message of the Gospel to the very ends of the earth. Thanks for your continued prayers!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We will be having a large evangelism, Christmas concert at my church this month, so that means a lot of choir practices, rehearsals with children for dramas, etc. I love this time of the year! Caroling is, I would say, much more part of the Romanian cultural tradition than in America. Traditionally, Romanians will go caroling the night of Christmas Eve. At choir rehearsal, we have been singing some familiar pieces (O Holy Night, Silent Night, O Come all Ye Faithful) in Romanian, in addition to many authentic Romanian compositions. Our director says we need to have all of the pieces memorized this week, so please pray for me! Please also pray that our singing would be a blessing to those who will attend and that the true meaning of Christ's birth would be more than evident: that through God's amazing grace, He sent His one and only Son into the world, so that through believing in Him, we would be saved. What an amazing gift!

We have more rehearsals ahead and will be singing in several villages leading up to Christmas. Also note in this picture that Anca (in white) is handing out chocolate for her birthday. In Romania it is customary for the birthday boy/girl to bring treats to celebrate his/her birthday. And the Romanian happy birthday song is much more lively :)

Please pray for us as we all have a busy month ahead!

Biggest Christmas Tree in Europe

The National Day of Romania was celebrated, besides the traditional way, with the inauguration of the biggest Christmas tree in Europe on the evening of December 1. The tree is decorated with some 2,300,000 lights in Unirii’s Square. The evening was market by music shows and fireworks by the tree.

The lighting of the tree was preceded by a series of manifestations dedicated to the National Day. Hundreds of citizens gathered in Universitatii Square starting with 6 pm to enjoy the Romanian folklore music show organized by the City Hall. Later in the evening, Christmas decorations were lighted throughout the capital city streets.

Decorations this year are more modest than the ones in previous years. Bucharest’s deputy mayor Razvan Murgeanu said that the electricity poles are too old and are not able to support more decorations

The Still Shots

The over-hanging street lightsThe lights in the University Square

It's Romanian National Day: La Mulţi Ani Romania!

We took some of our youth from church out to see the parade today. I hope you too wore red, yello and blue