A New Season

Dear friends and WMF family,

As many of you know, starting July 1st 2018, Lau and I took a second Sabbatical after almost twenty years of serving with WMF. Our goal for this time was to rest and be with God, discern for his guidance and find peace and encouragement for the next season of our life. In order to do all these the plan was to take some distance from our work, our city and even our place, but in the same time consider our medical insurance (since, I Vali need to check up regularly at hospital for thyroid problems). Other details in the plan included that Lau enrolls for further education in an area that he has passion for (computer science), and I will be considering writing a chapter about the interchangeable relationship between practice and theory in doing mission. I have also planned to do some internship and participate in The Northumbria Community daily activities. In addition, we planned to spent some time during Christmas with our family from the US whom we don’t get to see very often. This Sabbatical ended at March 31st.

So where are we in/with the Sabbatical? What’s been going on so far?

For a few months of our Sabbatical I (Vali) have been sick with severe headaches and dizziness. It took me many visits to my doctor in Romania and in Scotland until I got a clearer diagnosis. Apparently, I have eustachian tube dysfunction and it is worse after flying (which I did several times in the past seven months). Not knowing what the problem was made me very anxious and worried. Because of sickness I wasn’t able to finish writing the chapter for the School Workbook as I supposed to. I am holding the thought to finish it one day (because it is written 70 percents of it) even if it will not be published. Also I did not manage to go to the Northumbria Community because my available time to do this did not matched their most appropriate time to have me there. Anyway, they invited me for a retreat anytime, which hopefully I will go for some day.

We managed to be with our family in the US for Christmas where we had a very good time. Although, we wanted to see more of our friends in the US, we only manage to see a few of them due to short time and long distances to travel.

Now, after nine months of Sabbatical we settled down in Dundee, Scotland, because Lau has started to study for a Master Degree in Applied Computing with University of Dundee. He succeed well the first semester assignments and exams. His face radiates with joy when he is asked to talk about what he is learning.

Because we manage to rent a small apartment and be official residents in Scotland, it was easy to register with a General Practitioner and be approved to have medical check ups for my thyroid problem. The medical check-ups that I have to undertake for the rest of my life were a big concern for us when we were planning for our Sabbatical. In Romania I had to take a 34-hours trip, (form Galati to Cluj return way included) every six months to receive the specialized medical assistance I need for my thyroid problems. Being able to have specialized medical assistance here, was a great relief and a big contributor in influencing our decision-making for the next season of our life. It wasn’t and it still isn’t easy but we decided to not be involved (as full time staff) with WMF after our Sabbatical (starting April 1st).

Although there are a lot of uncertainties about our future - related to finding new jobs and the Brexit that might affect our status in UK, we will continue to stay in Scotland, (UK) for now or at least until Lau finishes his studies. If there is one thing we have learned in this Sabbatical that is to trust God, that He has our next season of life in his regard and that is OK to do something else. When we planned our Sabbatical, knowing our struggles, we had so many worries and concerns about how to find rest and how to be trusting in God regarding our financial needs for our Sabbatical. Although not every detail of our plan for Sabbatical worked out as we planned, we are positively overwhelmed by the way things were arranged for us regarding accommodation, medical assistance, school enrolment for Lau and financial needs so far. God is more than our Provider and Sustainer. He is the One giving us the power to wake up every morning and become ready for the challenges of a new day. We are most thankful for friends that knew about our struggle with this decision-making and chose to support us in one way or another. Their supportive friendship was one of the greatest encouragement and also an influence to our decision-making regarding our future.

An Ignatian Examination of our time

I would like to continue presenting a brief Ignatian examination of our Sabbatical time so far. I will use mostly present continuous tense because is a continuous process of living.

We are seeking everyday to become aware that we live in the presence of our God, that ‘we can never escape from [His] Spirit, ... we can never get away from His presence...because [He] is there [with us]’ (Psalm 139:7-8).

We are seeking to look at our days with gratitude, to be thankful that we are His beloved son and daughter, that He made us ‘so wonderfully complex’ (Psalm 139:14).

Sometimes we are obsessed with anxious feelings and become so intricate with the daily living. But we are asking the Holy Spirit for help to know and search our heart,...to test and know our anxious thoughts and concerns of our everyday life and future (Psalm 139:23).

Reviewing our time so far we are seeking to cherish God’s thoughts and love about us (Psalm 139:17).

The highest and the most life-giving moments so far of our Sabbatical were/are:

• Studying a subject he has passion for (Lau)
• Rest
• Being treated with so much dignity and respect by the doctors I (Vali) am seeing for medical assistance (this is the way is supposed to be)
• Learning new things from books I red and from interaction with other people
• Spending time with our family in Romania and the US for parts of our Sabbatical
• Seeing (visiting) some friends and talking on the phone or Skype with others in the UK and US
• Making new friends through Connection Cafe project where I (Vali) am volunteering for the past four months

The lowest and the most life-depleting times were/are:

• Worrying about our future
• Getting discouraged and doubtful about our decision
• Getting homesick
• Losing hope
• Being sick for a long time and not knowing what the problem was

When did we fail?

We failed some of our relationships in the past and we are failing again every-time we succumb to our past failures letting them dictate who we are. Lord, have mercy!

When did we love?

We have loved when we chose to be compassionate, have patience and put others above us. We pray for more of these moments in our lives.

Do we observe any habits or life patterns?

We constantly observe habits or life patterns that need to be put to death and re-learn a new way of living. I (Vali) am daunted everyday by my perfectionistic life pattern and when I let feelings like shame, regret and guilt to downsize my life. In reverse I seek to practice the gifts of imperfections - that in Brene Brown’s words are courage, compassion and connection and that ultimately will lead us to what matters - love, belonging and worthiness (see Brene Brown’s book “The gifts of Imperfection”)

When did we see evidence of God’s presence?

• In the way things have been so far for us (accomodation, medical assistance, new and old relationships).
• In the way we were supported financially by our community in Galati and by other friends’ generosity.
• In the way God provided us with qualitative medical assistance.
• In the way we were welcomed and integrated in their home-group by the people in the church.
• In the way God gives us hope and turns our whole beings (mind, soul, heart) again and again to Him giving us eyes to see “the beauty of the Lord” in the daily living.

In the end we ask Holy Spirit to help us reconcile and resolve whatever needs to be reconciled and resolved in our lives. “Point out anything in [us] that offends you, and lead [us] along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:24).

We surrender our individual life and our life together to God. Lord, have mercy!

Say the Prayer of Ignatius for Surrender with us and for us

Take O Lord and receive
All my liberty, my memory, my understanding
And my entire will
All that I have and possess
You have given all to me
To You O Lord I surrender it and I return it
All is yours
Dispose of it all according to Your will
Give me Your love and Your grace.
With these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.

Acknowledgments

We know some of you might not like your names to be put up front, but we would like to thank to all those people who somehow had a contribution to our time for Sabbatical.

First of all, we would like to thank to our Word Made Flesh community in Galati for granting us a time for rest and continuing to support us (financially) through this time. Thank you for helping us discern a clearer plan for our Sabbatical and pushing us have a clear vision for the purpose of our time (that involved resting).

Also, we want to say thank you to all people who supported us financially and with friendship (advice and encouragement) through this time. We could not make it without you. Thank you for believing in us, and with us in this time for rest and discernment.

Lau&Vali Archip

A time for work, a time for rest

As a Christian community, (for every Christian, actually) one of our greatest challenges is finding a healthy rhythm when it comes to work and rest. We don’t want to be idle – we do care for what is happening around us, while we do know that we can’t do everything – we are not all-powerful. As a result, we encourage everyone to find a good rhythm for serving, giving, and also for resting, for getting filled up again. We encourage practicing a day of rest each week, taking time for personal retreats and for participating in our one week long community retreat each year. For those involved for long term, Word Made Flesh offers a longer time of rest (after 6 years of service, one year of Sabbath).

We (Lau and Vali) are just finishing another 6 years of service, of work with Word Made Flesh Romania, and last Monday the Cuvântul Întrupat community just sent us in this year of sabbatical. We have 9 months ahead of us when we have a chance to stop, and rest and get refreshed. Since neither of us has any other responsibilities in Galati during this time, our plan is to be away from Galati for the majority of this time. Wherever we will be doing during this time, we want to look back, to the last 6 years of service and to recognize where God was at work, how He provided. Looking back we will find moments of joy, moments of sorrow, things we did manage to get done along things we regret, and our prayer is that looking back to find strength for the future.

                Planning this time has two parts: a dreaming part, when we find out what our desires are for this time, and an action part, when, depending on the resources available, on the doors that are open for us, will accomplish some of the things we dreamed about. In order to be able to be away from Galati we need to raise some extra 200-300 Euros each month. We also have to raise the funds for travelling and for other activities. We are praying that God will provide, and that we will be open to the unexpected.

                We will spend some time with our families, and beside this we have 2-3 other activities we will love to do. Vali has been invited and she accepted to write a chapter for a Christian College textbook on practices in mission – her plan is to focus on this first two months of this time, after which she hopefully  spend some time in a Christian community, where she will bring together daily activities, practicing spiritual disciplines and practicing hospitality. I (Lau) will love to take some programming classes with a university in Scotland (this is something else I am looking for financial support) – I will like to finish at least the first semester attending the classes in person, and I will see what are the options for a second semester.

                We appreciate a lot this time offered to us by our community Word Made Flesh Romania,  we appreciate the sacrifices they are doing in order for this to be possible (finances, time for doing our responsibilities while we are away, ...) and our hope is that this will be a time of renewal and refreshing for us and a time of growth and development for our community, a time when each one of us will go deeper in discovering our gifts, our talents, and the way in which these strengthen our call to serve.

                We anticipate this time with joy, and our prayer is that each one of us, regardless where we are in our life’s journey, to find a good rhythm, and to receive from God his rest and his peace.

                Lau & Vali Archip

După muncă, un timp de odihnă

Ca și comunitate creștină ( ca de altfel pentru fiecare creștin) o mare provocare pe care o avem de înfruntat mereu este găsirea unui ritm bun în viața noastră cu privire la muncă și la odihnă.  Nici nu vrem să nu facem nimic – ne pasă de ce se petrece în jurul nostru, dar și știm că nu putem face noi totul – nu noi suntem cei atotputernici. În această privință, noi încurajăm pe fiecare să găsească un ritm prin care să slujească, să ofere, dar și prin care să se odihnească, să se încarce. Încurajăm practicarea unei zile de odihnă pe săptămână, practicarea de retrageri personale și participarea în retragerea noastră anuală ( o săptămână pe an). Pentru cei care se implică pe termen lung, Word Made Flesh oferă o perioadă mai lungă de repaus (după 6 ani de lucrare, 1 an de sabat).

                Pentru noi doi (Lau și Vali) tocmai se încheie alți 6 ani de slujire, iar lunea trecută comunitatea Cuvântul Întrupat tocmai ne-a trimis în acest timp de sabat. Pentru noi urmează 9 luni în care avem ocazia să ne oprim, să ne odihnim și să ne reîmprospătăm. Deoarece nici eu nici Vali nu avem alte obligații care să ne țină în Galați în această perioadă, planificăm să fim plecați cea mai mare parte a acestui timp. Cum spuneam, indiferent de activitățile pe care le vom face în această perioadă de sabat, vrem să privim în urmă, să reflectăm la acești ultimi 6 ani de slujire, și să vedem cum Dumnezeu a lucrat, cum a purtat de grijă. Sunt sigur să privind în urmă vom vedea momente de bucurie, alături de momente de tristețe, lucruri de care ne pare bine că am reușit să le facem alături de lucruri pe care le regretăm, și rugăciunea noastră este ca această privire în urmă să ne întărească și să ne pregătească pentru a putea privi înainte.

                Planificarea acestei perioade are două părți: partea de visare, în care vedem ce ne dorim de la acest timp, și partea de realizare – în care, în funcție de resursele pe care le primim, de ușile care se deschid, punem în practică o parte din lucrurile la care am visat. Ca să putem fi plecați din Galați, trebuie să strângem 200-300 de euro în plus în fiecare lună. Trebuie de asemenea să acoperim costurile de călătorie, plus cheltuielile specifice anumitor activități. Ne rugăm ca Dumnezeu să ne poarte de grijă, și ca noi să fim deschiși la neprevăzut.

                Pe lângă un timp petrecut cu familiile noastre, avem 2-3 activități care vor da o oarecare structură acestui timp. Vali a fost invitată și a acceptat să scrie un capitol dintr-un manual pentru o facultate creștină – planul este să se ocupe de asta în primele 2 luni, iar apoi speră să petreacă un timp într-o altă comunitate creștină, în care să combine viața de zi cu zi cu practicarea unor discipline spirituale și cu practicarea ospitalității. Eu (Lau) vreau să fac niște cursuri de programare la o facultate din Scoția (un alt lucru pentru care caut sprijin financiar) – dorința mea este să fac măcar primul semestru la zi, urmând să văd ce opțiuni am pentru al doilea semestru.

                Apreciem acest timp pe care comunitatea Cuvântul Întrupat ni-l oferă, sacrificiile care se fac pentru a face acest lucru posibil (finanțe, timp pentru facerea responsabilităților noastre pe perioada în care suntem plecați, etc) și sperăm ca acesta să fie un timp de refacere și reîmprospătare pentru noi, dar și un timp de creștere și dezvoltare pentru comunitatea noastră, un timp în care fiecare dintre noi să continue să descopere mai adânc darurile și talentele noastre, și modul în care aceste întăresc chemarea fiecăruia dintre noi.

                Anticipăm cu bucurie acest timp, ne rugăm ca fiecare dintre noi, indiferent de unde anume suntem în călătoria vieți noastre, să găsim un ritm bun, să primim din partea lui Dumnezeu odihna și pacea Sa.

Lau & Vali Archip

may update

Thank you very much for your support in every way. I will give you some brief some updates on what we have accomplished and realized.

The new year started with a new challenge for us: to pray for new staff to run our program in the village of Tudor Vladimirescu. Thanks be to God, that He sent Cati Sava (the one I talked about in my last update) and Diana Petecariu to rebuild and continue the relationships with the children and their families who are involved in our program in this village. Pray for these two women to continue to hear and to follow our God’s calling, whatever it might be.

We continued our tradition for Easter Sunday with planning and sharing a festive meal with our children and their families. This is one of our joys over the year to celebrate the resurrection or our King over a meal which reminds us of the banquet party we are going to celebrate when the Kingdom of God is fully established on the Earth as in Heaven.

Two weeks ago we had our staff retreat. As usually we went to the same place in the mountains (the place we went for the last 7 years for staff retreat and camp with the children). Our retreat theme was to reflect on our lifestyle celebrations: intimacy, obedience, humility, community, service, simplicity, submission, brokenness and suffering. This is a very consistent time for us because we intentionally take time for solitude, away from our daily activities, to search and hear from our King.

Give thanks to God with us for the children who continue to be consistent in going to school and in participating in our program. God continue to teach us through them what it means to be like a child in order to be able to see God’s dimension for the human life – the Kingdom of Heaven. 

In June we will celebrate the end of this school year. By organizing this event we want to affirm and celebrate the children and their parents because they made it through this year.

July, 7^th to 13^th- will take place our camp for all the children in our programs. We plan for a team from North Carolina to come to camp with us. This team will lead some music sessions with the children. Pray that all our planning goes well and for wisdom in knowing how to relate, share and learn about the Goodness of God in our lives.

Pray for our summer program – we plan to have a lot of fun activities (clubs, outings) which are not possible to do during the school year.

Pray also, for our children to be protected against violence, abuse of any type and other kinds of evils. We fought against these kinds of evils lately. Pray that God will bring all these evil acts to light and to bring healing and awareness of the bad things for the victims and their families. Also, pray for us to not despair in the face of these evils and to dare to challenge them.

december update

It has been a long time since I last wrote news about us. A lot of things have happened since then. Since we consider that all we do, including the seeds we sow through even the least of our activities and acts of service, is important and has value, for the sake of being brief I want to update you on the relevant events.

We appreciate and are thankful for all the different kinds of support we received for our summer camp. We took the highest number of kids (44) we have ever had in this one-week camp. The children in the camp were from three of our programs – the Community Center La Vale, the Daily Center in the village of Tudor Vladimirescu and from the Hidden Treasures Club which happens every Saturday.  In spite of the high number of children and our fears of how to cope with such a high number, we consider that our camp was a fruitful one and full of joy for the children and for the staff. Both the children and the staff learned with a lot of fun and joy things which most of us middle class people take for granted – from simple life skills like how to sit and have a meal, how to use the toilet and how to brush your teeth to the deep discussion about what it means to be Christians on the narrow road that leads to life (Matthew 7.13).

Our summer program was full of fun activities. We aimed to spend time with the kids, to have fun educational activities and to develop our relationships. The most fun were the clubs we held – photography, creating a photo album, origami construction, modelling clay, volleyball, ping pong, basketball, knowing our city, music, creating stories.

I wrote about Cati in the last update. She had finished high school and was preparing for taking her final exams. Unfortunately she didn’t pass them. She worked for a few months at a fast food shop and is preparing to retake the exams next summer. Please pray for her to be consistent in her preparations.

After much reflection, analysis and discussion in our community, we decided to change our approach to how we organize our parent meetings. We want participation in these meetings to be a pleasure. We usually organize a meeting once a month. We consider that our first three meetings (starting with the new school year) were successful – the parents were treated with dignity, empowered and listened to. They are now more motivated to collaborate with us for a better future for their children. We invite you to continually pray for consistency in considering and making good and thoughtful choices, which is against their cultural environment (being surrounded by a fatalistic culture).

Also, the beginning of the school year, which is the start of a new year in the rhythm of our community, was fruitful. We started receiving new kids, having taken in 15 up until now. Most of them are in preschool, first and second grade. Pray with us for these children to have a holistic development which God intended for all human beings. Also pray for our staff (especially our educators) to continually have their energy renewed, creativity in relationships and in developing activities. We need to practice the discipline of sowing, cultivating and caring with love, hoping for a better future and having faith that God is growing the planted seeds every day.

We are preparing for Christmas events these days. We are planning to go caroling to the children’s families, as well as other families and companies who are involved in supporting us in various ways. We will also organize a celebration of Christmas for the families of the kids who come to the Community Center as well as a party for the children on Christmas night.

Please pray with us for wisdom, presence and creativity. Our desire is to truly celebrate our Hope. The following are some of our regular struggles we face and we invite you to pray through these with us.

We struggle every day to have hope in the face of powerlessness, fatalism, abuse, neglect, addiction, indifference and immorality.

We struggle every day to look for the Kingdom of God in our midst.

We struggle every day to have integrity, to be transparent and to follow our vocation of serving Jesus among the most vulnerable.

We pray and hope that in the coming year every step, every decision we make and every activity we do will bring us, the children, their families and you closer to God, closer to one another and closer to living out our vocation – to glorify God.  

a short and simple reflection on life

For our chapel time (which starts at 8.00 a.m.) we had to reflect and answer some questions. I am going to share an answer for one of them: When was last time you obeyed God? My first thought was: this morning. Our alarm went off for the second time at 7.00 a.m. The first time it went off at 6.30 a.m. Because I wanted to sleep some more, my first impulse was to stay in bed and invent an excuse for not going to chapel time.  Fortunately, I resisted and I got out of bed immediately. I went down stairs and I started to make coffee.  It is a discipline to resist your comfortable life patterns which can make  you break your commitments. 

the hunger games trilogy

Last night I just finished listening audio books trilogy of The Hunger Games: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins! These were my days off, reading and struggling with a cold! I am still processing the plot of the book.  The complexity of what human beings are is tremendously presented by the author! How vulnerable and adaptive is the human being?! How hard you can break the human spirit?

Vulnerability, adaptability, hardship of brokenness, survival mode, pain, craving for destruction of other human being, things we take for granted…this are some of the themes in the book! (I don’t want to spoil it for those willing to read it!)

June update

In a short while we will come to the end of another school year. The children we are helping are finishing another year of school – a year of working together consistently, of learning positive and constructive ways to respond to all sorts of violence (either from school staff or from classmates), of developing attention spans and the pleasure of learning, of everything they accumulated in school during this past year...and we are preparing to celebrate the achievements of all 30 children from first to eighth grade.

For the first time we will celebrate the graduation of high school of two of our young people. We want to celebrate 12 years of joys and sorrows, of growth and accomplishments.

Looking back at the last five months, here are some of our community highlights:

In February and March, Lau and I had the honor to host our servant team, Sam from Canada, Emily from USA. For two months they were involved in all of our community’s activities and events, helping the children with art, playing with them, and teaching them how to use a computer. This team was a great encouragement for us, through their openness and the challenges they brought before us.

In April, we, together with all the staff, had training on Clifton Strengths Finder, how to identify our strong points, and how to use them in the activities we are involved in. We also had sessions on how to manage stress and burnout, the stages of forming a team, all meetings lead by Deb Hoffman and Kristel Cody Fortun, from Lifegate Church, Omaha, Nebraska.

In April we were blessed to have Frank with us, a faithful friend of our community for last 10 years, who came with John and David, and helped us with our electrical repairs, and with installing a venting system for our bathrooms. Every time our friends visit, even if it is only for a short time, they bring us encouragement, affirmation and support.

This year our May 1^st outing (for International Workers’ Day) happened two days later, in order to enjoy a quieter environment (a lot of people turn their car sound system very loud even when they are out for a picnic) and to have the forest just for ourselves. The children and the staff enjoyed playing outdoor games, eating together and developing relationships.

For Easter, as we have done for so many years now, we had lunch at our community center, with the children and their families. The children enjoyed hitting a piñata and it was a great joy to see them shouting and encouraging their mothers when they were playing the game, trying to hit the piñata, in order to get some sweets. Moments like those, when the mystery of eating together, of speaking about our joys and about our sorrows, and of relating in new ways with one another are moments when we declare that God is alive. Indeed, He has risen.

In May we, as a team, had our annual retreat, putting aside a week for spending time in solitude with God. This year’s theme, that helped us focus our time, was our mission statement: Serving Jesus among the vulnerable ones, through our relationships and personal vocation, in community and in society. This was for us a new opportunity to declare what is central for us: each one of us is searching for Jesus and we all submit to Him. What it is unexpected is that Jesus lifts us up and invites to walk with Him and show that we care for those vulnerable, and to discover Him in the middle of the “deserted places”.

This desire to serve Jesus it is what ties us together, and at the same time that which unties us. We are looking for Jesus, and this is what brings us together. The Bible’s teaching, and nature, and modern methods of building a team, they all tell us that together we can go where we would not even dream we can get on our own. At the same time, it unties us, for we can speak of unity in diversity. Searching for Jesus looks different from person to person, from one place to another. We are praying that each one of us, there, where each one of us is today, to continue to desire this relationship with God, as parents, as teachers or doctors, or workers, or students, either through work or rest, giving and receiving, children and old people, young boys and girls.

Here are some things we invite you to join us in prayer:

·         C. T., a young man we know for 6 years now, had a medical operation. He is recovering now. Pray for his well being, for his recovery, and to be able to help him to find a new job, where he will be treated with dignity and respect.

·         We are planning and organizing our summer camp for children, second week in July. We are asking God for wisdom, and help in finding all the resources necessary for this camp, and that His presence to be felt and experienced in new ways.

·         Please pray for Cati, whom we know for more than 10 years, as she is studying for her exams for graduating from high school. She also dreams of going to college this fall.

·         We just finished planning this summer’s activities. We pray that the children and the staff will enjoy this summer, and that we will experience God together in all we do.

·         We are praying for wisdom for our staff who are helping the children, to help them develop a pleasure for learning, and to set clear and specific goals for the children in their group.

·         Please pray for our meetings with the parents, that they will come to our meetings, and that we have wisdom when we communicate with them.

Kingdom of God' Features

Return from exile

Victory over God’s enemies (death, Satan, sin)

Restoration of the Temple

Forgiveness of sin

The pouring of the Holy Spirit

Shekina (God’s glory) returns

Inauguration of new priesthood and new people

Inauguration of new creation

Resurrection from death

a modern person...

windows and doors

Our one room house became a wood workshop. Lau is building the doors and the windows for the second level. Because it is cold outside, he needs to glue the wood at the room temperature. 

December update

Last week we shared during our morning chapel time about what most Christians around the world are celebrating now: Advent. Last year we spent the Advent traveling, while on our Sabbatical. So for the four Advent Sundays (as it is in West, celebrated by Catholics and Protestants; the Orthodox Advent starts earlier, and lasts for 40 days), we were in four different churches: JPUSA, Presbyterian, Catholic and Methodist. Even if their way of celebrating and awaiting was different, they all focused on the same event: God entering humanity.

The word Advent comes from Latin (adventus) which means coming or arrival. It is the same as the Greek term parousia. During this time Christians all over the world focus on celebrating Christ’s birth and wait His return as Jesus the King at the Second Advent. It is the celebration of God revealing Himself through the incarnation so that the whole creation will be reconciled with Him. The God of the Old Testament entered the human history through the incarnation. Through the incarnation He entered human history (our history) in order to live history with us. The advent reminds us not only of God identifying with humanity, but also of the fact that He is present with us today through the Holy Spirit and the fact that there is hope that He will return with power.

Reading the Scriptures of Isaiah 40:1-11; John 1:6-9, 15-16, 19-23 we prayed and continue to pray during this time that God will show us the wilderness and the deserts where we shall have hope, where we shall prepare the way for our God. We are also praying that God will discover the lowly places in our lives and around us where He is revealing Himself, where He comes.

We believe that God is present and He is working in the Valley of Galati, our city (Isaiah 40:2). Please pray together with us to see where He is present and where He is working.

In community, we discover that for most of the children that come to the Valley House, their homes can be a wild and dry place, a place where they go through dehumanizing experiences that sometimes leave deep wounds. The children share with us about the sad and unjust experiences they go through in their families. R, an eight year old girl tells us often about her father, who gets drunk, sometimes cries, other times he beats her mom, but the next day he is the kindest man in the whole world. Many of the children tell us what alcohol addiction does to their families (especially to their fathers). So often we hear the children praying: God, help my dad to stop drinking, and to stop beating my mom! Let’s join with them in this prayer.

You can also pray for all the events we plan for this month. As we meditate on what we celebrate on December 25^th, we wish that through our activities to incarnate the good news, through affirming words, through acts and deeds full of love.

We plan the following activities this month:

-          A party for the children’s parents and siblings. The children that come to our center will offer a present to their brothers and sisters, a present they worked for at the center, according to our methodology.

-          A party for the 1^st-4^th grade children from a public school. About 50 children, classmates of the children that come at the Valley House will come to this event, to hear the good news and to get a present.

-          The staff and the children will go caroling at the children’s families, and to some of the people that support us.

-          After all these events presented so far are done by the staff and the children we serve daily, on December 25^th we will have a party for the children. We have developed a good tradition over the last ten years, where we set aside this day/night for them, and we want to affirm their identity and their dignity as human beings created by God. We will do this through special words, and all the activities we are preparing (worship, games, art, dinner, presents).

We wish and pray that God will bless you during the Advent with the joy of His presence, and may it be that He will reveal to you those lowly and desperate places where He is at work.

Our Human Togetherness

The Enlightenment creed taught that every individual was free to pursue his or own happiness, irrespective of what others thought or said. (...) people do not take others seriously - they do not need others.
To heal we need to break the grip of the spurious doctrine of autonomy and retrieve what is essentially human. We must reaffirm the indispensableness of conviction and commitment. 
We need to retrieve togetherness, interdependence, ”symbiosis”. The individual is not a monad, but part of an organism. We live in one world, in which the rescue of some at the expense of others is not possible. Only together is there salvation and survival. This includes not only a new relationship to nature, but also among humans. (...) human existence is by definition intersubjective existence. here lies the pertinence of the rediscovery of the church as Body of Christ and of the Christian mission as building a community of those who share a common destiny. (David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission, Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission)

october update

For the past month I spent some time each day with eight children in the third and fourth grade. I took on this responsibility in the absence of my colleague Anca, who just got married. (Please pray for her and her husband Eugen as they make this big change in their lives). The children in this group are at different educational levels, which made it more difficult to know the best way to help them with their homework or with catching up where they’re behind. With every day I spent with them, we struggled and tried new methods of studying. But I felt how our relational connection grew deeper, as between two friends, who get to communicate with each other in many different ways (verbal and non-verbal). I can say I am in love with them. To spend time with the children and to have a relationship with them is our community’s prime way of helping. I was encouraged and deeply moved to see in all of us our human need for appreciation and recognition, which is so often expressed in a competitive spirit.

C. is a girl that lives with her aunt and uncle, because her mother, who, after being abused, lost her mind and wasn’t able to fulfill her parental responsibilities anymore. They all share a small room in the cellar of a house full of people –  a room that it is dark even in the middle of the day for there are no windows and they do not have electricity. In these difficult conditions, C. is a fourth grader and is a good student with good grades – this is a rare example among those in vulnerable situations. She can even do her homework by herself. We were blessed even more by our Father through her when we see how she is encouraging the other children that are behind her with their education, and especially, the practical ways she encourages and takes care of another girl in fourth grade – a girl that is suffering of an eye illness, which is one of the causes for her being behind in school.

In our many discussions, we, as a community have about how to do education, what is our guiding purpose for all we do, we are often led by the Holy Spirit to help the children we serve to know who they are and to learn new ways/skills of behaving (different ones from those they learned as a reaction to their dysfunctional context they come from). So, for us it is a miracle from God when the children’s faces shine when they are encouraged to just be who they are and when they feel safe.

We are thankful that you are praying for us. One reason to be thankful is that we managed to organize our summer camp this summer, at the end of August, despite our limited financial resources. This is something that worries us, as we struggle and trust in God. I was deeply impressed by the way God challenged me once more through my relationship with the children, about that unless we “turn and become like children, [we] will never enter the kingdom of heaven”(Matthew 18:3).

Through all the planning, the changes and the discussions we had since the start of the new school year in September, our desire is for our community to be organic. Our main purpose is to create the programs and activities that serve people/children, and not the other way around. Pray for us, the staff, to be creative and full of energy and to have an open heart and an open mind to learn all that our Father wants to teach us, either through our relationships with the children and with their parents, or through our relationship with one another and with different people God is putting us in contact with.

The start of a new school year meant we could have 12 new children come daily to our Community Center “In the Valley”, ages seven to twelve. Pray for them, and for all the children. One particular prayer request is related to them and their families’ issues about being consistent in going to school and coming to our Center, especially knowing that this is a pattern (the lack of personal commitment and of being consistent) in dysfunctional contexts as well as the low attention that education in general gets.

Please pray for all the activities and events we will plan in the next two months (November and December) that through all these events we will let God lead us.

Eugen, Anca’s husband, worked with us as a volunteer for most of the last year. His desire is to join us, to serve together. He needs people, like each of us on staff, that will support him in prayer, and people that will support him financially. Pray that he will understand clearly God’s call, and pray that God will send the financial resources for this.

Also, in November we will host some good friends that will visit us. We pray that we together, as a community, will make them feel welcome and well taken care of.

1 picture = 1000 words

Acknowledgments for Sabbatical

For most of our Sabbatical, we traveled a lot, and learned what it means to be a guest. We want to use this chance and thank the communities, families, persons, that made this Sabbatical possible for us. All of you helped – praying, offering us a place to rest and food, providing for our financial needs.

First of all, we want to thank our Cuvantul Intrupat community (David, Lenuta, Paul, Ana, Fani, Anca, Claudia, Bogdan, Oana, Nicoleta) for creating this time and space for us, and for sending us into this Sabbatical. Without this community, we will have no chance.

Also, thanks to the community from Moldova, for their moral, financial and spiritual support.

Lots of thanks to our families, that helped us a lot – you had a room for us, you shared your food with us, you helped us financially. Thank you to Stefan’ family from US – Nelu, Olivia, Evi, Samuel, Daniel and Nadia, to Stefan family from Italy – Danut, Cami, Oliver and Ianis, to Mustiata family from Vienna, Austria – Dani, Bogdan, Rebeca and Nati, and to Archip family from Vienna, Austria –Estera and Diana.

Thank you to everybody that hosted us, all over England, Scotland and USA. We will like to mention Paul and Marcela Wainwright from London, Jill and Glenn Mills form Ardingly, Will and Catalina John from Eastborne; Frank and Ann Summers, Phil and Gemma Summers, Neil and Kate Summers. Thanks to all our friends from Wolverhampton and Perton, that took their time to know us, to share memories, experiences, to encourage us around the table – Eleine, Sue Gange, Val and Jeff, Eric and Betty, Alan and Eric, Bradleys. Thank you Katy Daniels, and to your church and pastor from Dundde, Scotland, David Clark, and his wife, for giving us the opportunity to share with your church about our call, also to the Emslie –Smith Family, Tori Mayers. Thanks to the Berea United Methodist Church, to Keith and Darlene Wasserman and the Good Works community from Athens, Ohio, for the way they welcomed us; to Jordan and Angelique from Dundee, Michigan – thank you for having us and introducing us to your families; to Josh, Robin and Lukas Fowler from Indiana; to Joel, Monica, Simeon and Abram Klepac; to Erin and Evan Schlossberg –( special thanks for moving to New York, so that we got visit you); to McAvaddys  from Omaha, Nebraska – Ron, Audra, Gavin, Avery, Kira and Collin; to Daphne and Caleb Coppock, in Omaha, and to all our friends there in Omaga – Jonathan Starkey and his family; Oanh Vu Heiser; Seth, Kari and Irene Allgire; Chris, Erin, Keyara and Elijah Harrell; Matt Harrell and his wife; to Elisabeth Day, Teri and Catalin Ispas. Thanks to Matt and Becky, and to Jesus People USA community from Chicago. Thanks to Bela, April and Sophie Ispas in Redlands, California. Thanks to Monica, Johnny and Zach Hanneman from San Jose, California.

Without any of you, and of others like you, our Sabbatical will not have been possible. We felt so blessed by and through all our friends and family, and by all the people we met during this time. You all left your mark on us, and enriched our lives.

what's new!

Three months had past since we returned to our community ( Lau and I),after being absent for nine months, when we had our Sabbatical. This time, (quite a long time, we recognize that) had been benefic for myself and for us, time we put aside to meditate on the past 12 years of service among those that are vulnerable. It has been a time when we sought to rest and to experience God in new ways- when I wanted to self-define my own identity not through my activism, but through who am I. Even if it is a long process, God is continuously teaching me to self-define my own identity based on what I am as a human being, created in His image.

In April we started our coming back transition into our community, and gradually we got involved in our community’s activities, while praying for discernment regarding taking over our responsibilities.

If for Lau the transition back was somehow easier, for me, Vali, it has been quite difficult, because I am trying to find a way to put together my desires for my life (to continue my education), my thought about who I am (wounded as I am) and what is God calling me to be. Even if I already got some of my responsibilities back, I still have a few months ahead of me to discern the position I am called to serve from.

Being back into community meant jumping into the last three months stream.

 In May, as we do every year, we as community had our community retreat. This year was a regional retreat for the Europa-Africa Word Made Flesh region, where our community from Galati, the community from Chisinau, Moldova and the one from Freetown, Sierra Leone, met together for times of solitude with God, and for sharing what God was speaking to each of us. This year retreat topic was reconciliation. We are all grateful about how we all confessed and witnessed how God’s Spirit was present working among us, bringing light into our broken relationships, into our discrimination toward other people living next to us,…we are praying that God will continue to work in our lives, in our communities and in the neighborhoods (countries)  where He called us to serve.

In June, when the summer school holiday started, we planned this summer’s activities, for they look different than during the school term. We are praying that God will lead our planning and realization of those activities. What we want is to bring the children and their families closer to their Father, to be aware of the signs of His Kingdom among us –staff, children and their families.

Eight months ago our community opened a new daily center, in a large village named Tudor Vladimirescu, with a lot of help from our board of directors president, Adi Buhai. In April, Mariana Camenschi joined us as staff, coordinating this center. There are many way to pray for Mariana, from developing good relationships with the children and their families, to obtaining all the paperwork needed for properly running this center.

In June we had a team of 12 (10 students and 2 leaders) from George Fox University, Portland. They served together with us for three weeks – one week in Chisinau, Moldova, and two weeks in Galati and Tudor, Romania. They brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm into our community, through their zeal and energy. God encouraged us by the way they got involved into our activities – doing almost everything, and by their testimonies on how God had changed their lives. We are praying that the seeds He planted into these young peoples’ hearts will grow, as well as the seeds planned into our hearts by what these young people did and said.

so many books, so little time

at the moment I am reading:

C.S.Lewis - The Last Battle
Madeleine L'Engle - Many Waters
Diarmaid MacCulloch -Christianity: The First Three thousand Years (I read the first 125 pages, but I am not convinsed it is worth finishing yet)
A Treasury of Modern Fantasy ( Edited by Terry Carr and Martin Harry Greenberg, 1981)

The work in our house just before we left for our sabbatical!

de-abstractization=making things simpler

In order to understand each other, there are a few things we can consider. One of them, as it is presented by a few personality types studies, have to do with the way we use “tools”.

Some of us will use the “tools” starting with the tool, and using it for the purpose it had been created. This is shortened to being Cooperative.

Some of us will use the “tools” starting from the result, the goal of our action, and just then picking any tool that will lead to the intended result. This is to be Utilitarian.

Next is a more detail description of the difference,

In Wikipedia. Retrieved July 24, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirsey_Temperament_Sorter

§  "The second ring: cooperative versus pragmatic (utilitarian)

Keirsey uses the words cooperative (complying) and pragmatic (adaptive) when comparing the differing temperaments. People who are cooperative pay more attention to other people's opinions and are more concerned with doing the right thing. People who are pragmatic (utilitarian) pay more attention to their own thoughts or feelings and are more concerned with doing what works. There is no comparable idea of Myers or Jung that corresponds to this dichotomy, so this is a significant difference between Keirsey's work and that of Myers and Jung.

This ring, in combination with the inner ring, determines a person's temperament. The pragmatic temperaments are Rationals (pragmatic and abstract) and Artisans (pragmatic and concrete). The cooperative temperaments are Idealists (cooperative and abstract), andGuardians (cooperative and concrete). Neither Myers nor Jung included the concept of temperament in their work."

If all this is too much information, here is a simpler way of showing the difference.