Thanksgiving day

Our table will be spread with Ocean Spray Cranberries, which I found yesterday. We have fresh sweet potatoes, which someone graciously brought us from the states. There will be potatoes and dressing, gravy and beans and a skinny village turkey who gave his life for us yesterday. His lack of size will be supplemented with roast chicken. Even without the Butterball it is STILL very much Thanksgiving Day.

So many forget the thankfulness of the day and only focus on the turkey. And the tradition of America is a great meal set on the table this day in November.

But today amidst the craziness of our lives, I'm glad for a day to stop and give thanks. We have so much to be thankful for today.

First is God's great gift of salvation through his Son, Jesus. That is amazing. I'm thankful for His Holy Spirit who intercedes for us when we don't have the words to do so and comforts us with a peace that passes all understanding.

I'm thankful that God called me to Moldova and gives me the great privilege of serving Him here.

I'm thankful for a wonderful husband and three wonderful girls who also love to live and serve in Moldova.

I'm thankful for Shauna, who has given this year to teach our girls, freeing my time.

I'm thankful for all of those who have given to build the Home of Hope and I'm thankful for Misha, Victor, Valentin and the rest of the crew over there that are doing such a beautiful job constructing the home. They give of their time (even if it is a job) so willingly and stay in the home, even still, when the heat is not quite yet in!

I'm thankful for each one who supports us in giving and in prayer.

I'm thankful for our health and our strength for each new day.

God has blessed us so much and it is good to stop and Thank him for all the blessings, even if the turkey has exercised a bit too much in his life to make him fat and tender, I'm thankful that we found one just to say we could taste it today!

Have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Tired of the Battle

Right now we are exhausted. Since returning to Moldova in August we have had one battle after another.

Our container is still not released in Ukraine. It is a waste of time to tell all that has gone on, but the fight with it continues and the shipping company there continues to make problems, although they had promised that the container would be released on Monday.

The problems continue to rise and we are really lost about what to do.

Please intercede for us. We are just lost about this and we are exhausted in the battle.

We want to just get this stuff done and be able to concentrate on the work we came here to do.

Family Matters

Please pray this week for my family in Minnesota.

Some of you know my dad has Alzheimer's. His disease is affecting his physical body faster than the deterioration of his mind. His care is becoming a 24/7 job that my mom just cannot manage alone. The wear on my mom's physical and emotional being is also very evident.

I'm very blessed to be the youngest of 6 children. Four of my siblings all live within a 20 minute radius of my parents. They have been meeting and this week they are going to talk to my parents about how they are going to need to make a change in their living situation. They just can't manage on their own any longer.

It is tough because my dad needs care, but his mind is still enough there that a memory care facility isn't right for him. My mom could still live many years easily on her own and so isn't quite ready for assisted living. But something has to happen that they can both deal with. They'll be married 54 years in March and to talk of splitting them up isn't easy either.

This week my brothers will talk with my dad and a nurse will evaluate him. They will also need to talk with my mom. The holidays are going to be very tough for my family there.

I ask you to pray for my family, the Horns, this week.

And I know you wonder how I'm doing. I'm okay with all of this. I have been dealing with this in a different way and maybe processing longer than the rest because I've been away so. I also knew last year that it was most likely my last year with my dad and that I'd be leaving him maybe for the last time when I boarded the plane in August. So, I'd been dealing with this for some time. But, yes, it is still hard to be slowly losing my dad.

I know that the weeks ahead are going to be hard for all those involved. Please pray for wisdom in words, grace and dignity in actions and peace in the storm as we cross one of these hurdles that is always a difficulty in life.

Thanks for your prayers, once again.

Blessings.

Peace in the midst

Today the rain is falling. It is cold and seems that it could easily turn to snow. I just want to stay indoors! On Sunday morning the wind blew and it kept knocking out our power as I tried to get ready for Church. It would go off and on, off and on. This is the time of unexpected weather!

Our lives continue to hold the unexpected also. We still don't have permits in hand, but we've been told to relax and they will happen. So we are relaxing and we'll see what happens in early December.

And our container with our shipment is in port, has been paid by the company we work with all the way from the US to our fair city, but the trucking company in Ukraine is trying to extort money from us.

Yes, we can say these are spiritual battles and they are. But sometimes I think they are more battles to help us grow in Christ and to help us be formed spiritually. Things don't work right in this part of the world. The governments are corrupt. Our government here is more authoritarian. (No matter what your politics, be thankful for the checks and balances in America). So because of these things, there is a battle.

I think the battle is far beyond only our family. Yes, it is a huge frustration, but anyone who has lived overseas knows that the governments and systems overseas don't operate like in America and people that are corrupt routinely get away with it and get rich doing so. The battle is a spiritual battle not just for our family, but for the very soul of this country.

So please pray that we can quickly resolve the issue with the shipment. But also pray for a spiritual break through here in Moldova and for other countries that are held by such power of darkness.

I thank you also for your prayers because I do feel God's peace on my life in this time.

Found my friend

These last weeks have been extremely difficult. The stress of not knowing and wondering what we need to do has been huge. We are not all the way through this yet, as we still don't have documents, but we are assured they will come and so we wait.

Last Friday we were having coffee at our favorite cafe' and I found my friend, Nastia. I have written about her in the past. Many have prayed for her and written to ask how she is. Well, I couldn't find her. Several times I'd called her cell phone, but it was always off. This usually means someone has left that number. Nothing helped me to find her.

So in the restaurant Elissa says to me, "Mom, is that Nastia?" The woman was going down the stairs to leave the restaurant and I could not see her face. So I ran after the woman and said, "Nastia?" She turned and we had a happy reunion.

It is a long story of what has happened to her life in the past 1 1/2 years, but she is married to a Greek, has a beautiful baby girl and lives here and in Romania. It was just wonderful to see her, meet her husband and baby. They were leaving the country again that day, but she will be back in a few weeks and we will meet intentionally at that time. I'm so glad to have an answer to her where abouts. Thanks for your continued to prayers for her.

No Ground Gained

Thanks to all of you who have been standing with us in prayer for our living permits.

We had a meeting today with the man who can grant or not grant our permits.

The meeting today did not go well. Still no permits. The man was not favorable to our cause, although he knows it well. He really didn't care about our problem.

We are not done exhausting our options. We asked for a document from this man stating the quota and he gave it to us for last year. Andy met with David Franz, from the US Embassy, immediately after the meeting and showed him the document and they will use it for diplomatic leverage because there are many who want to work in America and he has given 10,000 this year already to Moldovans. Maybe it will help. We don't know.

Phillip Cameroon, (AG from Alabama) who operates Stella's House transitional housing here has a great relationship with several people in the government. He comes on Wednesday or Thursday and Andy is going to see if he can do anything for us.

Keep praying. We have until October 31 and then we have to decide where to go! But we are praying until then. We know God can work a miracle in this situation and we do need it today.

We do not want to leave our home or our work here. We have so much to do in the next months and we need God to do something big. Please pray for a miracle!

Blessings,
Nancy

No Permits Yet

Some have e-mailed us and asked what is happening with our permits. We are still waiting. Andy is going to try to meet with some people this week and we keep pressing on. Pray that these meetings are blessed and that God opens the way for us.

Thanks to all who are praying and please continue to pray for us.

Blessings

A New Understanding

This wait and fight for the living permits definitely has given me a new understanding of others who have gone through this! We are not the first and only and it is not just limited to Moldova. It is a stress of missions that I didn't understand until now.

These next weeks are crucial. We need permits by the 31st of the month and it would be nice if they were even before that time.

This month we have a lot of teams helping us with the construction on the Home of Hope. Teams always add a lot more work to life here and added stress, (although we LOVE the work they do!) But this time I don't even notice the stress of that because this whole "Will I be here in 3 weeks?" is a greater stress. The other day Elissa said, "I don't want to spend Christmas somewhere else!" Three months of exile is a long time for kids!

Please continue to pray and believe with us that the heart of the one saying we cannot have the permit will be changed. Please pray also for peace in our hearts and pray that God would just make a mighty way before us so that the work that is happening now will not be stopped because of this.

We would also like to ask that if any can fast and pray with us on this, that they'd let us know. If you fast a meal or fast a day. Jesus said, "these come out only with prayer and fasting" and I do believe this is a great spiritual battle at this moment.

Thanks for your prayers.

living permit woes

There are 3 parts to our living permits. We rejoiced that the first was granted. Now the man in charge says he won't do the 2nd part. If he does not do the 2nd or 3rd parts, we have to leave.

This office continues to make up the rules as they go and ask for off the wall information from us.

Would you please pray that these permits are finished THIS WEEK? We need a miracle. What this process does is take our mental energy and exhaust us. It leaves us with depleted energy for the task we need to do and pulls from us for what we need to do.

We love this country. We hate these processes and we hate the corruption that has caused it.

So as you pray for these permits for us today, pray not just for us and the immediate. Pray also for those that are to come needing this. Not just those with AGWM, but all personnel here. Pray that the process is simplified and can be done quickly.

But pray fervently that we can get the permits and be done with it.

Thanks.

Lord of the Harvest

This week I've been feeling overwhelmed, largely because we need some workers. I need a director for the Home of Hope. Andy needs office personnel. We need someone that can work in our home and stay with our children when they are done with school in the day.

The woman I had asked to be director of Home of Hope turned me down. I'm okay with that. I still think she'd be great, but she doesn't feel like it can be in her life at this time. But it leaves me wondering who can be the Moldavian director for this home with a passion for the lost, a passion for hurting women and a passion for victims of trafficking.

Andy needs someone that can work with teams in translating, organize things, translating materials and do work in the office.

We need someone in our home that it is not just about the money they make, but it is about being with our family and helping the children. (This also helps the children with language and culture).

We need people that don't just see all of these as jobs, but as places of ministry in their lives. The verse that continually comes to my mind is "pray ye the Lord of the Harvest that He would send laborers into the field".

Many other issues surround this but I know that we just need God to make the way and call the right people to work with us and get these great ministries off the ground.

Thanks again for your prayers. I'm always blessed and amazed when friends write and say, "I read your blog. I'm praying for you in such and such an area." Thanks for blessing me and the work here in this way.

The Power to Pray Part 2

I just wrote asking for prayer for our living permits. Our lawyer stated that the only power we had was to pray. And what a mighty power that is! He just called saying the first (and most difficult) of the permits was granted this morning. Yesterday throughout the entire day of working on this he was told we would NOT be given the permits.

Praise God who does all things well.

The Power to Pray

Once again I come to you with this urgent prayer for our living permits. All of our papers are in the hands of the man who grants or denies our living permits. He is the gatekeeper of Moldova! He has the power to give or deny our right to stay in Moldova.
He says there is a quota, but this is not true and he uses this excuse at the end of the year to deny the permits.

Will you please keep us in prayer in the next days that the permits are granted and we are able to stay? If they are denied we must leave the country for 3 months. This isn't the worst thing in the world except that everything we are doing would stop. The greatest things this means to us is that the House of Hope could not be open in January and that would be terrible.

So please pray for this urgent situation. Our lawyer who has worked this process through for us has said many times, "the only thing we have the power to do is pray." We know that this is a great power.

Thanks.

More than one way

There is an old saying, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Our garbage still has not been taken away, but some kind neighbor decided to light our stinking garbage on fire today! It definitely dropped the pile of garbage down. Andy and I were gone looking at the HoH project and Elissa called saying, "Our garbage is on fire!" So she and our friend, Natasha, took the hose and put the fire out. The fire did drop the garbage down by quite a bit and it doesn't seem to stink so badly now as we continue to wait for garbage pick up.

On another note, I talked this week with another lady about working at the HoH. I am just so amazed by God because I really didn't know if Tanya would want to work in this but I knew that she has a heart for women and I knew that God put her on my heart to talk to about this. So she is totally with us and is going to live in the home with the women. We have 2 women now who will be full time staff living at the home. It is so awesome the way God is bringing this together.

Another answered prayer is that Natalie is sleeping really well now all through the night every night since I blogged and asked for prayer. God is so good.

Thanks for all your prayers for Moldova.

Garbage Stinks

Have you ever realized how badly garbage can smell outside your home if it is not picked up for 4 weeks and in those weeks you have 100 degree weather? We have a new realization of this.

I don't understand how things work here, but I do know we are supposed to have garbage pick up every 2 weeks. I think it has been about 4 weeks now since it has been picked up. The guy who is the head of garbage pick up in our area just doesn't do his job and for whatever reason, the mayor cannot get rid of him. We have tried to call and say, "when will garbage be taken?" The mayor says we can write a letter of complaint. Oh great. We'd really just like the stinking garbage gone from in front of our house.

Would you pray with us that the garbage issue in our area would be resolved? It is not just in our home, but our entire community.

Missions creates an interesting life. We never know what will next happen and what is not going to go right. Right now I'm glad for battery back up because the power just went out in our house! But we do know that God is here and He is leading us and guiding us and that makes for a very exciting life. He is doing great things in the country of Moldova.

Blessings on your day.

Two Requests

Today I ask you to pray for 2 very different things.

The first is for Natalie. She is our non-sleeper, but she, like everyone else in the world, needs sleep! The last few nights she has awakened at 3 or 4 in the morning and can't go back to sleep. She is afraid (she doesn't know of what) and she can't go back to sleep. Please pray that the Holy Spirit would send Natalie her sleep and rest. Pray that the peace of God would cover her all night and that she'd be able to get the sleep she needs.

The next prayer request I have for you today is for the director for the Home of Hope in Moldova. There is a wonderful woman that God has put on my heart for this ministry. She would be an incredible director. When Andy was here in March, he talked to her about this and she has been praying about it. Today I went and talked more with her about this and she has been praying, but doesn't know what God is saying. In the end she told me that really, she is very afraid. (As I was in entering into this!) Will you pray for Floarea that God would continue to lead her and that she would not give in to the fear? I want her to know that God is calling her, and not just me! But we also need to have someone that has the abilities to do the job and I do think that she can do this job well.

Have a great day. Enjoy the beautiful weather of September.

Florida Trip

Joyous Day

Today was a crazy Moldova day. We were all just ready to come home and not go out again. And then the internet man showed up, installed our modem and we have internet!

So we came home, made dinner and didn't go out again!

Now I'm not writing from in front of a friend's house, but from my couch. It is a beautiful thing and I need to go put my daughter to bed.

Living permits

I write again from the car, outside the home of friends. We have hope that the internet will be in our home today. Hopefully it works!

This morning we went to a public clinic had our blood drawn for HIV tests & blood type and x-rays for TB. This is all for our living permits in the country.

Please keep this as a matter of important prayer. The internet is one thing and it isn't major, but Living permits are major. We need them to stay in the country. There is one man that has the power to grant them or deny them. If they are denied, we must leave the country the 1st of November. But we are believing this will not happen. We need these for our family AND for Shauna, our teacher.

Yesterday we heard that the permits of 2 young women with another mission group were denied. The man who grants them said the quota is filled. But in reality there is no quota. He makes that up. So pray that this does not happen for us.

Pray that the paperwork we brought with us is correct and needed and that they won't come up with some other paperwork that we need to bring them.

Pray that the permits are granted quickly in the next few weeks and this stress can be done.

Thanks for your continued prayer.

I'm sitting in a hot car outside the home of friends. Still no internet at the house so I haven't updated here yet. Usually it is a matter of send and receive when we come here. Usually I go inside and drink iced tea while I pick up, but our friends are not home!

We are blessed to be back in Moldova. Thanks for your prayer as we traveled. We made it without any problems, but it was a long day of travel. We are fully turned around with our body clocks and keeping quite busy.

We are blessed to have Shauna here, our teacher for the girls this year. They started school yesterday and she is doing so well with them. Lauren was so excited to start Kindergarten with her and Natalie 2nd grade. Elissa is just taking it as it comes. Shauna is living with us for now and she really is wonderful to have along.

A few quick prayer requests. In the next week I'll be meeting with ladies who may work with me and the House of Hope. Please pray that these meetings are God-lead. My Romanian is better than I expected already and all of these will be done in Romanian and without interpretor, so pray for that. But also pray that we'd be of one mind and if they are to work with us, they'd know that from God.

Also, please pray that our internet situation can get remedied quickly. We don't have anything at the house. We live a bit out of the city and the phone company needs only to add something to the line but they just have to get out to get it done. Two weeks ago they said that would be two weeks and it still is not here! So please pray that this moves along. It is not just a matter of e-mail and sitting outside the home of friends, but so much of the work we do now is via internet. Please pray for this.

Thanks for keeping in touch with our prayer needs via this blog. Thanks for praying.

Sweet sleep

This is a very short note to say that we are 4 days until we leave and we are excited about it. Even with the excitement comes nerves for all of us. It is showing in the little girls, Lauren and Natalie, with bad dreams at night. This is not normal for them.

Will you pray that they can sleep well for the next nights? Pray that they have sweet sleep in the next nights so that they are ready to travel the long road to Moldova. Thanks.