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.

Two Weeks

We are down to the wire. Two weeks from today we leave. That is exciting. I feel like that very old song "All my bags are packed. I'm ready to go..." If you don't know that song, you weren't alive in the 70's. I remember singing it in 5th grade singing time when Mrs. Nelson would play her guitar and we'd sing.

We've had a great week of vacation at the cottage of generous friends in Florida. We've played in the water, built bears at Build a Bear, saw a dolphin show and ate way too much food. It has been so good to vacation with the girls and just have time as a family to relax and have fun together.

I cannot explain how stressful the last few months have been in trying to pack, but it was not just packing a house, but sorting and storing. In missions it is always an issue that everything touched has to be decided on for the long haul. Do we keep this for storage? Do we give it to Goodwill? Do we ship it to Moldova? Where do I need it? A million decisions and I hope I've made them correctly. Everything is pretty much ready to go. We have just a very few things to deal with when we return from vacation and there is always the last bag to pack.

Please keep us in prayer these last two weeks as we say goodbye to family. My dad's health is not good and I feel this could be a final farewell. Pray that the times are special and meaningful for all of us.

Our teacher for the next year, Shauna, is traveling with us on the 31st. She will be such a blessing to our family. Pray for her as she makes her first trip overseas and really leaves home for the first time. Pray for her parents as they see her go. She is a great young woman and I think this will be a wonderful year for her and our family.

Thanks for your prayers.

A lot of fires

I've been home a week and it has been good. I've gotten a lot done, but it seems there is always more to do. I see the end in sight. This morning the counseling pastor at the church here told me that every 3 moves in a marriage is the same stress as one fire. We're going on 4 fires now (that's about 12 moves in our 17 years of marriage for those of you not good at division).

I always think that I'm doing fine with the stress of our moves and then my body says otherwise. So I'm here to ask for your prayers for my body and the stress it is feeling. This morning I woke up with a stiff neck and head ache. I've been fighting a knot that wants to control my shoulder with pain for a month now. And then this afternoon heartburn struck. I rarely get heart burn. But I think it is heart burn from stress, if there can be such a thing. Deep breathing is also hard to do right now.

So please pray for me in these weeks ahead and even more so in these next few days. I need to deal with the stress as God would have me deal with it. I'm not even sure what that means. Thanks for your prayers.

Home again

I returned home from my travels last night. I think I fell to sleep in about 2.5 seconds last night and I awoke at 4 a.m., finally giving up the thought of going back to sleep at 4:30 a.m. and crawled out of bed.

We had great meetings in Turkey and I had a wonderful time with my mom and my sister, Becky, in Holland and Germany. We definitely built a lot of great memories in our time together. My friends wedding was beautiful and it was just so fun to be able to be her witness in the Catholic church of Germany.

It was also a great time of relaxation for all of us. My mom really needed the time away and even though she came home exhausted, she was also refreshed to continue as the caregiver for my dad. She commented many times how she felt God was really filling her with his presence.

I'm ready to conquer the rest of the packing for our return to Moldova. That says that relaxation happened!

So today please pray:
1. That my mom would continue to feel the presence of God in her life and with her as she deals with my dad. Daily we face new challenges with his deteriorating health and physically and emotionally it is so much for my mom. Please pray for her, Evelyn.

2. For all the details of packing. There is still so much to do. It is absolutely overwhelming and at times we look around and don't even know where to start. Please pray that God gives us clarity in the packing in the next week.

3. For the details of shipping. Shipping a container is so complicated when it is something you've never done in your life! It is also complicated shipping into Moldova. Will you pray that we can get the rest of the details worked out in the next few days and that we can get this done and ready to go?

We are excited about our return to Moldova in about 6 weeks. It is hard to believe the time is already here and we are excited about it. Blessings.

Life in the Bones

This morning I read in Ezekial 37 about the Valley of the Dry Bones. Ezekial spoke to the bones and God brought them together, bone by bone, ligament by ligament, then adding skin. And Ezekial spoke to the wind and the wind breathed life and breath into the bones.

I read this and my dream for Home of Hope in Moldova comes to me in a new way. I've seen eyes that are dead because they were sold into prostitution. I've met women with minds that can't function because their lives were thrown away as a commodity when they were sold for the first time and then countless times thereafter. And I know that God has put this dream in me. He wants me to dream of life for the women who will enter our Home of Hope in Moldova. He will breathe life into them and restore them bone by bone, ligament by ligament, calling the wind of the Holy Spirit to come and give life to their lifeless bodies.

Right now the house construction is underway. If you haven't gotten the PDF e-mail with the update on the building progress and would like it, you can write me and I'll send it to you. Will you pray that the breath of life would be upon that house as the workers build there? Would you pray that it would be built and inhabited ieven now by the Holy Spirit?

God has called us to such an incredible task. In two months we'll be back in Moldova and we will begin to bring together the women who will work in the home. Pray for God's anointing and call on our workers. It will not be an easy task.

And please pray for me. I do know I'm lead by God, but I have no former experience to guide me in this task. God will be with me, but it is a huge undertaking and I need his hand to guide my every step.

Finally, I'm in frenzied days of packing. I have about 3 days until I have to hit the road for almost 3 weeks. Would you pray that things go together smoothly here and God will just help and direct each thing I do, helping me in all the decision making, knowing where to put each item as I pack it, knowing what to save, what to toss, what to ship?

Thanks for your faithful prayers.

It was a good day

Friday proved to be a great day.

The meeting with my siblings went great. We all saw that caring for and dealing with aging parents is a complex issue. I think we are ready to continue to communicate and work together.

After the meeting I went shopping and I found a great dress and it was on sale. I love sales and hate buying anything not on sale. So that is solved too.

Now if the boxes would just pack themselves....