Romania

[usbornelynsey]

Hello everyone,

I have not posted in quite a while. My life has taken an unexpected turn recently.

My family and I are moving to Romania to be missionaries for two years. We will be working with orphaned and abandoned children. The program we will be working with is called Oaza, which is translated to Oasis. You can check our their website here (http://www.oaza.com). The website has not been updated in a while. It is one of the things we plan to do after we get settled.

If any of you are prayers, we will need all the support we can get. We will be leaving August 22 for two weeks. This will be our initial visit. We will meet the kids, see the facilities, meet the missionaries we will be working with, and also seek out apartments. Lots to do in a short time.

I will post more about our assignment after we return from our initial visit.
:t9:

[Audrey]

Wow Lynsey,

What a huge change. What do the kids say? What about your business?

[Lori]

That's amazing Lynsey - and coming right up! I can't wait to hear all about it.

Lori

[MaryAnn]

You will have to let us know how we can keep in touch. My church is very active in missions and I know how important it is for the missionaries to feel connected. You are in our prayers - your work is very important!!

[usbornelynsey]

Thank you Audrey, Mary Ann and Lori for your posts.

My son is only 18 months old and not verbal, so I am not receiving any imput from him. My daughter is three and has a giving heart already. She is excited to go and help build the kids a new house. When I explained that the kids don't have mommies and daddies, she said she would be their mommy. She is even ok knowing that she will have two birthdays there, and has already explained to grandma that she will need to mail her present to Romania. She doesn't miss a thing.

As for staying connected, that is part of the reason I wanted to post. We will have full access to the internet while there. I will be able to mail directly from Usborne to my current customers, but I will have a few hurdles to get books for my own kids.

Thank you for praying for us. I will post more soon.

[usbornelynsey]

Have you ever felt a calling so strong and unmistakable that you knew it could only have come from God? God has filled us with a desire to serve and in obedience we are following His direction.

Recently, God has shown us the needs of the youth in Romania. Romania has approximately 100,000 orphans living in orphanages and countless other abandoned children living on the streets. Many of the orphanages in Romania are filled to capacity, with 10,000 new children being abandoned in hospitals each year. Most of these children will never be adopted, as Romania is closed to international adoption. Instead, these children will live in the crumbling system until they are forced out or choose to run away. Without help, many will not survive more than a few years living on the street.

Seeing this need Laura Andres, a Romanian citizen, established Oaza (translated Oasis) in 1995. The goals of Oaza are huge. "Providing faithful regular contact, food, basic medicines, clothing, legal and medical support and counseling with the specific objectives of; relieving suffering by meeting real rather than perceived need and building trusting relationships whilst ministering basic Christian values, with a view to reintegrating street children into society." Oaza accomplishes these goals by placing children into a family structure with house parents and siblings.

Oaza recently became affiliated with Free Methodist World Missions. It is through the support and blessing of the Free Methodist World Missions that we have been given this opportunity to serve. On August 22, 2008, we flew to Romania to see if this was truly where God was calling us. During this discernment trip, we felt overwhelmingly that Romania is where God wants us.

We plan to begin two years of service as VISA missionaries in January 2009. This assignment will come with a monthly expense of around $3500. We have a lot of money to raise in a short amount of time. We have to have all of the money pledged before we can go.

Please be in prayer for us. God is speaking to us and is constantly reassuring us that the “money part” will fall in line. We have begun visiting churches and are in the process of collecting pledges and prayer partners.

If any of you have creative suggestions or would like to help, let me know. Most of all, please lift my family up in prayer!

Thanks.

Lynsey