I can't do this alone, God I need you to hold onto me...

So the more I think about Romania, and the more I tell people about it, the more my heart is just burdened. I mean, it was such an awesome trip full of laughs and inside jokes. But our purpose of going there was to shine His light to the people of Constanta. I truly believe we accomplished that. However, the images of the children begging on the streets and the doors that were slammed in our faces when we tried to tell them the good news haunt me. The hardest part of the visitations was walking away from an angry resident, knowing they were going to hell. Knowing that could have been their last chance to accept this free gift of life. Knowing they would never feel the joy I feel. How can you walk away from that experience and not be moved?

The other parts I dwell on are the faces of Bhara and her family. I don't even need to look at the pictures. They're permanently in my memory. Sad children, losing hope, abused with no one and no where to call home. I feel so guilty being home with my loving family, in our nice home with AC and my nice car while they struggle to survive. I know our God is sovereign, so my prayer is that He would reign. I pray, that against all odds, those precious children would grow up to be godly men and women that strive for change. That long to see their family and community open their eyes to what God has done and will do.

This trip has touched me on a different level than any of the other trips I've been on. I can't explain it, I just know God has something big planned for Constanta, Romania. I fervently pray that the seeds we planted would be used to better His kingdom, that our work was not done in vain and that He was completely glorified through our efforts.

Thank you a million times over again if you committed to praying for our team! We felt those prayers all the way in Romania, and I thank you for that! It feels so good to know I have such an awesome support team behind me. I ask that you would continue to pray for Constanta. Especially for Bhara's family. I pray your hearts would be burdened for them as well.

Now, how can I pray for you guys? I want to return the favor, so to speak! I hope you guys have an awesome week! I love you all more than you know!
Forever His,
EmilyJo

Home Sweet Home!

Hey guys! We made it home late last night, and thanks to my awesome parents, I got to sleep in my own bed for the first time in over two weeks! They surprised me in the Austin airport and drove me home instead of having me spend the night in Florence. I think we are pretty much all exhausted from the 26 hours of traveling. I'll update more as the jet lag wears off! Praise be to Him for all the lives that were touched this week! I love you guys so much for supporting us and praying for us. We could feel your prayers all week!! Be looking out for pictures and different ways you can continue to pray for Romania! I love you guys more than you know!
Forever His,
EmilyJo

Leaving on a Jet Plane

O what a week it has been! I want to quickly update you on Bhara's situation. CPS is in the process of taking the kids away from their mother. It's a bittersweet time for all of us. They will be pulled out of their situation and homelessness, however, they will be put in an orphanage where they won't get any attention or love. They will merely exsist until someone wants to adopt them or their mom gets them back. It's a catch 22 type of thing I suppose. Please pray for those precious children! Pray they would somehow defy all oods and become incredible, godly men and women.

The past few days have kind of been just for relaxing. On Saturday a few of our new Romanian friends took up around the city. It was so cool because we got to see the city the way they do. They took up through all the short cuts and all the cool places. We shopped around and ate lunch, then it was straight to the hotel to get ready for the baptism service. It was honoring an 83 year old woman. It was such an incredible experience, and I am so thanful we got to be a part of it. Her and her husband had tear soaked faces as she made it public that she loves Jesus. Such a mighty and awesome God we serve!

I am currently sitting in a hotel in Bucharest. We have an extremely early flight in the morning. Please pray for the day ahead. It promises to be very long and draining. Pray for low frustration and stress levels. We are all so tired and SO ready to be home!

I love you guys so much! Thank you a million times over for your prayers and support. Your encouraging thoughts and emails have meant so much to our team! I wish I could have written more, but as you can imagine, our week has been completely draining! I can't wait to upload pictures on here and share them with you!

Thanks again! I love you all more than you know!
Forever His,
EmilyJo

A Call to Prayer!

So there's a family that I've mentioned on here before that lives on an empty lot under a house made of all kinds of scrap material. The house belongs to Bhara, her mom, aunt, grandma and 12 brothers, sisters and cousins. The lot they are living on is just an empty lot full of rocks. This morning the owner of the lot kicked Bhara's family off and they were forced to take down their home. They are currently taking up residence on the small strip of sidewalk in front of the lot. All 16 of them get to sit side by side far too close to the street. On top of all these unfortunate events of the day, it is raining. Not just a light afternoon shower. It's pouring and has been for about seven hours. The city is quickly beginning to flood. While my team and I are cozy in our four star hotel, Bhara and her family are sitting on their sidewalk with a piece of tarp wrapped around them. There aren't any shelters that can take them. The Day Center rented them a room, but the mother refuses to take it, so they sit. They sit hoping the rain will stop, hoping it doesn't rain for the rest of the weekend as promised, and hoping to make it through the night. CPS has called asking the mom's to drop off the kids two different times and they refuse. So now we just wait until CPS takes them away.

This is a call to prayer for all who call upon His name! Bhara's family is in desperate need of a Savior! These precious children are being exposed to a life that no one deserves to live. My heart is completely broken tonight. Won't you pray with me? Fervently pray that our Savior would choose to deliever them from their hell. Pray they would realize just how much Jesus loves them. Pray they get out of the control of their family. Just pray!

Prayer Requests:

• Pray that God, in all His infinite power, would deliever Bhara and her family.
• Pray that the flooding ceases.
• Pray the rain scheduled for Saturday would not come. We are doing a baptism service in the village we've been working with and rain is promised for the whole day.
• Pray for peaceful hearts as we are burdened with the news of Bhara and her family.

Other than that, the day was pretty good. We went door to door at an apartment complex. After a few doors getting slammed in our faces, we were feeling a little discouraged. Please pray that the seeds we planted would be good and God would use them for the harvest.

It has been an incredible week so far, and we still have three days to go! Thank you all so very much for your prayers! To Him be the glory! I love you all more than you know!

Forever His,

EmilyJo

To Make You More Than a Religion...

Hey guys! Sorry I didn't update you yesterday! It was a very long day but here's what happened! My team got to go door to door in a nearby village. We are starting a nation wide campaign here in Romania. It's to read your Bible. Simple as that! To read your Bible every day. I can't honestly say I do it. It was awesome to watch our Romanian friends talk to these people. They have the greatest sense of urgency I've ever seen about spreading the gospel. Sadly, my team of four got mainly "No"s and "The Bible isn't important enough to spend any time reading it". It broke my heart for these people. To walk away from a home that just refused to talk to you about Jesus and knowing they are going to hell, is truly humbling and extremely sad. God save those people!

Today, my team was back at the Day Center. We made pillows. The kids were beyond thrilled but it quickly turned into a huge pillow fight with 15 little participants. It was so awesome! After a long day at the Day Center we took food to a family of a few of the kids. They have a family of eight living a room probably smaller than most of your master bathrooms. To see such conditions really makes your greatful for all the things you take for grante.

It's been a really good couple of days... long... but great!
Prayer Requests:

• PLENTY of rest tonight!
• A couple of our team members came down with some kind of stomach thing today. Pray it goes away quickly and isn't spread. They all brushed their teeth with the water and no one else did so we're thinking it was caused by that.
• Pray for boldness and urgency tomorrow as we tell people about Jesus
• Pray for ready and willing hearts to commit to reading their Bibles

It's been an awesome week so far! We're half way through! Thank you so much for the prayers and support! I love you all more than you know!

Forever His,

EmilyJo

There's Nothing My God Cannot Do...

Today was a very long day... I'll update everyone tomorrow! Sorry guys!

That's the Power of the Cross

Today was our first full day of ministry. I heard the visitng team had an incredible day, but I can only really speak of the experiences I had with my team at the Day Center. We got to sleep in an extra hour than the visitng team.. it was glorious! We went down to the day center to get ready for the day. Around noon all the kids had shown up. Praise the Lord there were 16 kids in attendance. It was a trying day with the kids. Most of them come from pretty violent homes and didn't understand the concept of a hug. For them, touching is only in mean ways.

There is one family we are helping out with that lives on a vacant lot. There are 13 kids and 3 adults. The have made a shelter our of tarp and any spare materials. One of the mothers bites her kids faces when they are bad. There is also supicision of sexual abuse. CPS has been called, tomorrow could be the day they get taken away. It's a really rough situation. I wish I could tell you more. Just pray for Bhara's family. She is a 12 year old girl now expected to be the mom of 12 kids.

Tomorrow our teams switch responsiblities. I'm excited to share my experiences with you guys.

Prayer Requests

• PLENTY of rest tonight!
• Boldness to share God's word without hesistation and fear!
• Positive attitudes and willing and flexible hearts!

I'm so sorry this is so short. We have very long days here and my bed is calling my name! Thank you for all your prayers and support!

I love you all more than you know!

Forever His,

EmilyJo

Just Give Me 5 Minutes.... Romanian Minutes...

So we found out today that Romanian time is unlike any other time we're use to. 5 minutes usually turns into about an hour. Today we got to go to church twice. Both times we were told the service would only last about an hour.. three and a half hours later we left for lunch. It was crazy to say the least. The first service was three hours full of singing, offerings, preaching, sitting down, standing up and we even took part in the Lord's Supper. It was really neat to see these Romanians worship. They prayed with such reverence and urgency. It was incredible. It really challeneged me and my prayer life. Do I pray to God like I actually expect Him to hear and deliever? These people do!

Tomorrow we are splitting up into two teams. One team will go into a neighborhood and go door to door telling people about Jesus and handing out Bibles. The other team, the team I am on, will go down the street to the day center and put on a VBS for the kiddos that go there. I am SO excited to play with some kids!

Prayer Requests:

• PLENTY of rest tonight!
• A few of us are having stomach aches and feeling a little sick to our stomachs. Pray it would all go away by morning! I'm sure it just has something to do with the jetlag.
• Pray for awesome and FLEXIBLE attitudes!
• Pray for boldness. May we be urgent about spreading the gospel!
• That all fear and nervousness would disappear!

Praise Him for an awesome day today!! God was glorified and we learned something in the process!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! The days ahead are looking to be long but it's all going to be worth it! I love you all more than you know!

Forever His,

EmilyJo

FINALLY HERE!

After 13 hours in the air and 3 hours in a van, we have arrived in Constana, Romania. The flight was a little rough for most of us. I think the excitement and anticpation mixed an uncomfortable plane loaded with strangers wasn't the best of combinations, but we made it! I don't think I've ever been so happy to walk around! Driving in was beautiful, well the parts I was actually awake for! There were fields and fields of bright yellow sunflowers. It was so refreshing!

Tonight we are just taking it easy in our hotel. We've been traveling over a day so some R&R is greatly appreciated! Tomorrow we have an easy day. We're worshipping with a Romanian church in the morning and then coming back for their evening service, where Troy will be bringing the word. Won't you pray with us? Pray for open ears and open hearts. Pray the language barrier would somehow disappear!

I can't believe we are actually here! We drove by a lot where a family is living. It's a gravel lot with three ladies and fourteen children who got kicked out of their home. Tomorrrow we will get to go meet them. Poverty is everywhere and we only got to see a glimpse of it!

Prayer Requests:

• Plenty of rest!!
• Renewed spirits and attitudes for tomorrow!
• If you didn't already know, I left the states sick and it's proving to be a bit of a hindrence. Just pray for healing and that I could just forget about how I feel.

Praise Him for a safe journey!!

Our team memebers are Troy, Todd, Autumn, Boots, Shelly, Rick, Patti, Pam, Cindy, Sandy, Greg, Angie, Roger, Mike and Myself. Please pray for each of us speifically knowing God has a very different plan for each of us while we are here!

I'm about to crash for the night! I'll update everyone more tomorrow! Thank you all for the prayers and supports! I love you all more than you know!
Forever His,

EmilyJo

PS- My computer is in Romanian right now, so spell check says everything is mispelled and my brain is way too fried to adjust any errors! Sorry! haha O and there's a radio in the shower...no big deal!