the heaven and the earth

Cerul şi Pământul sung by Adi Gliga.  Beautiful.
 My favorite Moldovan Christmas song so far.

love,

annie

learning

I don't know what to tell you.  Not doing very well with this blog thing.  I am sorry.

• I've fallen in love with a 6 year old boy.  He's emotional and gets upset easily, but he carefully painted a picture for one of our volunteers and showed it to me today.  He even wrote her name on the page.  Last Thursday, the day of our Christmas program, he walked up to me in the midst of the kids-waiting-for-guests chaos and said, "How do I look?" as he sported his best clothes.  He's part of a group staying at the orphanage that is being sponsored by an outside sports organization.  He goes to school like everyone else, has free time in the afternoon, and then has "training" in the evening.  Evidently, it's a group of "hocheişti".  Monday their trainer (2 other little boys in our group attend this "training".) came to get them because we lost track of time.  This little boy waited until his tough trainer/coach was gone, and then gave me a big hug goodbye.

• I start crying every time I hear the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.  

• We took 4 older kids into the city last night.  We made a camera scavenger hunt in the center of the city, ate cake and hot cocoa/cappuccino, and then strolled down Strada Ştefan cel Mare şi Şfânt to see the lights...and the enormous and overly decorated Christmas tree in front of Parliament.  The kids were glowing.  Magda, Rachel, and I were glowing because they were glowing.  For one of the girls, it was her first cup of hot chocolate.

• It is painful to see so much hurt in these kids

• Today I talked with Rachel for probably 30 minutes about retirement plans...after I'd spent probably 30 minutes on the IRS website.  After 5 years with Principal I can't get it out of my head.  :)

• Last week I went to a Christmas party for the women of our church.  We all really enjoyed the time together.  I am so grateful to be welcomed into the community of this church.  

I have been so overwhelmed with love and support from friends and family.  Packages.  Email and facebook messages.  Random Skyping.  Prayers.  Encouragement to keep going.  Learning about being known and being loved.  Amazing and giving teammates.  Children who have nothing yet share every single package of sweets.

becoming...

Recent thoughts from a prayer letter...

The kingdom of this world

Is become

The kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ

Today I cried at this phrase in Handel’s Messiah.  These words, powerfully sung, strike me this year.  Instead of uniformly robed choirs, images of the whitewashed concrete dorms dusted with snow come to mind.  I think of walks with kids from their dorm to the cafeteria: a hurried, loud, and chaotic place to eat.  Pictures of upturned faces wanting love and haunted eyes with so many questions flood my memory.  I hear sound bytes of little girls exclaiming over painted nails and lip gloss while wearing coats that no longer zip or button correctly.  The discrepancy over what is now and what is to be is overwhelming.

Last week our kids stood in front of a group of 9th grade students visiting from a different school.  After introductions, our group of 18 kids sang and handed out greeting cards they made for the guests.  The visiting students brought a movie to watch, and then played with our kids for at least an hour.  The most wonderful part of the whole evening was watching these 9th graders from comfortable families in Chişinău play UNO and color pictures with our kids from the orphanage.  As connections were made, walls and assumptions began to crumble.  The visiting students brought gifts for our kids, but the best part of their evening was definitely playing together.  It was beautiful.  Some of the young women from the visiting class even came back this week to volunteer.

With all the chaos and the stress that comes with the unknown, I am reminded today that these words put to music by George Handel are as much a promise of what is to come as they are an invitation to live as though the words are reality now.  An encouragement to continue to be present with the kids at the orphanage, because although their reality seems to be anything but the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ – He has not abandoned them and has promised to bring redemption.

Thank you so much for your prayers for the children of the orphanage and for our team.  Please especially keep John and his new wife Rachel in your prayers as they begin married life together in the States!  Whoo hoo!  We look forward to welcoming them back to Moldova in April!
Much love,
Annie

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,

and he will reign for ever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15).

Updates?

Want to know what is going on lately in the work?  Check out my update/prayer letters here.  Or you can even check out The Cry...Word Made Flesh's great quarterly journal...

Much love,

annie