More Kids!

Today (Tuesday) we were up early to join our friends at Project 127 for awesome prayer time :D It's a wonderful way to start the day! One of the teams showed us what they do in the mornings before they go out to serve, they've memorized Ephesians 6 and have 'gestures' to go along with the verses...in order to prepare for the day's work :D
Then we were off to the Minor Center! This is where children who were found on the streets are placed temporarily, or children who are accused of petty crimes.. Most of the kids are runaways though. When we arrived here the kids were a bit more reserved than in the village yesterday, but still pretty pleasant and welcoming. One little boy came up to Chelsea and I hugging us and saying "Ceau, Ce faci" Which is Hi, what's up! :D what a welcome! We learned a song, and did a craft with the kids. This group of servants was smaller than the one in the village, and there were a few more kids. Which was nice, it was a more 'intimate' time with them... and much easier to interact and get to know the kids :) Then we played some card games and UNO and a dice game Sue Vee was teaching us :) Over all it was a nice, relaxed day :)
After the minor center we dropped by CP2 and GOT OUR PAPER WORK!!!! Sue headed in with the intent of just seeing where we were in the process of things, and there the papers were! signed, dated, and stamped :D (Thank you Lord!!) So we picked up Eva and Angela and headed back to the apartment. We had some Mac n' Cheese :D and baked brownies..but since these stoves/ovens are gas...we had BURNT brownies... they were still good :) we also had some ice cream and played spoons :D
Tomorrow is the Bible study with the college age girls... we're praying that we're prepared and that their hearts would be open... Farewell all! until the next update! :D

Kids Kids Kids

So! after having two lazy days to re-coup...and the abandonment of Sue Vee, we have begun the little kid ministry! Today we were blessed with an invite from Project 127 to go to a gypsy village in Cherechiu! What a blast we had! We were rollin 4 vans deep and a full car of VeeBee's and friends. We were greeted with smiles and waves even before we got out of the masina (that's car in Romanian, for those of you who don't know romanian, including us) The village itself was pretty small compared to the other villages Vee is aware of.. there were only 12 houses and quite a few kids. First we introduced ourselves and were introduced to the families and all of the kids. Then little kids were going up to the missionaries and grabbing their hands so that they could play together. Except for us...we were new faces...that changed after a visit to one of the families homes. Thanks Stacey and Jeff for introducing the family you sponsor! The family was awesome, they were so sweet and very hospitable. There are four children, a mother and father and the grandmother all live in a two room house. There is no electricity or heat in the house, but the family who is sponsoring them is praying and trying to get electricity to the home. It was an incredible experience and a humbling experience. The children were very welcoming and the adults insisted that we sit and stay a while. Their smiles are engraved in our hearts. That's one thing that is absolutely amazing...seeing the people smiling... it's something unique that just warms the soul. :D

We started a BBQ and handed out hot dogs to all of the people in the village.. Then we began singing! Praising God in HUNGARIAN.. (oh by the way, this specific village was Hungarian, so there was TWO language barriers... we've learned hello and how are you in Romanian, but NOTHING in hungarian.. )

That's another thing that's amazing... when you have the love of Christ to share... all barriers are broken down!

after singing we had one of the guys share his testimony, then it was time for GAMES! it was SO fun watching the kids interact and having fun :D With full tummies :D we had three legged races, 'potato' sack races, and a water balloon toss! Fun Fun Fun in the Sun..and it WAS sunny, we all got dreaded farmer tans (no offense or disrespect to our farmer friends)

After Cherechiu Sue dragged us to CP2 (the orphanage) even though we were EXHAUSTED.. where we had quite the encounter with one of our girls... She was claiming that she was a 'bigger sinner than sue vee' HA! did Sue have something to sayyyy about thattt!!!!! God totally used Sue as a messenger. Sue explained to T that the only difference between her life and T's life was that the blood of Jesus covers her sin daily. We truly believe that T understood, and it was visible in her face that she comprehended the power of Christ. (AMAZING MOMENT!) We are praying for a break through (please join us)

Studiu Biblic

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are excited to inform you of the recent movement in our ministry here in Romania. God has opened the door for a Bible study on the college campus with five young women. We showed one of Pastor Charlie Campbell's DVD's. We chose "All Roads Do Not Lead to God." Chelsea and I, with the help of Sue and our new friend Salomea, translated the message into Romanian so that the girls would have a print out of the information. The study was a success! The girls are excited for next week, when we do " Amazing Evidence for the Trustworthiness of the Bible." After Bible study, Sue and Chelsea took some of the girls out for a birthday dinner for Teresa! I heard it was awesome, but since I'm feeling a bit under the weather.. I stayed home to sleeep :)
The restaurant had a pirate theme, Sue, Chelsea, and I were concerned, we were all "oh man, are there real pirates there?" but Teresa calmed our nerves by explaining that it is not a real pirate 'cove' because Johnny Depp will not be present. Immediately our nerves ceased. Today Chelsea, Sue, and Salomea joined Project 1:27 for a FULL day of painting at the Children's hospital, photos to follow! And I, Ali Bee, your author, stayed home and slept more than i have ever slept in my entire life! Kicking this cold's butt! Farewell for now! Another whole day of painting awaits us. Hope all is well in America!

In other news...

We have begun our work with Project 1:27. We are painting murals for the Children's wing at a small hospital in the town of Marghita all week. It's an hour and 20 minutes from us so we've been having very long days, but it's been a wonderful time of fellowship. What's even more wonderful is that everyone on the team works unto the Lord. It's amazing to sense the spirit of the Lord with us in the simplest of tasks. I truly believe that these simple murals will not only be a blessing to the children but the hospital staff as well.

We are reserving Wednesday's for ministering to young women. Although we have not been cleared yet to work with the children at the Orphanage (CP2), we will be having our first Campus Bible Study with the 4 girls that have moved on to College from CP2. Please pray that the paperwork would go through for all of us to work in the orphanage. Also so that we can have some of the girls here at our house for fellowship and ministering opportunities. Our hope is that the Social Worker will come tomorrow to inspect the house and approve us by Friday. Until this happens, I am just going to CP2 alone for a couple of hours in the evenings to visit with Eva and the rest of the children.

On Thursday and Friday, the Bee's (Ali Bee & Chelsea Bee) will be caring for the abandoned babies in the morning then continuing the murals in the afternoons. The hospital would like all the painting to be completed by July 1st. This would be a miracle and with God all things are possible. I am sure the Bee's will share about this experience soon.

Grace & Peace,

Sue Vee

Grab some coffee, it's gonna be a long one.

First and foremost, we must sincerely apologize to our faithful followers, all eight of you. We have not been committed to updating you on our time in Romania. So, from Chelsea and Ali Bee's "Sorry."

Moving on.

We are currently updating due to our current circumstances, let us you fill you in. There is currently NO hot water. And when we say NO HOT WATER, we mean when you the faucet on for hot water, nothing, no water, comes out. Therefore my friends, no hot water. Also, currently there is a punch threat from... none other than our partner in service, SUE VOLPE. Yes, she has reminded us constantly of your desire to know what. is. up. in. Romania.

So where should we pick up... 

hm. Wednesday is good. 

Our first day here was full of blisters, sun burn, McDonald's and introductions.

Let's talk about the blisters first: THEY WERE TERRIBLE. we got them EVERYWHERE on our feets. except for chelsea, cause she's the smart one and wore flip flops (Chelsea wrote this... obviously..) The blisters were formed due to the frollicking around the city of Oradea, meeting ALL of Sue Volpe's friends... She's got a lot of them. And they are all pretty awesome. except for the guy who stole Chelsea's suitcase...

NEXT: SUNBURN!! came from all the walking around... so.. that's that.

FINALLY:: INTRODUCTIONS! there were soooo many of them! but every time we met a new person we met a new friend... So cheesy, so real.

We met the kids from the orphanage, we met people from the Pathway 2 Joy ministry, and we met some cool pigeons... and other strange birds...especially the one that lives by our window,.. that yells "MEHHHH HEYYYY " EVERY DAY! so we yell back "HEY THERE ROMANIAN BIRD!"

On to Thursday::

We went to campus! We were introduced to the young women who we will be prayerfully having Bible study with once a week :D We had some good laughs with the girls and talked a little about when we will be having Bible study. Then they taught some Romanian words (none of which we remember... except for BALCON! which means balcony) Then laughed at our funny accents.

That night we went and got Gelato for dinner.. but since Sue had a favorite Gelato place, we had to walk... 10 minutes... for a 'quick ice cream run' until we found that Sue's favorite was no longer present. Therefore, we traversed all the way back to where Ali Bee first saw a Gelato place and ordered some ice cream...our loud obnoxious way of talking, attracted a fellow American. He was a Cali boy, with black nail polish painted on his fingernails. But he was not wearing running sneakers with his jeans, and he had nice hair and eyes. not that we saw them, cause he was STARING at the Suuuueeeee Volpe. oh yea. that's what happened. So we chit chatted.. actually They chit chatted... we just ate our gelato. turns out he's going to med school and hopes to see us around. oh, and he's trying to buy a house... 

The Americans then went their separate ways... that's how the day ended. good for sue, and good for us.. we got gelato.

Now for Friday, Day 3

We played Rummy, Ali Bee was victorious for the first time in her entire life... we may be exaggerating a bit, but not by much! It was marvelous, what a site, to see her jump up with such joy vigor due to her victory in Rummy 500.

After that, we walked to CP2 (the orphanage) and went to Chapel with the kids! Now for a serious moment, brought to in spirit by Sue Volpe (you should know, that while i was just typing that... the bird that says MEH HEYY just spoke again...)

So when we went to Chapel ( which is like a mini service for the kids in the orphanage) the first thing we did was say hello to our new friends Tabita and Dan, (we really like them, they're great) then we hung out with some of the kids and got ready for Worship! it was absolutely beautiful to hear the children singing worship songs praising God in Romanian.... i think i fell in love at that moment.. or even more in love with God..(Ali Bee) 

During service, Danny, another cool Romanian guy... who helps out at the orphanage and with Pathway 2 Joy, shared a message to the children... alllll in Romanian. Then showed a movie... It was one of those movies that ALWAYS put you to sleep in history class... BUT! the information was good, and the kids had to read subtitles in Romanian, so none fell asleep! :D 

Thennn after service we walked back to the orphanage and hung out with the girls a little longer..  where we met Salomea, she's a sweet 16 year old girl who's english is AMAZING! She will be translating for us when we go to the gypsy village. Also, we have plans for a day in Oradea next weekend with her :D 

As for Saturday::: We helped Sue make a DELICIOUS salad with AMAZING yellow Romanian peppers... SO SWEET! and headed to a BBQ with the interns from Pathway 2 Joy. It was nice, the one thing to remember is NEVER play volleyball with a kid named Dan. He'll introduce the ball to your face, and it will not be a pleasant meeting. Also to remember, children of the missionary families, DO speak english, and not Spanish... Gracias Dan!

On to Sunday... WE WENT TO CHURCH :D with three of the young adults... our peers... who have aged out of the orphanage. What a blast! what was really cool was that the message was from a missionary! who has been coming to Romania for 38 years! Worship was really great too, but made us miss CCOC <3

after church we went to the supermarket.. and on the way we played yellow car... we've been teaching a lot of romanians the yellow car game, including our taxi driver who only spoke 'no yellow, cream car" in english. 

We and the three fun romanians and sue of course! and Andrea (another missionary from Pathway) all headed back to the apartment for some Romanian soup, and some chicken! We played Spoons, and Rummy, and a bit of Uno.. oohpe! and dice! a fun time was had by all :D especially during our special romanian language class. 

That's alll that i can type right now folks! we'll be updating more often, so that i do not get carpel tunnel, from updating ..now. and so sue doesn't have to threaten us.... 

Farewell! From Romania!

P.S. Chelsea got her luggage!

Seriously

Of Course I have to be the one that gets all serious. The last three days have been for the girls to get acquainted with the city and the places we will be ministering. On Wednesday, we went to see some colleagues of mine to make arrangements for our VBS in one of our local gypsy villages, and then we headed to the orphanage to get approval from the Director. There were some difficulties, but of course God prevailed. He opened the door for us to be at the orphanage in the afternoon to play with the children. In addition, we will be ministering to 6 specific girls weekly in our home. We are just waiting for the paperwork to go through.
Yesterday we went to the College Campus to see the older girls that moved out of the orphanage last year to attend college. We went to see how they felt about a weekly Bible study. This study would be more than they have had in the past, and more appropriate for their age level. Hopefully it will equip them to live their faith and share it in their academic atmosphere. In the past, it was never about being educated in our faith; it was more focused on the grace and forgiveness of Christ. Please join us in prayer for these young women, that their hearts and minds would be open to see the reality and sufficiency of Jesus.

PING AND POW in ROMANIA!

Ping and Pow on the bus from Budapest to Oradea

Ping and Pow with traditional pink Romanian toilette paper

Ping and Pow in front of the City Hall Building

Ping and Pow with McDonald's french fries...the only thing we recognize from America

Ping and Pow with Burn...Romanian Monster

Ping and Pow with Sue and Eva

Ping and Pow with Pufuleti, so goood.

Keep checking back for more!

FRANKS…Hot Sauce MANIA!

It is well known, thanks to Sue Vee, that the children of Romania adore buffalo wings, spicy ones. So upon our grocery store trip in the States, we bought five bottles of Franks! Red Hot Sauce! We packed them so that they would not break, snuggly in a towel. Placed them in the bag along with our marvelous supplies for crafts and fun during our VBS week. Big Mistake. What happened next was the product of sheer brutality against luggage. The men, specifically, the man with the liger tattoo on his shoulder, threw the bag containing Frank's and, we lost a Spice soldier. Only four bottles..... remain. Upon opening the bag, his red spiciness, was..EVERYWHERE. Including all over the supplies, what a horrific sight. Along with Frank, the red hot soldier, we lost two gold stars, and the suitcase. We bid our farewells, and began to aid the saucy-ness supplies. These supplies were then salvaged thanks to a Romanian washer machine, which had a 3 hour spin cycle. A loud one, that sounded like spaceships taking off to another planet. Good news still to be found, the children will still have their hot sauce, andddd they're mac and cheese, andddd their brownies. And some spicy supplies for VBS. Thank you, good day. 

This has been another production by the VeeBee's Stay tuned for Ping and Pow in Oradea.

The Journey to Romania

A word of advice: Never let Sue help alleviate family stress by suggesting taking a train to the airport. Especially when you have 5 fifty pound bags, 3 huge carry ons and 3 purses stuffed to the max and only one Colombian valet to help carry some of those bags through 5 different subway transfers during rush hour in New York City. The adventure starts at 4:26 p.m. as we board the Suffern train..not realizing that we have to change trains in Seacacus. While aboard the train, we have some laughter and fun banter. Then, we began to look for an energy source. The  Colombian being familiar with the train,  shuffles to the back of the car but goes to far. BANG! The train abruptly comes to a halt and the Colombian, while in a squatted in position finds his head colliding with the metal door. Simultaneously, our bags decide they miss us and quietly creep over to their loved ones. So of course, we explode into uncontrollable giggles. The man on his iPhone, however, did not like this and rebuked us. Asking us to show "some respect for the people on the train". FInally arriving to Seacacus, and looking for the gate to Penn Station, Sue's card decides not to work, not letting her into the gate with us. After she leaves to find assistance, the gate opens a few times. After yelling obnoxiously for her to come back, the assistance tells us that it was the Colombians fault for standing too close to the sensors. So Sue sprints, her 40 pound rolling carry on in tow, to catch it, and it closes a final time. The Colombian moves away from the sensors, the assistant places his card in the card reader and the gates open. Sue is FREE! We are on our way to Penn Station. After 3 train transfers and 4 hours of traveling, we finally arrive at JFK for our 7 hour flight to Paris.

BLANKET WARS:::::::

It was 11:50 when we were awakened by threats of police.The cause of arrest at landing; a stolen blanket. One woman, two flight attendants is all that we saw.  The woman was a repeat offender, she was threatening and demanding her window seat. Forcing an innocent older couple to get up and move over. The older woman, who was apparently quite chilly, had wandered up to first class and STOLE a blanket off what she thought was an empty seat but was actually a seat reserved for the crew. We found this out after the police threats. The male flight attendant, after asking for the blanket to be returned threatened the elderly woman with the common french threat; DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? Apparently the male flight attendant was not the flight attendant at all, HE WAS THE CAPTAIN!  who had witnessed theft!! He had caught the woman FUZZY handed, in the act of blanket robbery. After this threat, and power struggle, the woman complained and stated her case : "It is so cold in this plane, I asked several flight attendants for another blanket and they did not have any extras; i need another blanket! I am very upset, very upset." To which the flight attendant AND the CAPTAIN said that there will be police waiting to arrest the woman when the plane landed. We thought the ordeal was over, until the female flight attendant stormed back over, leaned into the woman's face and said "HE SAW YOU TAKE THE BLANKET!" Then…. it was all over, by 11:57 pm (New York time, since there's no internet in flight world to update Chelsea Burt's computer clock)

NOOK  ATTACK!

Finally arriving at the French Airport, we suddenly are not allowed through security because there is something suspicious in Ali Bee's bag. The French man asks her to take out her iPod which she does, but the bag still does not go through. Security keeps asking her to remove her iPad, laptop or whatever she has, but she insists there is nothing in her bag. Meanwhile Sue bag goes right through we iphone, ipod, and an external hard drive. When she begins to take everything out of her bag she finds it…the Nook. After holding up the line, we are finally let through, Nook in hand. As we begin to collect all of our belongings, the man stops us again. This time he shows us the baggage scan display screen that there was a revolver in Ali Bee's bag… we all stop in shock. Why the heck would there be a gun in there, Ali Bee?!  Maybe the blanket lady threw her weapon in there when she heard the cops were coming after her…but then the gun disappears from the screen and the man begins to laugh. What a silly Frenchman, what an adventure.

And now, after trudging up five flights of stairs with 4, rather than 6 fifty pound bags because the airport stole Chelsea's bag, we arrived at our apartment. Stay tuned, more to come!

-Chelsea Bee, Ali Bee and Sue Vee <3

3 DAYS!

We leave for Romania on Monday...I can't believe it's almost here already! Please continue to keep myself, Ali and Sue in prayer as we travel to Budapest and then onto Oradea in a few days. Pray for safe travels, health and opportunities to share as we are on our way. Thank you all so much for your support and prayers these next two months...this summer is definitely going to be exciting! I will try to post on here as often as I can, and hopefully attach some pictures so all of you will be able to have a little bit of Romania at home. Feel free to email: Chelseaburt@gmail.com or even skype me: chelseaburt so we can keep in touch!
-Chelsea