Christmas 2007 Galati

Some pictures the events that centered around Christmas 2007 for us.... Thanks so much for all your letters and support. Especially, FBC who took the time to Blog their "Merry Christmas" to us..... Lanny your a great friend....and I praise God for all of you at FBC who take the time to make our family and the families we minister to feel so loved and appreciated, and also from our church family at LWBC, we even recieved some Christmas cards from them! So many of you wrote encouraging words....thanks from the bottom of our hearts.

first an update on Bogdon and Paul, Gabriela is home from the hospital and has recovered from the serious burns that she received. (not fully but the situation is getting better) We credit this to your prayers......thanks!


This is a picture of a pig that was soon be ....well let's just say...put in little bags that can be carried and put in a freezer for later...if you get my drift. This a big tradition in Romania around Christmas the pigs are in big trouble. Much like our turkey's around Thanks-Giving! It was an experiacne to say the least for me to spend the day with my very good friend Roland. He knows how to cut up a pig, let me tell you! This is not Roland in the picture as he asked to NOT be in the pictures for fear of being thought of in a bad light! But this is his home in the little village of Bestepe past Tulcea.




Karla made treats to hand out to the people in the valley....they are sooooo good. I have gained at least five pounds this Christmas thanks to my wife's cooking.

It is common also to have people come and sing at your door. This didn't stop for about two days. (once the word got out that we were giving out food it got much worse. we had to stop answering the door for fear that the neighbors would have us thrown out) These three precious kids below are part of what we call the "family with ten children." Some of you have been in their house.

We had someone from the Romanian church donate 1000 RON, (400 USD.) for us to buy food for people in the valley. This was actually probably the best part of Christmas for me. It was a real pleasure to see a Romanian give to the Gypsies in the valley. We were able to help around 13 families. I saw over 100 people Christmas eve in the valley. This was a big blessing for me.

I appreciate my family also who helped sort and sack all the food buckets.

It was COLD that night and almost no one was out.
I decided not to show you the pictures that led to the pig looking like this. Let me say this though we have three bags of pork in our freezer thanks to the generosity of Roland's family. I thought this was really a neat way to experience the Romanian Christmas particpating in a long held tradition. We Americans know that pigs should not be treated this way. Everyone should just go to Wal-Mart and buy it off of the shelf where it is clean and tidy. We don't have to be a part of this kind of bloody Christmas.

Remember that our perfectly sterile Christmas cards, that show Jesus born in a manger are more of the clean sterile Wal-Mart variety. Jesus was treated no better then this pig when he came to the earth. We must remember that when we see all these pristine Christmas cards showing Jesus and his parents in the five star Hilton type manger. Let us be thankful for one more year, 2008 to give the call to repentance and the Good News to all that have ears to hear. (It seems many are just like this pig and no longer have ears to hear as the Devil has done his butcher work on them)

This entire ordeal only took about three hours. I was amazed and really wonder if the people these villages that we americans feel so SORRY for really have it all that bad, being isolated from the rest of the world and just minding their own business!

We love all of you and look forward to a great 2008. May we all be found faithful this year to serve our Risen King. He has been incredibly good to my family and it drives my determination and resolve even deeper to get the Gospel out to as many people as possible this upcoming year. I know many of you will be a part of that so please be praying now for us as we try to navigate through the winds, rocks, and reefs this upcoming year. May God bless each and everyone of you.

Christmas Party in New Missions Center

Well we had a chance to try out our new Missions Center last night. It was the first time we tried to put together an event there. It was a huge success and many people came together to make this happen. First of all, I want to thank CCSBA for helping to fund this night. Without their support I could not have done this. This is one of the main rooms in the building and works great for a conferance room or a dinning room. My family and I decorated it with a lot of help! We were praying the entire time..."Lord please let them show up tonight"Here is Christina's group helping to serve the group from Zone 13 that we have been doing studies with every Thursday evening since July of this year. The lady in the middle is Donna who is a judge, she came to Christ by going through the "People who knew Jesus" study a couple of years ago. That is Mama Catie on the far right who is struggling with cancer but will not miss any of the Thursday meetings. She is very evangelical.

Roland made it for a little while and also brought a full box of oranges for us to pass around. He and I are going to Tulcea in the Morning to "kill a pig" for Christmas. The next blog should be full of interesting pictures! This is a Christmas tradition for the Romanians. Much like us killing a turkey at Thanksgiving.

It was great to have Matthew with us also.....I told a story about bringing our first born out of the Hospital that had the Romanians laughing!

This is Valireca who actaully gave me money to buy this fruit for the group. We were able to get three cooks to do the days work.....and they did great. For you that have been here and eaten at the church you know they can COOK!

Counting everyone we had about 42 people. The group from Zone 13 brought 24 or so and we brought 18...it was great to combine these two groups and we hope to do more of this in the future.We had chicken and pork and the main part of the meal but by the time everything else was added we were stuffed. By the time we added all the desserts we were stuffed.


During the meal the lights went out in the building. I used this as an illustration of how candles are like religion and better then completely living in the dark. But then when the lights came back on I said that we really don't need the candles any more just like after we come to Christ we don't need religion.

It is amazing how they sat and listened to every word spoken about Christ and the incarnation. From Luke 2 we told the Christmas Stroy. I was thankful for the Spirit's touch on the evening. It was a great night of fellowship with these Orthodox believers. They are very close to repenting and I believe some of them might have already.

This couple laughed alot, especially when I told them about our stress with our first born child. It was great to see the men show up to this meeting. They really did listen and seemed to have a great time.

This is Mehiella , Petru and Mehiella's mother, They are the only young couple in the group and are really special to me. I pray that this year we can get them in a group of people their own age. She is studying to be a lawyer and he wants to be an auto-cad draftsman. Her mother is always bringing someone to the group every chance she gets. She even tells her boss that she has to leave work early on Thursdays for the studies. He makes sure that he gets a full report each Friday.

This is Luminizta, (the blond on the right edge) the lady with the terminal illness. We lost her sister this year to the same illness. She is the lady that works at the Mayor's office and has connections to many villages. She is a real leader of this group. She is very educated and has a real strong belief in what we are teaching.....just has not repented yet.

Just getting starting with all the food. They cooks did a great job! It was such a pleasure to serve them in this manner. They fed us every Thursday so it was nice to return the favor.

You can see from Robert there in the front that it was a little cold. The heat didn't work that well but we did fine. I spent a few minutes encouraging them to follow Christ. I really felt the Lord's hand on the entire evening and was to thankful that this group has been to responsive to the teachings we bring them. I look for several to give their lives to Christ in the future.

Funeral in the valley

The man in the back wearing the grey coat is the one who tried to invite our entire group to some saints birthday party a couple of years ago and asked us to pay his 300 dollar electric bill. The little girl in the pink hat and red coat is the sister that was in the room when Christina fell to her death back in 2004. There was around thirty people in these two little rooms tonight. It was great to get to buy them some food as the preist usally makes them pay for everything.

Pastor this is the group that you were teaching your first, church starts lesson to three years ago. When I walked up you said, "Troy take this over for me now!" Of all the lessons that we have done in the valley which probably add up to six hundred by now this was the second family that we did a lesson with. Donny was my translator then and I told him....(after it started getting out of control) " get this over with as soon as possible!" Bogdon says that a few of the men want to follow Christ and have prayed with him in the past. We will see....

The lady was 59 but had been sick for quite some time....we took her medicine several times and she did sit in and listen to nearly 12 lessons. I am not sure if she ever really understood though. May God have mercy on her soul.



Bogdon and I went back down in the valley today. This is the first time in about three months actually that we have ministered together in Zone 6. We found out that the eldest lady that lived at 89 Dogarie died. Some of you might know this group as the "nine families". We have two or three repenters now from this very large family. They asked if we would come down and do the service for them. They specifically said that they were NOT going to invite the priest there. He takes money from them and runs. So this was a great opportunity to at least begin to change the way they do things in the valley. I went and bought some food for them and they waited patiently as we read through Psalm 23 before eating. It seems that we have a big foothold on this family and will begin to really push into the valley through families like this. We are hoping for a church plant by the end of the year, Lord willing. Bogdon did great and has even amazed Pastor Ovi with his new attititude towards life. Bogdon even told me that after Paula heard him talking with Pastor Ovi on the phone when he hung up she was so happy that she gave him two kisses on his face :) So things are going much better. It was great to be ministering with him again in the valley after a few months of rebellion on his part. YOUR prayers must be lighting up heaven and pleasing our Heavenly Father! He is really starting to shower some blessings on us over here.

Our New Location

You are going to be hearing quite abit about this place over the next few years. We are changing the building that was used to house almost 24 orphans into a mission training center. It will be used to reach out into all of Southeast Romania. We will have this room as a dinning hall and conference room. It will hold up to 40 to 50 people.

We are going to turn this room into a prayer chapel. Much like you would see at an airport. We want to fix this room up first showing God that prayer is our first priority. We hope to see many of you in this room praying for the revival we want to see in Galati and beyond.

This is an area that can be used for a small group or just relaxation. I know that the chairs don't match.....but it is all we have at the moment! They work fine anyway...

We are going to call this the vision room, where we will begin to plot out our progress on a map and also hold small group "task force" type meetings.

This is Paula and Bogdon who may begin work out there tomorrow doing repair work and the sort. Pray for this. They are doing much, much better today and know that you were praying for them. They are very thankful for your prayers.

This is the new (Zone 9) office that Cane Creek Stoddard Baptist Association is helping us with. Believe it or not the rent is the same as I had at the apartment in Zone 9. Now I have a dinning hall, kitchen, office, rooms for 14 guests, a large meeting room, a prayer room, a vision room, area for two kitchenettes, all sitting on 10 or so acres! This is truely an amazing God thing! (in my humble opinion). The local Baptist church is really behind us and it seems to really be bringing a surge of faith to this local church. Pray that God will show us ALL how we can be apart of this and make it a missionary sending factory!

Two Birthdays in our house

Here Andrew and Robert receive their presents. Knights in Shining Armor. Roberts name means the "shining"one and Andrew is now past the terrible thirteens. He, as his older two brothers, don't believe in the theory that says, boys will be boys and beginning their rebellion at age 13. Matthew never gave us any problems and Robert hasn't so we don't expect any from Drewmangeddes. We have three "teens" that believe it is best to follow God and obey their partents and not follow the pattern of rebellion the world promotes. We are very proud of these two young men. Happy Birthdays sons! (Andrew 14 and Robert 18)
The boys are starting to see the wisdom in my choosing this Southern girl to be my bride. Well, actually they have be the beneficiary of a great choice I made 21 years ago. She is sure proud of these two young men. She has been praying that God will use her children for His glory for a long time and I believe God has been gracious to answer her prayers. My prayers bounce of the ceiling so I can't take actual credit for this. Last week one about took me out .....as it rebounded of the book shelf and hit me right in the back of the head. Well, actually that was Karla's hand....
but God has used her in the past....and probably will continue to do so as necessary!
This is the SBC most godly woman 2007. Just a humble, servant of our Lord. For those of you that didn't read all the way to the bottom of the last post....it was a contest that I just made up...(steve P.) But I can tell you it won me many points in the "husbands love your wives" category.



This is what I meant about the wise choice I made in marrying a Southern Girl. For their birthdays we had biscuits one day, french toast on the next. Robert's birthday was Nov 27th and Andrew's was Nov 28th. We also had home made chocolate chip cookies to devour. We are treated like three kings over here near the orient!

Yah, that is what I am talking about!

Robert with his new blades will be learning how to play hockey or something on those things. A gift from his little sister.

Hey! What am I? Just a dog give me some of those cookie crumbs ....have you never read...Mark 7:28! Mani is learning how manipulate the Scripture like many of us......

Snack, says as long as she is the "center of attention" its alright to put up all the lights.....just don't talk about THE LIGHT as that makes some of the liberals really nervous as hearing that God loves us and sent His Son to die for us is SOOOOOO offensive to those on their way to the other place...sort of like the song "put another log on the fire". Well, I hope and pray that you are living under the Grace of God and not just holding off his Wrath for another Christmas season refusing to repent and heaping up judgment on yourself!

Now here is a beautiful young lady. She is intelligent, and loves Jesus. She is having troubles with gettting the dishes done but nobody is perfect! Katie is the only one that I can rely on if I was to go out and try to climb a snow covered mountian. You ask what about those big strong bothers of hers..... Trust me! I ask the same question my self! My knights in shining armor are a little soft but we are working on this....

Hey it is almost Christmas and we have our tree....look though it is empty underneath of there..

Here is Mani resisting temptation about the same way we do at Christmas time....do I want to buy that or not?.....let me just look at it for awhile....OK.....just a little longer. I'm reaching for my credit card.....but I am not going to buy it....I just want to make sure I didn't leave the card at the last place.....Oh there you are....quick while no one is looking.....Oh I feel so much better now my cousin's nieghbor's sister's step mother's grandmother's nephew is taken care of. I only have nine hundred, sixty five more presents to buy. STOP THE MADDNESS!!!!


Well, sorry Santa I just pretend to love you this time of season. I really love Jesus Christ, but I guess enough people that really love you, only pretend to love Jesus! That it makes up for my total lack of interest in your materialistic ways.

Oh! By the way as Christmas is fast approaching you need to get me those presents...ASAP. I (santa) must get your presents around the 15th or so no later then the 21st so that I can have my elves will sort them out and verify that they all work. We guarntee that all gifts sent to (santa) will be .....well ..... played with, used and apprecited before we put them back in the sacks and sent to the little children out there. In this ADD season....(absent of Deity Displays) please be a faithful one to explain to our deceived brothers and sisters on this rebellious planet that spending tens of thousands of dollars on stuff is NOT what God had in mind when He sent His Son into the world.....thanks and MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Remember the Christmas season is a time of fellowship and love reflecting God's great love for us, His creation! Some christians are like "snow tires"....only good for one season!