Endings, beginnings, a wedding, and a reception (or two)

Dear friends, it has been a while since I wrote and there are so many things that I want to write about to keep you informed about how God is working in my life and in the lives of the people of Romania.  It has been a very busy, exciting, and unusual two months!

Our school year ended in late June.  We ended the year strong and with some good direction for next year's program.  The teachers all did a great job of working with their kids.  The kids really learned a lot, not only about how to read and do math, but also about living life in a different, responsible way.  I already have many goals for next year, but I am praying for God's wisdom about which of these are most important to our overall goals of reaching this community for Christ. 

As many of you remember, we had many young people from Apalina make decisions for Christ at last year's youth camp.  One of my favorite parts of this year has been the new youth meeting that we started in Apalina to help these young people stay connected to other believers and continue to learn about God's love and His word.  This year's youth camp just finished, and although I wasn't there (more to come on that later), I have heard that there were many new decisions or new commitments to follow Christ.  Please pray for us as we continue with this work of teaching, encouraging, and discipling the youth of Apalina.  There are many, many hardships and temptations for these young men and women, but I truly believe that God's has spoken to many of them and that He wants to use them in the future of His work here. 

I was not at camp this year because I came back to the States to get married!  Yay!  July 12th will from now on be remembered as the happiest day of my life...the day that I married Katie Elizabeth McClung!  I actually arrived back in the States on June 14th.  I'm so thankful to my friend (and boss), Attila, for letting me come back almost a month before the wedding.  It was great to be with Katie for about a week in New York.  This was the first time we had seen each other in person since we got engaged on New Year's Eve.  We are both so thankful that God sustained us during the long five and a half months of being separated.  After a quick week at my parent's home in South Carolina, my father and I drove back to Brooklyn to move Katie and her belongings to Charleston.  Although there was much to do, we were so blessed to spend some time with dear friends in Leesburg, Virginia on the way back south.  I was so humbled and excited to see so many people who love us and the ministry in Romania waiting to spend some time with us.  They really waited, too.  We were about an hour late!  After a very restful night's sleep at the Andersons', we were on our way again.  Thanks to all our friends in Leesburg for making our brief stay so fun and special!

After arriving back in Charleston, things happened so quickly!  I flew to San Antonio for the wedding on July 5th.  Katie and I were able to enjoy a few dates (something very rare for us over our entire "courtship") even as we continued to prepare for the wedding.  My family arrived on July 8th and we enjoyed our first combined family meal on July 9th at the McClungs' house.  The whole week before the wedding was full of preparations and time with family and friends.  On Saturday, July 12th, shortly after 11 am central time, Katie walked down the aisle looking stunning!  There were more than a few tears shed (many by me as I felt so lucky to be standing there).  The whole ceremony was a beautiful celebration of how God brought us together, while also giving the honor and glory back to God for His goodness to us.  We even had a surprise telephone call from Attila (who was watching via internet in Romania).  He and Floyd (the minister who married us) had worked out this plan so that Attila could give us a blessing and pray for our marriage at the end of the ceremony.  More tears!  It was a beautiful day!

We were able to have a "mini-moon" of a honeymoon in Savannah, Georgia, before returning to Charleston for another wedding reception on Sunday, July 20th.  It was great to see family and friends there, too.  On Monday, we left for Knoxville, along with Katie's parents and her grandfather.  We spent a few days there before taking the bus to Atlanta to spend some time with Katie's brother.  That's where I find myself now as I write this update.  In a couple of hours we will be leaving for Greenville, South Carolina, where we will pick up a car and spend some time with friends.  On Tuesday we will head back to Charleston, where we will be based for the next few weeks before heading back to Romania on August 25th!  WHEW!  It has been a whirlwind of a month, but God is and has been so faithful to sustain us and give us joy!  Thank you to all of you who have also been so faithful to pray for us and send us kind words along the way.  Thank you for journeying with us.  We love you!

You can check out some pictures of our wedding day from our amazing photographer here.

Those who made decisions at youth camp

The kiss! :)

SOOOO Happy!

Newington Elementary Friends at our Charleston Reception

Still happy a week later in Charleston

First airport goodbye to last airport arrival.  We're traveling together now!

- Paul

Winter Bible Training Course

Bible training graduation

On Monday, April 21st, we had a special graduation service for those that completed our Bible training course. This course met every other Saturday starting in December. In these training sessions, the course was divided into three parts: Biblical knowledge and history, the spiritual life, and serving as a believer and member of a local church.  In the Biblical knowledge portion, there was a general overview of the history of the Bible, and then the course was broken down into the different time periods.  We finished this year with studying than people of Israel in the wilderness after slavery in Egypt.  In the spiritual life part of the course, we studied why it's important to have a quiet time, to pray, to meet together with other believers, and how to study the Bible in general.  In our study of serving in the church, we discussed what it means to give a testimony, how and why this should be done, how we should prepare ourselves for service, and other topics related to serving in the church.  At the end of the course, we had an exam covering the material.  We were so excited to give out 47 diplomas at our service.  Our plan right now is to continue this course next winter.  Please pray for those who completed the course and are now starting to take on new leadership roles in our churches.  

- Paul

Friday store...on Monday!

Last week we had our Friday shopping in the after school program on Monday.  Why? Well that's because we had our end of the month attendance celebration on Friday. In March and April I challenged the kids by offering a special trip to those who didn't miss school even once.  This was a harder goal to achieve, but we still had 13 boys that were able to make the trip. We went to Targu Mures, the biggest city in our county and had a cook-out in the park. The kids loved playing ping-pong and playing on the play ground there. We had mici (which is really hard to describe, but is somewhere between sausage and hamburger) and soft drinks for our lunch. Then, on Monday, we had our weekly store, where the kids can spend tickets they earn during the week. The kids never let me get away with missing a week of our store. In this new week, our focus is on respect. We are teaching the kids what it means to respect the building, the teachers and other adults, and each other. 

The workers are heading out!

This is the time of year when many of the Roma start to head to Western Europe to do migrant work.  This can be a great opportunity for them financially, but it can also be very hard to be away from family and church.  Also, there have been many times in the last two years that a group has come back from the work with no money because they were tricked into working for free.  Last night (Tuesday) in our Apalina church meeting, we asked anyone leaving this week to come forward so that we could pray for them.  They were so touched that we wanted to do this.  They were also charged to seek out other believers in the places they will go and to also be salt and light to the world they are going to.  Please join us in praying for them as they go!

Easter in Romania

It has been a very blessed Easter here in Romania.  I just wanted to share a few pictures of the sights from Romania over this very special weekend.  I thank God for each and every one of you who is praying for us and partnering with us in this work here!

In some of the villages in our area, homes where they have girls will have decorations like this outside for Easter.  On Monday after Easter, many of the boys of the village will go from house to house reciting a verse or poem and then they will spray perfume on the head of the girls and ladies of the house. In return they receive decorated eggs, chocolate, or even money.

Lilacs in the Reghin church on Easter Sunday

Adel made these eggs for a decoration outside their door.

After School Alternate School

Here in Romania, the week before spring break is called alternate school week.  During that week, the students don't have regular classes.  Instead, they have cultural presentations, visits by special guests from the community, and other activities that normally wouldn't fit into a "regular" school day/week.  In our after school program, we decided to also have an alternate school week.  Each day we had something different going on.

Monday: We worked on team work skills by having several team building games.

Tuesday: The girls baked a cake along with Cristina and Annamaria.  The boys played soccer outside and then enjoyed some cake! :)  We also had a mini ping-pong tournament.

Wednesday: We had a cook out and spent time outside talking and playing.

Thursday: We dyed eggs for Easter.  They have some really cool dyes here...we had some there were gold and other that were metallic

Friday: We had a BIG cleaning day!

I also got to speak at two other schools during this week.  In one school, they asked me to speak about what schools are like in America.  The other school asked me to talk about what I'm doing here in Romania and how things work in Apalina.

Saint George school where I spoke about what I'm doing here in Romania

If there wasn't so much pressure to get everything done for testing, I think this alternate school week would be a wonderful idea in the States, too.  The kids are already excited because the weather is nice and the want to be outside.  Add to that a week long break and the kids can hardly concentrate.  But with this alternate school, it was much easier and there were some really great programs at the school, too.

Our girls made delicious cakes!

Grill Day!

We had to eat inside on grill day because the rain came just as we were finishing the grilling.

Goin' to the chapel...

...and we're gonna get married!

Most all of you know about the upcoming event of the summer.  But in case anyone hasn't heard, I want to let you all know that...

I'm Getting Married!

Many of you also know this wonderfully special girl that I am so privileged to spend the rest of my life with.  But I'll tell you a little about Katie McClung (soon to be Crook), too.

We actually worked together for the first time in Romania!  When I first came to Romania to work with Toth Attila in 2010, I was essentially taking Katie's place for that summer.  She was unable to come because of graduate school (did I tell you she's smart?).  However, in 2011, we both came to Romania to work in the gypsy summer camp.  Although this wasn't the first time we had met, this was the first time that we spent any time together and really started to know who the other was.  I am so thankful that God placed us both in this place together that year.  Even though neither of us was ready for "us" to happen that summer, God even then started to lay the groundwork for our relationship.  In November of 2012, I asked Katie if we could start to think seriously about a relationship, and on December 31/January 1 (right at midnight) I asked Katie to be my wife.  There were fireworks...really, truly fireworks!

Katie is an ESL teacher in a public school in Brooklyn, but we will be living and working in Reghin, Romania after the wedding.  She will also be helping keep you all updated about what is going on in our lives.  You might actually get to know more about what's going on than if I myself try to keep this up! :)

Thanks to the many of you who have already congratulated us and for your continued prayers for our upcoming wedding and the start of our life together.

You can also check out our wedding website:
www.weddingwire.com/katieandpaul2014