A New Year Just Begun

Happy New Year!  The start of a new year always brings with it two things: assessing the previous year and looking ahead to the new year's goals.  We hope and pray this has been an exciting process for you, as it has been for us.  Before we get into our goals for 2014, please take the time to review some of our highlights from this past year as we have seen God work in Bucharest.

 - January 2013 - our first New Year's Eve in Bucharest
 - February 2013 - spiritual survey/candy bar outreach event with our local church
 - March 2013 - Jessica led worship for the first time in Romanian at a Women's Day in a nearby city; went to a meeting in Turkey and got to visit Ephesus
 - April 2013 - Jessica's family visited, and we all went to Rome for a few days
 - May 2013 - moved to a new apartment
 - June 2013 - Cameron preached in Romanian for the first time at a nearby village church, and Jessica painted faces for the first time in Romania
 - July 2013 - celebrated our 2nd anniversary; went on a retreat in the mountains with our local church; helped lead a Roma youth camp
 - August 2013 - helped lead a Vacation Bible School in another city; a seminary student named Adi interned with Cameron
 - September 2013 - three people were baptized at our church's first baptism service at the Black Sea
 - October 2013 - our dear friends, Matt & Lindsey, from our home church in NC came to visit; we hosted our first small group in our home
 - November 2013 - spent Thanksgiving in Timisoara with American missionary friends
 - December 2013 - Cameron taught his first ever seminary class; Jessica sang with the worship team at our local church for the first time; traveled to Spain to spend Christmas with Cameron's family

As far as our goals for 2014, we are continuing to strive for:
1. Increased prayer support/communication
2. Language and culture acquisition
3. Evangelism/discipleship
4. Practicing playing/singing in Romanian at least two hours per week (Jessica)

A few things we've added are:
5.  Having people in our home at least twice a month (not including our weekly small group)
6. Consistently and intentionally exercising at least twice a week

Our 2-year term in Bucharest will conclude in July, at which time we will return to the US.  We are in the application process to move from short-term to full-term missionary status and return to Bucharest Jan. 2015.  Please pray for us as we go through this process.  Of course, as we get closer, we will let everyone know what our plans will be when we get back to the US this summer.

To finish out this post, here are a few picture highlights from December 2013!