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Roberta speaking to the women at the Bethlehem Christian Center
Dear GGQ supporters,
I’m finally able to sit down at my laptop at a somewhat manageable time to write my blog for Tuesday, May 11th. It’s 10:30 p.m. now, but with our schedule, I haven’t been able to blog until Midnight on other nights, which accounts for my typos. So suit me! Hahaha!
Before I go any further, I want to thank the families in Timisoara for taking all of our team in their homes for the first 2 nights of our trip. Dan, ourRomanian Concert Tour director, and I stayed at Cipi (Chippy) & Ligia’s apartment. What a nice young couple they are. The hospitality, food and love for serving God couldn’t be better. We now have more Romanian friends for life!
After our concert on Saturday night at Bethel Baptist Church, Pastor Petrica Bulica had a dinner all set up in their fellowship hall for all of us. When I say “all of us” on concert nights, that also means The Impact Quartet. The Romanian dinner was awesome! You need to know that I think that Romanian food is terrific. Kudos to the wonderful lady that cooked for us. She was awesome and we gave her flowers and other things for her efforts and love for serving. Thanks Pastor Petrica for setting this up for us.
I cannot say enough how delightful it is to have the Impact Quartet with us. I think that they are enjoying themselves too and it really offers a variety for the concert attendees, along with having a quartet from their own country singing too. They actually speak excellent English and can sing songs in English, so we mix it up. It’s a blessing to have them and their wives/fiance with us.
We also have a professional video guy, Dragosmer and his cousin, “Larry” (that’s what we call him because his name was too difficult to remember. Hahaha!) are awesome! They are & will be capturing the essence of our GGQ Romania Ministries. They are interviewing attendees at our ooncerts; pastors of participating churches; people and kids involved in the ministries that we support; etc. I can’t wait to see the finished product! You will be able to see the video of our concert tour when it is edited and posted on line. We’ll have various lengths of the video posted in about a month.
On Sunday through Wednesday, Bob, Rob & I are staying at the Bethlehem Christian Center apartment in Hunedoara. The Shoemakers and Wilseys are staying in one of their offsite apartments. Thank you Corneliu for setting this up. Our accommodations are PERFECT!!
Ok, back to Monday & Tuesday. They were relaxation days and to rest our voices; however, we did accomplish some very meaningful GGQ ministry commitments. On Monday, we traveled to Petrosani to visit the missionary we support, Kelly Stark and her kids at the “Isaiah House”. We just have so much respect for her, what she does and the impact that she has on her community. For those who know of Kelly, but have never seen her “in action”, you have no idea how incredible she is and how well respected she is in that City. We spent about 6 hours there and visited other old friends in that neighborhood. It was great to see Catalina and her 3 cutie pie girls; “Little” Crina and her cute baby, Lenuta and all the kids at Kelly’s.
Kelly’s house is in total disarray with water leaking problems, mold and flooring problems, along with the continuing construction that goes on so slowly on her addition. It’s incredible how much they are putting up with in the house.
If anyone has a heart for her ministry, and you can help out financially, you c an donate on our website at http://www.ggqf.org/donations & scroll down to “Kelly Stark & the Isaiah House Family Center”.
While the guys were with Kelly, Alice and Roberta were into ministry needs and went to a camp in the mountains where they met with the leaders who will be working with kids with Autism. Alice has special teaching skills in working with kids with special needs and was very welcome there. The leaders had never worked with kids with Autism, so Alice brought her expertise and passed on valuable information to the workers at this neat camp. Then Alice and Roberta went back to the Bethlehem Christian Center, where Roberta spoke to about 40 women. Thank the Lord that Roberta & Alice were able to come on this trip. They have been invaluable with all of the tasks given to them and the gifts that they have been sharing with the Romanians on this trip. Thank you Roberta & Alice!!
On Tuesday, we did a little sightseeing and went to the “Citadel” on top of the hill in Deva. This is a fort that protected the city of Deva and the tram ride up to the top of the hill is really neat and a little scary. Then we went to that same camp in the mountains where Kelly & Roberta went on Monday. We had our own time with the workers and kids there. What a neat camp. We sang about 4 acapella songs for them, including “This Little Light of Mine” for the kids. We had a nice dinner with everyone and then returned to “home sweet home” at the Bethlehem Christian Center.
What a wonderful 2 days that was. Now it’s time for me to get to bed and rest up for tomorrow’s big schedule. We have breakfast at 9:00 a.m.; then a fellowship time with pastors & leaders in Hunedoara at the BCC at 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. We go to Corneliu’s house for lunch and return to BCC to relax until 4:00 p.m.! It’s back to performing a concert evening for us tomorrow at a big concert hall in Hunedoara.
Talk to you tomorrow!
Rich