Incredible Debrief - Leaving Bacharach, Deutschland in 4 hours...

Hey everyone - just a quick note to let you know we will begin our journey to Madison in a few short hours.  It is currently 12:38am in Germany (5:38pm in Madison) and leave our quaint debrief village on the Rhine around 5am, drive 40 min back to Frankfurt, and depart our connecting flights (after a 1-day layover here) to Dusseldorf and O'hare at 8:55am.  After a two hour layover in Dusseldorf, we should be back to O'hare by 2pm and in Madison by 6pm.

I can't enough about how amazing our last few days in Craiova were with our beloved Romanian brothers and sisters.  We found Bacharach to be the ideal the setting for a debrief experience.  In addition to being in a beautiful little village (oldest houses dating back to the 1300's and a church that was first built in 1100), we found so many great places (castles, mountaintops, vineyards, and cobblestone villages) to process, share, pray, and prepare ourselves for our return to the States.  Even though we've only been here just over 24 hours, we feel God has blessed us with a significant opportunity here.

We'll do our very best to have someone write up a better account in Frankfurt tomorrow AM. We're sorry we didn't post more while here, but we were without wifi and didn't have much time either.  We are SO THANKFUL for your prayers, support, and love for us.  It is clearly felt though we are thousands of miles away.  See you soon!

-Lief for the team (now finally to hit the hay! - Noapte Buna, Schalfen Sie Gut!)

Even More Retreat Photos

 All the Women on the Retreat with our Colorful Scarves

Brendusa (a brand new believer!) and Karen 

 The Brady Ladies and the Oae Sisters

 Fabulous Leaders from Romania - Martha & Mimi

 Ema Mihut - dressed in Traditional Romanian Costume

 Emily and our Youngest Retreat Participant

The Team and the Town Namesake - Hercules 

 Our Beautiful Retreat Speakers - Barb & Jacquie

Sassy Saiza and Bar-bah-rah 

 The Finished Products of the Crafting

 Rodica and her beautiful daughter, Breana

April, Romanian Youth Leader Claudia, Emily



Retreat Photos

Romanian's planting their fields

Diane with her host Anca

Francine Speaking

Jacquie's Amazing Greeting Card Craft Table

One of the many gypsy houses

More retreat deatails

Hi everyone! Finally we have some time to fill you in on some more details of the retreat.  First, here is a bit of history and Romanian culture.  The woman in Romania are not used to anyone serving them.  Their roles as wife, mother, daughter are full of work along with taking care of the house and family.  Communism only ended 22 years ago and woman's roles here are still very oppressed for American standards. These women have never been to a retreat and the majority of the women have never ever been away from their family.  Their husbands count on them for everything, so it was good that some gave permission for their wives to come. We left Friday am at 10:30 on a coach bus, drove through the countryside about 3 hours until we got to Herculane (home of Hercules).  We passed by many fields of families working and planting their fields. It looked like farming 100 years ago with no machinery, horse and plow and many people bent over planting.  We also passed by gypsy villages full of elaborate houses with tall spiraled towers. We got to the retreat and waiting for the women in their rooms were the "joy" bags we made for them filled with gifts, a scarf, soaps, journals, colorful folders and candy. They were all so surprised and felt so special to receive this. We started out with a group meeting with singing, introductions and Barb introducing our retreat topic of "garden friendships," who are the people who walk beside you in life when you can't walk anymore.  Diane shared and then free time to relax, get to know each other.  Saturday a.m. during the meeting Jacquie continued our teaching on friendship and how God uses people in our lives to display His comfort.  Free time in the late morning and afternoon were filled with card making, stamping, exercise room, sauna, or walking outside in the beautiful mountain air. The day continued with another session from Jacquie which included the plan of salvation, and how these women could have a personal relationship with Jesus.  Francine and April also shared their journeys through life with Christ. The women were very touched by their authenticity. This followed by free time of hand massages, manicures, more card making and a photo booth for them to take pictures with their favorite friend.  We had a talent show and ended off the evening with the movie, "The Blindside" with Romania subtitles.  Many deep spiritual conversations and questions were answered.  Sunday morning we ended the time with Barb speaking and Pat sharing her journey, along with a sharing time for the Romanian women. They were all so thankful for the time away and felt refreshed and energized.  One of the desires of the leadership team here in Romania was to have all the ages of women together worshiping, sharing wisdom and learning from each other.  The women all felt united and it didn't matter what age they were.  Some of the written comments from them were, " I savored the time like a coffee", " I felt loved and it was real", " My heart and mind are full of thoughts and wonderful things because I had the privilege to know what evangelicals are in my soul and I discovered that my soul has room for much love.", "Happiness of sisters from America and their openness of talking about everything.", " I felt spoiled by the Lord, felt closer to the Lord".

Salud!

A peak into the Retreat Talent Show

Enjoy this video of Karen & Irina with their entry into the Women's Retreat Sat night talent show. More pictures and stories to come!

Retreat a huge success!!!

Praise the Lord! What an amazing experience with 50 beautiful Romanian women!  The Lord blessed us with a safe bus ride,  great hotel,  tasty food and lots of laughter and fun between the  US and Romanian women.  But most importantly the retreat allowed all of us to grow in understanding of God's plan for our relationships with Him and each other.  The women are already looking forward to the next retreat.  Photos and more details will be coming tomorrow, Tues.   We were treated to a Romanian barbeque with our host families at the church this evening.  What fun!  Thanks for the prayers!

Blog Settings Changed - COMMENT away! :)

Hey everyone! Lief here - just off the phone with Emily and the other women from the retreat.  It sounds like they are off to a great start!  The men had a night of bowling, Romania's Got Talent, Catch Phrase, and homemade traditional "Mamaliga!" (see pic below)

We just realized that our blog settings have not allowed you to post comments to our blog without "signing-in."  Since many of you do not have accounts, and we have heard this was keeping some family, friends, and supporters from commenting on the blog posts, we've changed the settings to allow anybody to post comments easily. So, if you have a chance, please let us know you're reading the blog by dropping a quick comment on the blog for us! We read these posts every day at our meetings and they are a huge encouragement to us and remind us that we are connected to a vast network of people who love us and are praying for this trip and weekend retreat!  Thank you so much for your partnership in this.  We serve a great God.

The picture from the men at home for the weekend: