Baby Shower
Come and SHARE with us as we SHOWER Nolan and Hannah with gifts for baby Micah/Miciah/Colton Anthony Tarantino. WE will be on SKYPE with them on May 22nd from 2-4pm. And then we will SEND their precious gifts off to Belgium for them to enjoy. read more…
Discipleship
Sometimes ministry can be hectic. Especially in our position where we are working in a European Ministry Center, in which there are 17 different ministries and something always going on. One day we might be cleaning up read more…
Church Planting
This past week we had a unique opportunity to bring Janie Wead, one of our co-workers, to Amsterdam to teach the students about church planting. She has worked in our office for the past year under Michael McNamee and read more…
The Fall and Friends.
Fall in Brussels means the weather is going to be rainy! A few weeks ago the colors of fall were really starting to get beautiful but it didn´t take long for typical Belgian weather to start taking leaves off the trees. On Sunday read more…
Typical Week
The Friday Update… on Tuesday 
I was thinking that perhaps it would be nice to share a little about the past week. While this isn´t the week schedule every week, I would say that our schedules are starting to move this quickly all around for us. It´s easy for us to just get caught into the flow of the week that we easily overlook all the things we are doing. And if we are moving too quickly it´s easy to forget the details of what we enjoy so much… read more…
Director’s Retreat 2009
Last week we had our annual Director’s retreat in Vienna, Austria. We were actually an hour outside of Vienna up in a Mountain. With all the leaves changing it was absolutely beautiful and incredibly peaceful up there. The perfect “retreat”. This is a time we take every year with all the director’s to pray, fellowship and discuss things on leadership and discipleship. It’s always really refreshing to be around many people with the same vision and heart as us. This year was unique because we had a lot of new people who came with questions on how to start a Master’s Commission in their church.
We had two pastors representing Scotland that want to start a MC, another couple from Italy and a pastor from England. We had a lot of time to sit with them and talk about what they can do in preparation to start strong. I’m so thankful for these opportunities to share and pray together. It’s exciting to see our MC family grow. It’s even more exciting to see more youth being trained and discipled across Europe. Pray for these programs as they start in the next year. Pray for the pastors and directors who will be laying a lot of ground work and recruiting for students.
We also had representatives from the programs in Southport, England, Braunau, Austria, Reykjavik, Iceland, Amsterdam, Holland, Tartu, Estonia and Paris, France. The programs face a lot of different oppositions and God has helped them overcome a lot to be where they are today. This retreat allowed them to all come together and we find that through this we have been encouraged by fighting together for one common goal and leave feeling refreshed and built up.
Albania, Phase Two
You may remember a trip we took this past February, to Tirana, Albania, where we cleaned up a community called, Grumbillini. The community has now grown from 17 to 22 families, in which we’re ministering to. On this trip Convoy of Hope was joined with a team from Calvary Church in Toledo, Ohio.
The experience is hard to put into words. The families there are living in extreme poverty. There are a lot of children in the area. At times we had 60 children gathered in which we sang worship songs and taught bible stories. God is so good. The children have a great leader who is teaching them God’s love at such a young age. This is something the adults never had. You can see how these seeds are growing fruit in the children that will hopefully reach to the adults. Calvary Church has sponsored 52 of these children to go to school. 40 of those were not in school last year.
The team worked hard to redo the roof of the building. Last time we were there we had heard that the roof has major leaks and that in the night water will drip on the children, making them sick. So now this will no longer be an issue. The woman worked to create a children’s play room and surprised them at the end of the week with Rainbows and flowers painted on the walls. This will be a bright and cheery room for them in their dreary world.
I spent the entire week with the children. I have never been hugged and kissed so many times in my life!! The children love unconditionally. It has made a big impact on me. I have really fallen in love with these kids. They have so many gifts and talents. God really and truly made each one of them uniquely and for a divine purpose. Please pray with us that God’s hand will be on them and they will have a chance in life, unlike their parents. Many of them don’t experience love like they should. Pray they will know God’s love. I felt so blessed to be able to love on them while I was there. I can’t wait to go back and see them again!
Thanks to all who are supporting us. Because of your giving we are able to do things like this, where we can show God’s love in practical and very meaningful ways so that more people can know who God is.
Life in Moldova
This past week I jumped on a plane and headed east to the country of Moldova. Moldova borders Romania to the west, which is apart of the European Union, and to the west, Ukraine. The only prior time to heading this far over into Europe was a trip back in 2001 to Romania. It didn´t take long to realize Moldova and Romania were a lot a like from my memories.
I had the privilege of working with Convoy of Hope Europe to fly out there and document a huge outreach they were putting on in the city of Ungheni. I met for the first time, the Darrin family, who graciously took me in. They really gave me a great Moldavian time while I was there! I was spoiled.
This past Saturday was the outreach. There were around 3,000 people who came through the entrance to receive medical attention, haircuts, spiritual guidance/prayer and food. The kids had a huge area set aside for them in which they played all day, even in temperatures hitting close to +100!!! What stuck out to me the most was the unity of the 4 pastors who put on the outreach together! (different denominations, too!!!) That´s not something you hear about everything.
At the end of the day, I find myself taking deep breathes looking at life realizing there is so much need. I know it´s beyond my comprehension, but having some small part in giving back to others has to be one of the greatest things in life. I subconsciously continue to make decisions that make life more complexed but I am thankful that life is pretty simple right now. I hope to always find the strength to continue to stay focused on what opportunities come our way.
simple and pure Love.
The speed of our life has gone from a turtle’s pace to a racing rabbit and even more so in the past two months. There is a lot of great things that have been going on and we will share those with you in a letter, but I just wanted to share something that has been my peace now that our life has picked up and has kept my feet underneath me.
It seems that the faster my life gets the more complicated it gets and the easier it is to be consumed with complications. Because I am a worrier by nature the result is always me carrying around my own burdens and everyone else’s as well. In the midst of this God called me back to his pure and simple love. The reason I am where I am, the reason I do what I do and the giver of freedom to my complications is His love. When I focus just on this simple truth, nothing else seems to matter. When we truly know Him and His character it is easier to trust Him and then there is no need to be consumed with any complication. Life is simple again.
Ephesians 5:1-2 (Message) ” Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.”
This is such an eye opener for me. Whatever situation I face or how quickly my life may go when I read this is all comes into perspective. Keep company with him and learn a life of love.
When we felt God's lead to come to Europe we knew we would be working with Master's Commission and Convoy of Hope, but when we arrived here we realized that God had an even bigger plan with our involvement here in Europe...