Brian and Cynthia Fouts

December 2009 Update

2010-01-12T07:34:00.003+01:00

The highlight for this month was the children's/Christmas eve program this year. The kids have been working on their program for the adults for about a month and were going to be using technology to wow the parents. The older class decided to do a news interview with various figures that surround Christmas. They filmed all of it before the Christmas eve program and then edited the film and showed it at the Christmas eve service. It was really good, what was even funnier was the outtakes that were filmed during the making of the movie. The kids had a great time working on the program this year and the parents really were entertained by the hard work that the kids had put into it.

If you are interested in watching the Christmas program please follow this link, but also understand that its entirely in Romanian.

http://www.vimeo.com/8407417

The message that night was about simple faith verses unbelief and we looked at Zechariah and Mary as a comparison of those two things. We had a lot of new faces and it was good to be able to simply share the gospel with people and the reason why Christmas should be a time of joy.

After the service a group from the church went Christmas caroling in town and down our street. Something that people really like to do here. At this time its not uncommon to receive Christmas carolers at all times of the night, you get used to it. We were also able to really bless the Kids of our association and the parents with gifts boxes that were provided by Lebanon Calvary Chapel. We really thank them for their love and faithfulness is wanting to bless the kids and parents.

We are currently still working on the back of the house. We are finishing up patching the ceiling and the walls and preparing for paint. Our goal is to have one of the rooms completely finished by February so that we can use it for a sunday school room for Church and a game room for young people during the week. Please keep these projects in mind as we seek to repair and renovate the back of the house to better fit our needs.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for the leadership series we started on the 1st Sunday of every month. That God would use it to raise up Godly leaders.

Please be praying for the national conference April 6-9 that God would place on the teacher's hearts the things that he desires for us.

Please also pray that God would be preparing the ground for this summer outreaches into the city.

Pray for Romanian house parents for the kids that are placed with us. That they would be the perfect fit for the children.

Pray for the church to love one another and to reach out to those in the community that don't know Jesus.

We are starting a monthly 3 day prayer and fasting for our city and the church.

Pray for wisdom and vision for Brian in leading the ministries here.

Pray for the funds to purchase the church property we have $7100 dollars so far towards the down payment.

Please also be praying about finding a roofer that would be able to repair some big leaks that we have in the house.

Mitica one of the men in our fellowship lost his job recently and needs to find work.

Also pray for Andrea, a new lady I met last night. She is a friend of one of the ladies that comes to our church and her boyfriend has left her after living together for 1 year. She is very devastated. She is not a believer. We prayed with her last night. She really needs the Lord.

October 2009 Update

2009-11-09T14:43:00.005+01:00

This month we celebrated the baptism's of two new ladies to the church. Both Cornelia and Maria have been coming to the church for about 2 months. Cornelia was the mother of one of the tutor's for Lavinia's math over the summer and we invited them to church. During the service Brian felt like the Lord directed him to talk with her about salvation but missed her because they left so quickly after service. But by God's providence Cornelia come to the prayer meeting that night and we were able to talk with her about Jesus and what it means to accept him as your savior. She received Jesus that night and started regularly attending church and the midweek study.

Maria has been saved for about 2 years, she received Jesus at a conference in Bucharest, but could never find a church where she felt at home. Until one weekend a lady who attends our church invited her to our church for the picnic in August. She had a lot questions about different things that no one had every really been able to answer to her satisfaction. During the picnic she started in with her questions. The second thing that she observed was how everyone was just normal and real and seemed to really love one another. She also started attending the midweek studies.

a few weeks ago Brian received a phone call from a friend of hers who asked if she could talk to him about being water baptized as soon as possible. Brian met with her that Saturday and talked with her about what water baptism is and what it means. The next morning after service we brought the church into our house and filled the bath tub up and baptized her right there.

The next week Brian received another phone call and Cornelia wanted to be baptized on Sunday as

well. So we filled the tub and had the church crowd into our house and baptized Cornelia as well. It's so exciting to see both of these women responding to the Holy Spirit and wanting to be obedient to the Lord and his wishes. Please keep their families in prayer because none of them are saved. Pray that God would use these ladies as examples of Christ's love to their families.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for the upcoming conference on the Evangelism being hosted by Calvary Chapel

Bistrita

Please pray for the Lord to protect and strengthen the marriages in our church and with the leadership

Please pray for the Lord to provide House parents for the Romanian children that are placed with the missionaries

Pray for Wisdom and Grace for Brian and Cynthia is raising our family and leading the ministry here.

September 2009 Update

2009-09-15T09:05:00.003+02:00

We started the month with a leadership retreat for all of the Calvary's in Romania. The location was in the city Oradea which is on the border with Hungary. The Guest Speakers this year were Ken Sutton from Calvary Chapel Everett and Ed Hickey a Calvary pastor from Canada. Ken started the sessions off by teaching on the need to filled and continually refilled by the Holy Spirit for the work that the Lord has for each of in our respective cities where he has planted us. Ken was emphasizing that we what don't need is better programs or nice facilities but simply the power of the Holy Spirit. One thing to really stuck out to me was the fact that we can be gifted and dynamic in everything that we do. But if we do not do those things by the power of Holy Spirit nothing eternal happens. Ed Hickey complemented Ken very well by teaching about biblical leadership from a more hands on practical side of things. The place that we stayed at was extremely nice and relaxing for our families to stay and have fun. In fact we are going to try to hold the National conference for all of Romania

in the Spring at the same place. Overall the teaching was very good and there was a lot of time spent just crying out to God for each other and for our cities and for the country of Romania.

This month also gave Brian that privilege of dedicating a new addition to the church family here. Paul Bozbich, the new son of Adriana and Vasi. His big sister Patri was very excited to be a big sister now and keeps busy being the big helper for Adriana while she is home.

We do have some sad news though at least for us. Meaghan Alverson who came over as a intern from Calvary Chapel Boise returned home at the beginning of this month. We are really going to miss having her here. She was a great help with all of the projects we had here and also giving our teachers time off from teaching Sunday school this summer.

Lastly school started up again. Kaidon is officially starting the 1st grade now and is very excited about going to big school and doing his homework although we need to remind him to just do what the teachers asks him to do and not jump ahead. He seems to be adjusting well to the differences from kindergarten and is already making new friends. Sedona is very excited to be in the large kids group for kindergarten this year and Sage is doing well in the small group.

Prayer requests:

Please pray for Ioana. She is a girl that Natalie works with and was hit by her boyfriend which broke her cheek bone. She is in Cluj currently for Surgery is not going to press charges against him. Please pray for us to have wisdom on how to help her. We are considering taking her in on a discipleship basis to help her grow spiritually and also for her protection.

Please also pray for Natalie and the work that they are doing with the Gypsy kids. There has been a huge scandel within that community due to us reporting to the police about some sexual abuse. They are threatening us because they are upset we would report it. Please pray for the Lord to calm the situation down and to protect all of those involved.

Please pray also for Cynthia's mom who is going through chemotherapy for cancer. Things are going well but its always stressful when you here cancer.

Please also pray for Natalie's foot as she is been having some chronic pain in it lately.

We also have an opportunity to purchase the property that we are currently using for the church. The purchasing price is 140,000 euros. We are asking prayerfully for those of you who would like to help us purchase this property to help in the following ways.

1) We would like to give 50,000 dollar down payment and set up a legal agreement to purchase the house.

2) We have 900 dollars a month currently we need to raise that support for the building another $1000 dollars so that we can buy the property completely in 5 years.

If you would like to help in this we would greatly appreciate it.

July 2009 Update

2009-07-06T08:48:00.006+02:00

The highlight of this month would be one of the girls that is placed with us asking the Lord to be her savior. Lavinia is a 12 year old girl that has been living with us for the last 6 months. This month the ladies of the church setup a girls night for all of the preteen, teenage girls. The purpose of this night was to wine and dine them and then share with them God's desire for them to keep themselves pure before marriage. The response was very encouraging for the ladies as almost all of the girls responded. A couple of days later Lavinia started a conversation with Cynthia one night about the things that they had been discussing mostly just asking question to clarify why God wants us to wait. The conversation over time began to focus on Jesus and what it means to have a personal relationship with him. Not just having a knowledge about him but knowing him. Cynthia just kept answering and clarifying what the bible said about these and things and at the end of the night Lavinia prayed to accept Jesus into her life.

While she still struggles somedays its been exciting to see her attitude change and to watch her actually read her bible on her own without us reminding her to do so. Please keep her in prayer and also Cosmina the other girl that is placed with us also.

Please also keep us in prayer as we have an opportunity to start a home fellowship in a village next to Nasaud, a city 20 km away, that we have a home fellowship in. The family is open to having us come and start something there so please keep this in prayer as we use this as a beachhead into that community. I would also ask that you keep us in prayer as we look for a way to start similar fellowships in every village surrounding Bistrita. We will need men to lead and open doors to go through so please pray for both.

We have also started a Jr. High group, most of the kids in our association are in this age group and we are prayerfully looking for ways to speak into their lives about Jesus. It also provides a great opportunity to reach out to the kids in the neighborhood which are friends with the kids of the association. They are always over at our house anyway so this provides a way for us to share Jesus with them in a relaxed format. Please pray for the Lord to draw these kids to him through his word.

Prayer Requests;

Pray for the Jr. Group- please pray as we reach out to the kids in the neighborhood and through them their families.

Pray for the new home fellowship that God would use it as a entry point into the village

Pray for Lavinia and her new walk with the Lord

Pray for Cosmina to also respond to the Lord and accept him as her savior.

Pray for the Kids camp that is coming up the week of Aug 10-15. That God would bless the time with the kids and transform their lives.

Pray also for the leadership conference that we are setting up in Sept 1-3. That God would speak through the speakers and bless the church leaders and families during this time.

June 2009 Update

2009-06-29T08:19:00.002+02:00

The month of June found our family very busy with lots of traveling for different conferences, a missionary conference in Austria and Foundations conference in Hungary with a team from Boise, Idaho visiting in the middle. To sum everything up God is amazing in how he continually refines and challenges us to walk worthy of the calling he has given us. Cynthia and I have been praying for a couple of months about how to better organize the way that we do everything. That would cover the house, ministry, raising our kids. The Lord is faithful to answer our prayers in a number of ways. 1st with the house we have 11 people that live in the house total. With that many people we were finding it difficult to keep the house organized the way we desired it to be. But through an email from a friend and some encouragement from my pastor we were able to sit down and decide how we wanted to efficiently run the house. This week starts the training process for all of us. The kids because of the more responsibility that we are going to be giving them and the parents to help train the children. Cynthia read something that really clarified for us what we are to be doing. " We are raising children to become responsible adults not large children". what that means is as Parents we need to constantly be adjusting the way that we do things also so that we can better serve them.

Secondly the Lord is faithful to continue to refine and challenge myself in how we can do things more effectively and efficiently. Throughout the conferences I found myself being

convicted of settling for being comfortable in how things are. I found that through my comfort I was actually limiting God's work in my life personally and in the ministry. What is awesome is that the Lord really encouraged me to be more aggressive in these areas and not to be content with mediocrity. I am excited about the things to come because I know that as we are obedient to the Lord he will bless.

Prayer Requests:

-Pray for the Lord to give us renewed vision for the ministry here

-Pray for the organization of the ministry in Romania and for good fruit to come from their new organizational efforts.

-Pray for the gift of administration for Brian

-Pray for the specific guidance in reaching out into the community

-Pray for power of the Holy Spirit, strength and wisdom for Brian and Cynthia

April- May 2009 Update

2009-05-13T18:36:00.002+02:00

Song of Solomon 1:2, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For you love is better then wine. April found us very busy with getting to used to a new addition to the family and Brian teaching the Marriage conference this year. The focus was on understanding your spouse and we used the dialogue between Solomon and his bride to look at what God desires for our marriages. Specifically looking at the differences that men and women have and understanding that they are not for conflict but to complement each other. We adjusted the conference this year to the weekend to allow more people to attend and we greatly blessed with the turnout for the weekend. One of the highlights was a couple, that attends our church who received the Lord late in their lives, Not all of the children are walking with the Lord and its been a particular difficult for them to deal with. Their son Paul and his fiancee have had many discussions with them about why they left the Orthodox religion. They try to explain to them why they left but in general he doesn't understand and gets upset. We have been praying that he and his fiancee would come to the Lord. With them moving to Cluj a city 2 hours away for work it was going to be really hard to talk to them about the Lord. But Paul called his mom and wanted to come to the marriage conference and they came both days driving the whole distance. Totally surprised his parents and really enjoyed the entire conference. I was speaking with his mom the other day and they are now listening to a Christian radio station because it makes them feel peaceful. Paul's finacee even informed Paul's mom that she is reading her bible also. Keep praying for this couple, that they would come to know Jesus personally. 2 days later after the conference Brian took a van full of young people 7 hours to a conference in the south of the country where he was teaching. The Topic was on Grace, and there was people from all the Calvary Chapel's in Romania attending. All of the teaching was really good and it was a great blessing to be able to have our church participate in the conference.

Prayer requests:

Please pray for our church to strive for a deeper relationship with Jesus

Prayer for the leadership to be unified and Love each other.

Prayer for the upcoming travel for the team here and the teams that are coming from the states.

Pray also for Raluka and Ioana. Both of these ladies are going through some very difficult times in their relationships. Brian was able to share with them and pray with them. Pray that the Lord would give them wisdom on how to deal with their situations.

March 2009 Update

2009-03-31T08:23:00.002+02:00

2 Timothy 2:15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

One of the focuses that we have been trying to address within our own fellowships and all of the Calvary Chapel's Romania is giving our people a better understanding of the Bible as a whole. For the most part, in Romania, people either do not have any understanding of the Bible especially coming from a Orthodox background or they have only a partial understanding because they have only been taught topically. One of our goals is to teach the whole counsel of God. So we have started having some classes where we invite different Calvary pastor's to come and teach on a specific subject to help people understand their bible better. This month a good friend of mine Florin Enescu from Calvary Chapel Bucuresti, came and taught an overview of the entire bible. We had a great turn out for both days. Our church responded really good to the sessions that were taught. It allowed them to see who wrote the books, when they were written, the purpose behind why they were written and how that book specifically fits into the Bible as a whole, I was very pleased to see people with pens in hands taking notes and listening closely to what was being shared. Earlier I was talking to the church and was encouraging them if you don't know what the pieces of the puzzle are for and how they fit together then you never are going to see the big picture of what the bible is about. Calvary Chapel Bistrita sponsors the sessions in the North, which works out really well because it allows more people to come and participate without capacity limitations on vehicles or long 8 hour drives to go to a conference for 1 day.

In other news this month I am pleased to announce that Ryley Joy Fouts was born on March 11th at 2:51 PM she was 21.65 inches long and weighed 7lbs 6oz. Cynthia and the baby are doing great and its been a lot of fun to see the older kids fight over who gets to play with her next. It was a real answer to prayer for this private clinic to come to Bistrita. The clinic is about 10 minutes away from our house and the facilities and staff were on par with the states. Ryley is adjusting nicely to our crazy house and seems to be happy to just eat and sleep. Unfortunately we had to take a trip to Bucuresti to complete the paperwork for her American citizenship, because they closed the office in Cluj, but everything went well and we should be receiving her passport in the next couple of days.

Praise Report:

Cynthia and Ryley are doing great.

Adriana and Vasi are expecting a boy.

Prayer requests:

Prayer for the upcoming marriage conference that Brian is teaching on the 10th through the 11th

Prayer for Brian who is teaching a conference on April 21st in the south. Pray that the Lord would place on Brian;s heart what he wants the people to hear.

Pray for more mentors for the kids in New Beginnings. The ones that we have are doing a great job but we still need more people from the church to step up.

Health issues:

Ionela and Liana mom is in failing health. She is saved but pray for strength for the family

Mitica hurt his back

Pray for Carmen who entire family is having health problems. Pray for peace and strength for her since she is the only Christian in her family.

Cipri's Dad had leaukemia.

February 2008 Update

2009-02-17T15:22:00.004+01:00

Roman 5:20, Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. This last month I had the blessing and privilege to perform the marriage ceremony and baby dedication of Dorin and Alexandra Taut. About year ago one of the ladies in our church came up to me after the service and wanted us to start praying for her daughter Alexandra. This mother was broken hearted because of the decisions that her daughter was making. So we prayed that the Lord would work in Alexandra's life and bring her back to church, something that she had no desire for at this time. A few months later Alexandra agreed to come to church with her parents and her sister for the first time in a long time. The message that day was on the "Unlimited Grace of God". After the message Alexandra came and found me and with tears in her eyes she asked me if God's grace was even for a person that had done so many bad things and made so many bad choices. My answer was Romans 5:20 where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." I shared with her that no matter what she had done, she could never reach the end of God's grace. All that she had to do was to turn back to him and quit running. That he was not angry with her that he wanted to forgive her and wanted to guide her life. We sat down and prayed right there. This last month I was able to share with her family about what the bible says about marriage and dedicating your children to the Lord. Some of this family come from varied backgrounds some are not saved and some of are under the yoke of legalism. It was wonderful to look at these two young people who had made poor decisions, and were struggling with whether the Lord still loved and to see in their faces a renewed life, a life with the understanding of the unlimited grace of God.

Praise report:

We had a donation towards a sound system and towards purchasing some property for a church. Please pray that the Lord would continue to open doors for us and guide in his timing to his location for a church in this city.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for the congregation to continue to grow in their depth and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pray that they would be lights in the areas of influence that God has placed them.

Pray for us as leaders to be example of the love of Christ and his Holiness

Pray for Cynthia and the baby as we are down to 4 weeks until the due date.

Pray for Adriana and Vasi, they are expecting another baby and need to find a place to live that will meet their needs.

January 2009 Update

2009-01-26T08:20:00.005+01:00

Romans 8:28- And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.The end of 2008 brought us back to the states for a visit. To say the least it was a fun but interesting visit this time. If you didn't know, Cynthia and I decided that she and the kids would go back to visit 6 weeks before I would make the trip back. This would give them time to visit with family and friends while I stayed and worked on finishing some projects up that needed to be completed. But Dec 16th came soon enough and I was able to make the trip back to the states. This is where all of the fun begins. While I was flying back there was some really bad winter storms coming into the Oregon. I managed to fly into Portland in between the storms. After being in the states for about 17 days; we were traveling in Oregon with my dad's van and stopped to celebrate a birthday party at Chucky Cheese in Salem, Oregon. While we were in the restaurant our van with all of our stuff, including the new computer equipment we had just recently purchased, and 9 of our 12 bags was stolen from the second row of parking in front of the restaurant. We walked out into the parking lot and found an empty space where the van should have been. After making some calls Cynthia spotted the van across the parking lot. What had happened as best as we can put it together is the following. They broken into the van and moved it, then went through our stuff. What was an amazing thing about all of this was that the only things that were stolen were the things that were easily replaceable. They left all of the bags with the kids clothes for the next 2 years and only took the computer stuff, a duffle bag of clothes for church the next morning and a large bag that was on top full of new pajamas for the kids. Everything else was left intact. The funny thing was, I was supposed to teach the next morning 2 services at a church and had lost all of my presentation pictures on the laptop. So after dealing the police and driving to my parents I started to work on my presentation by scavenging photos off of old emails. I finally went to bed wondering how all of this was going to work out. Church went great the next morning. What was really cool was that I had a peace about the whole thing after the initial shock of having stuff stolen. God is so good, Monday I made a trip up to Seattle because I needed a new passport (that was in the stolen computer bag). And it turns out since my brother-in-law bought the computer stuff for us and we paid him, his renters insurance covered the loss of everything. God is so good.

The next thing that happened was on the way back from Boise to Oregon. We started to have problems with the van that we borrowed. about 5 hours out of Portland Oregon. It was in the middle of nowhere so we just kept going until we were doing 35 mph on the freeway coming into Portland at 12:30 am. We called my brother-in-law at this point and he said he would drive up and help us. 45 minutes later we received a call from him stating that he was 10 minutes from us but that his car had broken down as well. So a 3rd car was coming for reinforcements. By now it was 2:00 am and we started looking at the van to see if we could figure out the problem. We decided to try to make the 40 minute drive to Woodburn, Oregon with them following us to see if we could make it home. We had no problems with the car until we pulled of the interstate into Woodburn. After returning to Romania my dad wrote me to let me know that we had traveled 400 miles in a van that had a fuel pump that was on the verge of failing. God is so good.

We came back to Romania only to find that our troubles had not been just in the states. The heating system in the church had frozen up while we were gone. So we were without heat in the church. The first Sunday I was teaching we were running electrical heaters in the church to heat it up and we lost power 2 hours before service because we blew a fuse. We managed to get that fixed before service and service was great. We are now working on eradicating a large family of mice that moved in while were were gone and are currently on execution number 15 in 3 days.

I share all of this to point to how great our God is at taking care of everything that happens to us. He gets the glory because he is the one who works things out. And while he is doing that we get to be stretched and challenged in ways that are sometimes not fun but afterwards are always worth it. I including some pictures of us celebrating Christmas and visiting family.

Praise report:

The church heating has been restored.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for us to continually look to the Lord for all of our needs.

Prayer for the Lord to provide workers for the harvest.

Pray for the health of Cynthia and the baby which is due on March 18th

Pray for Cipri's father as he has leukemia and is not saved.

Prayer for Patri's health, she was in the hospital again with pneumonia

Seasons' greetings 2008

2008-12-07T21:58:00.003+01:00

We just wanted to send a quick Merry Christmas out to everybody. We thank you for being a part of our lives this last year. Every year seems to go by faster and faster its seems. We are continually amazed at the goodness of God and how he is always faithful in providing for everything that we need. All of you are an important part of that. We appreciate your continued prayer and support throughout the last. We will be visiting the states in the months of December and January. We hope that we will be able to see all of you that make what we do possible. May God richly bless you and guide you in all things. Have a wonderful Christ centered Holiday.

From our out family to yours, Love

Brian, Cynthia, and the kids.

November 2008 Update

2008-11-21T10:31:00.005+01:00

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek.

This Month Calvary Chapel Bistrita sponsored a Gospel conference. It was a 2 day event all day Saturday and finishing up on Sunday morning. I had a good friend of mine William Anderson from Calvary Chapel Bucuresti come and teach 4 sessions focusing on the gospel. We had 22 people show up for all day Saturday and all of the regulars come for Sunday when William finished up. William did a great job of both explaining and reminding people of who's gospel it is. What it does, and How it should impact our lives. This conference is the beginning of a series of conferences that we are going to be sponsoring throughout this next year in prayerfully seeking to bring our people back to the basic tenants of Christianity. There is such a need here to continuously remind our people of the simplicity and power of God's gospel. We had many people remark about how they really enjoyed the co

nference and both learned and were reminded of things that are foundational to having a Christian walk that is growing and making an impact to the lost around them.

This month also brings a lot of the team heading home for the holidays. All of the Americans have left with the exception of me and its been very busy trying to get all things that still need to be done completed. But with that I am excited because it allows other people to step up into roles in ministry that are both fun and challenging for them. Dorina and Cristina are both stepping up to teach the kids while Cynthia and Natalie are gone. It is my prayer and hope that we will establish a rotation every 3 months to give opportunities for Romanians to step up and start teaching the kids.

This month also saw us create and distribute prayer cards of all of the kids in the Sunday school. It has their picture and some basic things that they need prayer on. We had 24 cards and I asked for people within the fellowship to take a card and pray over the child that they choose throughout the week, all 24 kids were given out. Along with this we asked for volunteers to mentor these kids. We are starting with the children under the association first. We asked them to commit to a couple hours a week just spending time with the child that they choose. We had 3 ladies come forward and want to do that also. I am so proud of our church, seeing people step up and minister to each other is so awesome.

Prayer Requests for needs:

New Beginnings:

Prayer for financial provision, specifically monthly support, for New Beginnings, This is an NGO that is part of our ministry here specifically tasked with ministering to Romanian orphans. Here is a new video about the specific needs of this ministry http://nbromania.org/about-new-beginnings-romania.php

Prayer for the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the church and that people would have a passion for Jesus.

Pray also for Cipri that the Lord would guide into a job.

Pray also for Daniel as he is looking for a place in Germany so that he can go to medical school. Pray that the Lord would guide him into a good church and affordable apartment.

Pray for a family that we just found out lost their husband. He was 36 years old and left a wife and 6 children. They are not apart of our fellowship but we looking for ways that we can help them through this devastating loss.

Personal needs:

Please Pray also for us as we are expecting our 4th in March. Pray for healthy mommy and baby.

Prayer for divine appointments when they are back in the states and sharing about Romania. That people would have a heart to pray and become involved in Romania.

Pray for Brian and Cynthia as they will be apart for 6 weeks while she is in the states visiting along with the kids.

Prayer requests for health issues:

Prayer for Leana and Ionela mom who is failing in her health. Please for God to give them strength and grace as they have to take turns watching her.

Please pray for Tanti Docia she is a lot of pain with her Hip.

Prayer for salvation:

Pray for salvation for Crina, Roxanna, Bobbi, Claudiu, Dorina's family, Cipri's family, Ioana, Vali and Maria

October 2008 Update

2008-10-14T09:09:00.003+02:00

1 Corinthians 13:8 "Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away."

The leaves were turning and the mornings were getting colder. We couldn't help but notice that Fall was in the air. But the month of October also started with something else in the air. LOVE. We began the month with our annual Ladies Tea. Our theme this year was The Ultimate Romance. It was an amazing event this year. Many of the ladies even thought it was the best one we've had yet. It was our goal as a church body to pamper and romance the ladies from the time they arrived. We had several ladies attend from within our congregation of course but they also brought several others from other churches, their places of work and their friends. As they entered the room it was like walking into a wedding reception. Everything from candles and roses to tulling and flower petals. The teaching was all about how we will find our ultimate romance in God rather than

putting such pressure on our spouses to fill the expectations we have that they don't even know about. The ladies left blessed, refreshed and

wanting to take some romance home with them. We had made hundreds of heart shaped "flower petals", with romance scriptures on them, to sprinkle all over the tables and not one was left to cleanup at the end of the tea. Over half of the ladies asked to take them home to use. That was a blessing to see how impacted they were to the point taking these little things home with them.

Please Pray specifically for Cristina's aunt and uncle we have been praying for them for the last 4 years for salvation. Her aunt actually came to church a couple of weeks ago and really liked it. She went home shared the whole message to her husband and all of the neighbors. Please pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to draw her to the Lord along with the whole family. She wants to start coming to every study that she can. So we pray that the Holy Spirit would bring conviction and transformation.

Prayer requests:

Upcoming events:
Pray for the upcoming Gospel class that Calvary Chapel Bistrita is hosting on November 15th. It will be 3 session event that covers an in depth study of the gospel. This will be open to anyone and everyone that is interested. So please pray that we would see believers and non believers alike come and learn what the Gospel is really about.

Pray for the foundations class that has started. That people would be grounded in the word as we look at the basics of Christianity over the next 8 weeks.

Prayer for a leadership class that Brian is currently working on for the spring. That people in the body would have a desire and be equipped to the serve the body here in Bistrita.

Prayer Requests for needs:

Prayer for financial provision, specifically monthly support, for New Beginnings, This is an NGO that is part of our ministry here specifically tasked with ministering to Romanian orphans. Here is a new video about the specific needs of this ministry http://nbromania.org/about-new-beginnings-romania.php

Prayer for Romanian Parents for one of the Family Centers. Currently the leadership is rotating through on a daily basis and its difficult with having our own families to take care of along with other responsibilities. Its also hard on the kids because of no stability.

Prayer for safe travels for the Fouts coming to visit this winter. Prayer for the provision for their travels.

Prayer for divine appointments when they are back in the states and sharing about Romania. That people would have a heart to pray and become involved in Romania.

Prayer for the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the church and that people would have a passion for Jesus.

Pray for one one of the young people, Andrea, who is currently out of fellowship because her parents do not want her to come to church and is making some very poor decisions in her life.

Pray for a couple in our fellowship who are new converts. 2 of their children are Orthodox and because their parents have left the orthodox church their is a huge strain in their relationship. Prayer for peace and love within the family.

Prayer requests for health issues:

Prayer for Leana and Ionela mom who is failing in her health.

Prayer for Adriana and Vasi's little girl Patri, she has been very sick lately with coughs and colds. Prayer for healing for her body and protection against the bugs.

Prayer for Adi's mom who has Diabetes she has been have trouble keeping her sugar levels in balance. Please pray that the doctors would find the correct medication to help with this

Prayer for salvation:

Pray for salvation for Crina, Roxanna, Bobbi, Claudiu, Dorina's family, Cipri's family, Ioana, Cezar, Vali and Maria

September 2008 Update

2008-09-23T09:33:00.008+02:00

Isaiah 61:1-2a, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

To Proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

This last week as I was sitting in a bible study teaching on the book of

2 Thessalonians, I looked around the table at a group of people of all different walks of life just sitting there with their bibles open, taking notes. We were studying the

word of God, listening to Paul correct the confusion that had come into the church of Thessalonica. Looking back over what seems like such a short time we have been amazingly blessed to see the people that the Lord has brought into our church. People that have come from different life situations, different hurts, different prisons and yet through the simple teaching of the word we have seen these people be healed emotionally, and set free. Its a great privilege to sit with them and encourage them to get their eyes off of their circumstance and just look to Jesus, for all of their needs.To see the fruit that is being produced in their lives over the months and years of hearing the Word. To see them continuing to grow and mature as they learn to trust the Lord more and more in the things that life throws at them. I just sit and marvel at the Lord.

When we first came to Romania we had only 1 translator for church and bible studies. We had only 1 person to lead worship. But now we have seen 1 translator go to 4 and 1 worship leader to 2. We have seen the young people that have been here the longest starting to step up into areas of serving that need help. Working with the sunday school, translating for studies and sharing their faith through different ways.

I have watched some of the older believers start really reading their bibles, really desiring to understand what the Lord is sharing with them. Turning away from the church tradition, and starting to grasp the Grace of God. To understand how much the Lord really loves them and that they do not have to fear God like he hates them and is waiting to strike them down if they make a mistake.

Its so exciting to watch the Lord set people free, from the bondage of sin, the bondage of religion and the bondage of legalism.To see them search the scriptures for answers to life as they learn the Bible more and more. To see them talk to family, friends, colleagues they work with or go to school with and encourage them that there is something different then what they are experiencing in this life. It has nothing to do with religion or morals but simply Jesus.

One of the things that we are asking from those of you who are involved in prayer, and support financially is to help us better communicate and connect with all of you who make this all possible. If there are things you would like to hear incorporated into the our prayer requests, monthly news updates, etc. please let us know. If there is anything that you feel like the Lord has shared with you specifically regarding the ministry here we would love to hear from you. With Agape from our family to yours Brian, Cynthia and kids.

Praise report:

Doru was one of the the new young men that was invited to the youth camp by one of our young people. While we were at the camp he seemed to listen to the studies but we never actually were able to sit down and talk about what he was listening to. I figured that he was enjoying the camp but was not interested in what we were talking about. He came with another friend Claudiu who would find me after the studies and continue to ask me questions. The funny thing was that Doru was the one that started attending some of the mid week studies and coming on Sunday when he was not working. This last week I was talking with him over yahoo messenger and was amazed to hear him start talking about his life. How he felt so sinful and small. It was at this point that I just started asking him some questions and reading his answers. I asked him if he had a Bible next to him. He answered yes, he had recently visited his mom and she had given him a Bible which he started reading. We read what God wrote about sin and about what it means to be born again and justified. after about 1.5 hours he told me that he wanted to be saved. I simply told him you need to ask the Lord and he will save you. So we prayed together right then. What a great week!

Prayer Requests:

Pray for wisdom and God's guidance for Brian and all of the leadership.

Prayer for Unity in the ministry

Prayer for financial provision, specifically monthly support for New Beginnings, this is an NGO specifically tasked with providing family care for Romanian orphans.

Prayer for Romanian parents for one of the family centers.

Pray for safe travels for the Fouts' family as they travel back for a visit this winter.

Pray for financial provision for the Fouts' travel.

Pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon the lives of the church here that they would have a passion for Jesus.

Pray for Leana's and Ionela's mom as she is in failing health. Pray for the family.

Pray for Patri the little girl of Adriana and Vasi, she always gets very sick in the winter weather here. Please pray for the Lord to protect her from sickness and be with her parents.

We are also asking that you pray that during our visit back the Lord would bring divine appointments as we share with people about the work here in Bistrita. That we would meet people who want to partner with us and the ministries here.

August 2008 update

2008-08-17T17:09:00.005+02:00

Ephesians 5:21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord. This is the verse that Paul uses right before he starts writing about how we are to serve each other in our personal relationships. The first one of course that he brings up is the relationship between a husband and a wife. This was the text that Brian used at the wedding of Daniel and Any. Any was one of the girls that has been in placement with New Beginnings for the ~ 5 years and while off to school in Sibiu met Daniel. After a short period of time they got engaged and on August 10th Brian officiated his first official wedding in Romania. In Romania people have a civil ceremony first which Dani and Any had in Sibiu on Friday the 8th. They then traveled up to Bistrita for the Church ceremony and another reception. It was a beautiful wedding and everything went very well. The reception was fun with games and food. Brian followed that the next morning with a trip to cabana with a group of 14 teenagers for a few days. What a great time of staying up really late and playing cards and talking with these young men and women about God and what the bible teaches about him. In the evenings they worked their way through the story of Samson. Brian had a great opportunity to sit with a lot of the kids one on one and just talk to them about the things of the Lord and about life. There were a couple of friends that came that were raised orthodox but had no idea what a relationship with Jesus was about. One of the guys after the last couple of studies wanted to know more about what Brian was talking about and had never heard the bible taught so simply to where he was able to understand what was being said. It was a totally awesome to see the Holy Spirit working in the guys life and see him interested in the things of the Lord. So Brian just shared with him from the Bible and his heart and prayed for him and encouraged him to come to church and check it out. Please pray for Claudiu that the Lord would reveal himself to him in a powerful way. That satan would not remove the seeds that were sown into his life.

Finishing out this month we had a our church picnic and a church baptism. Both of these were great times to see the church get together for fellowship and celebrating someone making

a public statement of their faith.

Praise note:

The youth camp went very well and it was great to see the Lord working within individual lives in a very real way as they seek him.

Doru, which a young man that came and did not seem to interested at the camp has started coming to church and the monday study. Pray that the Lord would draw him into a real relationship.

Cipri one of the young men that has been coming for year was baptized this month. Pray that the Lord would continue to work in his life strongly and use him be a powerful witness to his family and friends around him.

Prayer requests:

Prayer for Unity with the youth group that they would have one heart
Pray for those that are involved in relationships with unbelievers to be submitted to the word and will of God.
Prayer for Claudiu, Doru, Crine that God would reveal himself to them.
Prayer for Dorina that God would use her to be a witness for him in her family
Prayer for strength for these young people to really live for Jesus and want to make an impact in their generation.
Prayer for Dorina Dad, he is getting better but still has a ways to go. Prayer also for the family.
Logistics for the Fouts family coming back for a visit to the States this winter. The dates that we are looking at are Oct 31st Cynthia and kids will arrive in Portland Oregon, Dec 16th Brian will arrive in Portland Oregon, God has answered the first part of our prayer for this with a really good price on tickets. Please pray that the Lord would answer the second part this with the rest of the finances to come in for them.

July 2008 Update

2008-07-28T13:03:00.003+02:00

1 Peter 1:13 Wherefore gird up the loins of you mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. This was the theme of this year's equipping the saints conference. The speakers for this year were some good friends of mine one being a fellow missionary sent out of Calvary Chapel Boise, Andrew Mccall, who pastors a church in Hungary. The other speaker is an assistant pastor out of Calvary Chapel Boise, Tom Valesco. Andrew taught the first night and gave a great overview of Grace in the life of the Apostle Peter while Tom taught the next couple of nights on being built up in Grace using 1 Peter as the text. It was great to see a group of , Romanians, Americans, and Hungarians being able to attend the conference and be equally challenged and blessed. It was also a lot of fun to spend some time with Andrew and Tom in the evenings walking around the town and enjoying the festivities of Bistrita Days, which is a local celebration every year. During this time we also had a

team from the Boise/Kuna area and England come and work for 2 weeks on the cabana. They worked on replacing the broken down fence around the cabana itself to keep the neighbors cows and horses out. They also set up a removable pump so that we can fill the tank in the cabana and have running water. In addition, they finished the bathroom and fixed the plumbing. They also cleaned up the place and tore down one of the useless outer buildings. Along with all of that it was great to be able to just hang out and fellowship with some really good people. They all left very tired but excited about what they were able to do in such a short time. Overall July was a very busy month with the conference and the teams but in the end it was all worth it. We are continuing to pray that this conference in the summer would be a great tool to equip the local body here in Bistrita and any others that come. Next month is going to be just as busy and we ask for prayer for the Any's wedding that Brian will be officiating on August 10th and also the kids camp, and youth camp retreat.

Prayer requests:

Prayer for the church to continue to grow in Grace, Faith, Hope and Love
Prayer for Brian and family with the logistics of traveling back to the states for a visit this winter.
Prayer for Unity in the Body of Christ as Satan is always trying to cause problems
Prayer for Any's and Dany's Wedding in August, just for the final preparations
Prayer for the Youth camp, Kids Camp
Prayer for Dorina's family specifically her dad as he is starting chemotherapy.
Prayer for Leana's and Ionela's mom as she is failing in health.
Prayer for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit within our individual lives and the fellowship here.

June 2008 Update

2008-06-25T18:11:00.002+02:00

Zechariah 4:6.... Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts. We just returned from the annual foundations conference in Vajta, Hungary. In one word WOW, what a great time of spending time in the word, fellowship,prayer, and the breaking of bread. The speakers were Tom Stipe, the Senior Pastor of Crossroads church of Denver, John Chubik, Associate pastor for Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, Justin Gerry, The Senior pastor for Calvary Chapel Celje, Slovenia, Janos Nemeth, Senior pastor from Calvary Chapel Tatabanyam Hungary and Kurt Kula from Poland.

Everyone of the messages were both encouraging and challenging for all of us to really become completely dependent upon the

Holy Spirit for every aspect of our life. One of the messages that specifically impacted me the most was a message from John Chubik during the men's session. He was drawing our attention that while the theme of this conference was about the power of the Holy Spirit, 4 of the messages were specifically addressing prayer. He then began to share that prayer is what unleashes the power of the Holy Spirit into

peoples lives, situations, and needs. That through prayer we can start asking the Lord to work in our communities in ways that realistically is an impossibility for our churches.But that in prayer we can ask for God to get us ready and make it

happen. That our prayer time in our churches is in reality the life of the church. That it needs to be taken serious and passionately by us. Overall just a wonderful message to bring refocus.

The weather was not that great most of the week but by Thursday and Friday it had really heated up nicely so that we spend some time in the pool. The kids look forward to the pool every year and so they were not disappointed at all with us spending a couple of afternoons there.

Overall we had 28 people from our church attend the conference. All of them were extremely

impacted by the word and we are looking forward to what the Lord is going to do as he continues to work these messages into our lives.

The Month of June also signifies our oldest son Kaidon turning 6 which he has been extremely excited about since approximately January. Its very amazing to us to see our son continue to grow and become very much a young man.

Knowing that in a few more years he will be a teenager. We continue to keep him in prayer that the Lord would use him here in Romania as he grows spiritually. In many ways its amazing to think of Kaidon having the ability to truly crossover into a culture, for that matter all of our children as they grow up here and go to school here. They are truly a blessing from God and we get the privilege of sharpening these arrows to be sent out to where He would have them.

Prayer requests:

Pray for the our church to really make and impact in this small city and even beyond that

Pray for the equipping the saints conference July 9th-11th, the speakers are Andrew Mccall and Tom Valesco.

Pray for the body to be unified

Pray for the church to continue to grow in Faith, Hope and Love.

Prayer the our return visit to the states this winter. Specifically logistics

Prayer for a new building to meet our needs

Prayer for the teams that are coming for safe travels and logistics.

Prayer for the harvest, that the Lord would soften the soil of people's heart.

April, May Update 2008

2008-05-16T10:42:00.003+02:00

Hristos Inviat, this a common greeting this time of the year. We celebrated the orthodox easter this year on April 27th. Its amazing to see all of the life that is starting to come up after a long cold winter. The flowers are in full bloom and the land is full of color where ever you look. It was a real blessing to see new faces in the church. To be able to share the celebration of the Lord's resurrection to a country that is in desperate need of Joy. The message this year was out of 1 Corinthian 15 Christ's victory our victory. I was able to share that our victory over, death, sin and the law is found in Christ. We followed church up with a nice meal that Cynthia had prepared for the family. In April we also celebrated Sage's 2nd birthday with our friend Chloe who turned 3. We invited some friends over and enjoyed some cake and snacks. Cynthia is adding to her skills in making special fancy cakes for the kids. Sage's cake looked a like a wrapped gift box. She got a new tricycle, water doodle pad and pen, and a doll from Spain via Natalie.

In the month of May we had the Romanian national conference. To say that it was a blessing would be a understatement. We had guest speakers, Brian Broderson, Ken Sutton, and Phil Metzker come and share on the theme of Joy Unspeakable. The People were really blessed and we had a really good turn out for the conference. I think that final number was ~130 people. We just want to thank all of you for your prayers about this event, because everything ran fine and pretty smoothly despite finding out that we lost more beds than we had anticipated. Every church took turns working with the kids and everything came together really well. The fellowship and spending time with people that you only see once a year sometimes was priceless. It felt just a like a family reunion in seeing familiar friendly faces. We can't wait until next year.

Praise report:

We purchased a projector finally praise the Lord.

Praise for a great conference

Prayer request:

For the Lord to Guide the church into effective outreaches into the community

Prayer for the ministeries within Romania for all of the changes

Prayer for the equipping the saints conference in Bistrita

Prayer for the Fouts' visit home this fall. That all of the finances & logistics will fall into place.

Prayer for the congregation to have a greater understanding of a Gospel of Grace

Prayer for unity within the body of Christ

February, March 2008 Update

2008-03-24T10:54:00.005+01:00

1Pe 3:8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
The month of march brought the promise of spring with increasingly warmer days. We had the privilege of entertaining a couple of guys from Boise who were coming to work on some video for a DVD that they are planning on developing for our missions in Europe. It was a great time visiting and fellowshipping with Kelly and Matt while they were here for a few days. The month of March was also the time for our second annual marriage conference in Bistrita. We invited Keala and Heather Hoe to come and share with us from 1 Peter on marriage. And we had a great response of people coming to the sessions. I was really amazed at how well our church reached out to others who they thought would be interested in attending the conference. Overall I received very good feedback on the conference and it seemed that everyone really enjoyed the time.
In February we had a great time celebrating our daughter Sedona's 4th birthday. It constantly amazes me how quickly they grow up. We had a small party for her with invites to a couple of friends. Sedona was very excited because Mom made her a princess birthday cake with towers. She also was enjoying being the center of attention for the day and the breakfast that Daddy took her out to before school.
The other birthday that we celebrated in March was Cynthia she turned 33 this year. She decided to make herself a black tie mousse cake for her birthday which everyone agreed was just as good as Olive Garden's. Although its been a very long time since we have been there. But it was divine.
We are starting to prepare for the busy days that lay ahead. In April we start having some visitors and final preparations for the Romanian national conference.

Prayer Requests:

Romanian National conference logistics
Finding a larger building for Sundays with 3 class rooms for sunday school
Prayer for Mia she is the mother of two ladies that attend our fellowship and her health is failing
Prayer for salvation for those that are attending church that don't know the Lord personally yet
Prayer for the continued empowering of the Holy Spirit in the church.

January 2008 update

2008-01-09T10:21:00.000+01:00

2Ti 2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
that was the goal of this month's pastors conference that we hosted in Bistrita. Last summer at foundations I had met with Andrew and we had been talking about ways to study the Bible and which ones are better then others. He brought up his study style which is using the IBS method for study preparation. For those of you who don't know what that it. Its stands for inductive Bible study. To put it simply you only use the bible for your preparation. No commentaries, other teachers, cd's etc. The more we talked about it the more that I thought it would be a great idea for him to come over to Romania and teach the pastor's here.
Schedules finally permitted Andrew to come over for a couple of days and teach us through this method. It was really different for myself and some of the guys who had never used this method but in the end I really like it a lot. In fact all of the guys were blessed with the training that we received. We ended up with most of the pastors for the two days and combined our monthly meeting while we were all here. We just want to thank Andrew again for his hard work and great heart.
Brian had the privilege of attending the senior pastors conference in Siegen this year again. The speakers were Joe Focht of Calvary Chapel Philadelphia, and Bill Gallatin the conference was amazing and a real blessing for all of the guys that attended. The main point that Brian was touched with was living an altered life as a pastor. An extra bonus was that they were able to drive out to the castle where Martin Luther translated the NT into German in 10 weeks. The castle was amazing the history absolutely fascinating.
This month we also managed to finish the painting in the whole house and replaced all of the floors in the two main rooms down stairs. For the last 3 years we have had flooring that was in desperate need of being replaced, lots of water damage and just years of hard usage had taken its toll on the floor. But this last month we received a donation to replace all of the floors and its been a lot of hard work but in the end it has been worth it and it looks great.

Season Greetings

2007-12-14T20:06:00.001+01:00

Mat 2:1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,
Mat 2:2 saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."

What a great time to remember our Lord and Savior coming down from Heaven and not being born into a palace but a manger not to a wealthy family but to a poor family. Coming humbly to be a servant to all. How do you respond to something like that. Where the creator enters into creation, comes to earth, humbles himself to be born a man and add humanity to his deity. All for the simple purpose of reconciling a rebellious creation. What is the only response that we can give to him? What do you give to the creator who has everything and is complete and perfect. Worship, Joh 4:22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Joh 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

What gift can we offer for the creator of the universe? Simple worship in the spirit and truth. From our family to yours we wish you a blessed Christmas. We want to thank all of you for your prayers and support over the last year. Its been a blessing and we are looking forward to what plans the Lord has this next year. May the Lord continue to richly bless all of your lives with his presence.

Agape,

Brian, Cynthia, Kaidon, Sedona and Sage

December 2007 Update

2007-12-12T19:26:00.000+01:00

We hope that you enjoy Calvary Chapel Bistrita Children's program. Cynthia, Adi, and Natalie put a lot of work into the program which is based off of the story of the 3 trees. The kids had a great time and did a great job. It was a great way to tell the Christmas but in a different format then most of us are used to.

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

The second slideshow is a gift presentation for the kids that are involved in our humanitarian side of the ministry with New Beginning. The kids really enjoyed a great Christmas this year and we would love to thank all of those who were involved in making this year a great Christmas.

May your Holiday's be blessed and centered on Jesus.

November 2007 Update

2007-11-13T19:12:00.000+01:00

Phi 3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

This month has been an extremely busy month due to all of the travel that Brian has been doing with the two different speaker's weeks in Bucharest and Hungary. Brian spent the 1st part of November in Bucharest for a week with the the small bible school that is being sponsored by the Calvary Chapel in Bucharest. The speakers for the week were Ken Sutton, assistant pastor for Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, and Rob Wolf, who is also an elder from Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. They shared some great messages about coming out of spiritual lows and getting back into the fight. It was very refreshing and encouraging to here from both of these speakers. It was also a great time of fellowship visiting with and hearing what the Lord is doing in all of the pastor's lives and ministries.

At the end of the month Brian and Adi took a flight from Cluj to Budapest and attended the speakers week at the Bible college in Vajta. Pastor's Rich Chaffin and Jim Gallagher shared from the book of Philippians. Which was a personal blessing to Brian because the Lord confirmed in his heart the things that he had shown him while studying the same sections for the midweek studies in Bistrita. It was a great time of study and fellowship and seeing old friends that we usually only see once a year. Brian had a great time hanging out with Ethan Larson and Andrew Mccall, fellow Calvary Boise missionaries. It was good to see how they were doing.

Brian was also able to attend the Hungarian pastor's meeting which was a wonderful time of prayer. If you could remember to pray for the missionaries that are serving, there is a lot of personal attack throughout all of the works. Pray for protection for our families, marriages, and unity within the churches.

The last update for this month would the good news of an actual heating system for the church. It has taken 2 years to get it but we have an actual central heating system installed in the church. The great news is that it cost us half of what we were figuring due to a brother in the church that has a contracting company. Its been a real blessing for all of the ladies in the fellowship since they are not cold anymore plus not having our bathroom freeze up during the winter which is even better.

Praise report:

Heating system installed.

Prayer request:

Prayer for protection for the families and marriages that are serving in missions.

Prayer for salvation for Mitru, Roxanna, Cline, Anna, Gabe

Prayer for our church to continue to grow in faith, hope and love

Prayer for unity in the body

Prayer for New Beginnings and all of the ministries in Romania as we are all being affected by the fall of the dollar

Prayer for a new church building for Sunday mornings that will both meet our needs and costs

Prayer for the Lord to guide us into effective outreaches into the small community of Bistrita.

Prayer for the young believers to be grounded in the word.

October 2007 Update

2007-10-09T13:22:00.000+02:00

Joh 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

The beginning of October was marked by a group of ladies being driven down to Bucharest with both vans to the National Women's Conference. Calvary Chapel Bucharest sponsored the event and we had a wonderful turn out from our church. The theme of the conference was Having a Heart of Worship. We were so excited to see a group of mostly young single girls decide to take time out of their very hectic schedules with school and take a trip down to Bucharest. Cynthia and Natalie had the great pleasure of taking care of all these girls and making sure that everyone stayed on schedule. The girls decided to stay an extra night in Bucharest after the conference just to be able to do some shopping in the mall and see the sites. Cynthia made her way to the Starbuck's in the large mall and camped out there for a while drinking in the sights. Yes we have a Starbuck's now in Bucharest. I had a day old Venti Latte to prove it. Even a day old it was great. The girls returned on Saturday night talking about how much fun the conference was and how good the worship was. For some of these girls this was the first experience they had ever had with this type of a worship style. They all really loved it. The conference was also great for allowing time for the girls to ask questions about the worship and about the things of the Lord that they don't usually get to ask or feel comfortable enough to ask because of what people might think of them. The ladies have already been asking about next year's conference.

Also in October we started a foundations class. The focus of this class was to examine the core beliefs of Christianity as they are taught from the Bible. For example How do we know that the Bible is true? What does the Bible say about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and man? Living in a culture where people really have either no understanding of basic theology or a warped understanding of theology, we felt this would be a great class to offer for those that are interested. So far I have been very blessed by the turnout for the class. I keep praying that we will see more people interested in finding out what the Bible says instead of what people say and that this class would continue to grow and ultimately bear real fruit in people's lives.

This month has been extremely busy for all of us but we know that the return will be worth the investment of our time in the Lord's word.

Praise Report:

Adi Blaga is back from Greece and we are so excited to have him back. Things went well and he is safe and sound home with his family.

It has been amazing and humbling for me personally to see the Lord raising helpers up for all of the things that are needed in the church. Translators, people to lead worship it's been truly a blessing to see the Lord equip and also give a desire for people to serve.

Prayer request:

Prayer for the the church to grow in Faith, Hope and specifically Love in a greater way.

That the Lord would use the little church as a light to the city of Bistrita

Prayer for the key to the city of Bistrita
- For the Lord's guidance on effective outreaches into the community
- Prayer for ways to love people in very practical ways

That the new believers would be grounded in the Word of the Lord

Pray that the Lord would continue to empower us and equip us for the ever changing needs of the body here.

Pray for Brian and Natalie's Language lessons.

Pray for the salvation of the Language teacher Veronica

Pray for the financial needs of all the works in Romania as we are all being hit particularly hard with the drop in the dollar.

September 2007 update

2007-10-05T12:42:00.000+02:00

With the leaves turning and the weather cooling off. Its been a beautiful season for the fall. The nights are cooling off rapidly and waking up and walking the kids to school is being marked more and more by coats and gloves and seeing your breath in the morning. The kids started school the 15 of September and have been enjoying going. Kaidon is very excited about being with the big kids this year. They have been learning about all kinds of different vegetables in class. After school and the mornings before school are full of interesting facts about carrots and leaves and how they grow.

With the beginning of Fall this would also mark the 3rd annual Calvary Chapel Bistrita women's tea. The speaker for this year was Heather Hoe who brought some ladies up from Calvary Chapel Brasov. The theme of the tea was Grace and we had a great turnout. The ladies played some games to get to know each other, They brought food and had a great time of fellowship with one another.

We had some extra helpers this year with setting up the tea, two of which were from Boise. Tanya Cordova is a young lady that graduated from the school of ministry and has been helping by volenteering with gypsy children 3 times a week she also started a young women's prayer meeting on Tuesday's evening. We have been very blessed with having her to help us and she has been a real joy to get to know.

The other missionary we have back is Natalie Bridges. She has returned after going back to the states and has picked up where she left off with just being a real help with everything. She is working in the Orphanages again and started her conversational English class again with a 1st class of 36 teenagers. She was very excited and we are looking forward to seeing what the Lord is going to do this year.

Praise report:

With Adi being gone and Nicu taking a break from translating we were a little worried about worship and finding translators for the different studies. But Praise the Lord Nici one the guys that play guitar very well and helps with worship volunteered to lead worship and did a great job. We also had two of the girls from the youth/College age group also volunteered to step and help with translating. They have all been doing a fabulous job. Just a reminder for us that God always provides when there is a need.

Prayer for the new Foundation Class that is going to start in Oct 3rd. This is a class we are going to offer to the congregation to cover the basics of Christianity. Update: We had 7 people from the church participate in the 1st class. Keep praying that we would see more people take the time to come to the class.

Pray for Adi Blaga. He is my assistant pastor and is going to work in Greece for a month for some extra money. pray for safety, and that the Lord would bless him while he is away. Also pray for his family as they will be here in Bistrita. This will be longest he has ever been away from them and its going to be hard on them.

Prayer for the the church to grow in Faith, Hope and specifically Love in a greater way.

Prayer for a digital projector

Pray also for a place for the Romanian national conference to meet next year. We are looking for a camp that can house and feed at least 135 people. The places we have been researching our very expensive and we are looking for someplace affordable for the Romanians to be able to go.

Pray for Brian as he is teaching 5 times a week. Please pray that he will be able to spend time with the Lord, to hear from him and that he will also be able to balance ministry and family life.

That the Lord would use the little church as a light to the city of Bistrita

Prayer for the key to the city of Bistrita
- For the Lord's guidance on effective outreaches into the community
- Prayer for ways to love people in very practical ways
- Prayer for the training that we are going to start soon for those in the body who want to know how to effectively share the gospel with those around them. That the Lord would place on the right people hearts in the church.

Prayer for Vasi to find a job update: Vasi has a job now praise the Lord.

That the new believers would be grounded in the Word of the Lord

Prayer For Brian as he will be starting Romanian lessons again. Pray that the Lord would equip him to learn quickly and retain what he learns.

We also want to keep Prayer for New Beginnings the humanitarian side of our ministry. Coming into winter the cost of living with heating and electricity will be going up. Please pray for the Lord to provide for all that is needed.

August 2007 Update

2007-08-30T16:37:00.000+02:00

Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. That was the theme verse from where Brian shared with the 250 people that showed up for the Down to Earth Tour. We were extremely blessed by the turnout for the concert in Bistrita. All of the musicians were fantastic and entertaining. Melissa Bent opened the concert and really surprised all of the Romanians by leading them in worship songs in their own language. The crowd really seemed to react positively to all of the bands clapping and participating in the fun. It was a lot of work to set up for the concert and make sure that everything was ready, but in the end it went over very well, with no real problems with the exception of one drunk during Brian's message that was yelling. But with help, Nicu one of the Romanians in the church, quieted the man down and did not distract anyone. To say that we were extremely excited about everything that went on that weekend is an understatement. We moved the church to a different building for Sunday to accommodate all of the Americans and anyone else who might show up from the concert. Melissa Bent led worship for us and Kelly shared
a message from Ephesians 2. We then had a church potluck afterwards with all of the church and American team enjoying all of the great Romanian food. What was even a more awesome experience was to have Jeff Anderson and Phil Wickham singing in our house and everyone in the church and the team were gathered around the main entry room with people spilling into the other main room to just sit and listen to some great artists sing and play their guitars. The team was only here a short couple of days but we had a great time with them and it was neat to spend some time with all of them.

After resting for a week we took 22 teenagers and college age up to the cabana for a couple of days. The weather was perfect with sunny hot days and cool evenings, with a couple of really neat lightening and thunder storms to watch also. Brian shared some lessons from the life of Joseph and was able to spend a lot of time just encouraging everyone in their walks with the Lord and being sold out completely for Jesus. Everyone was sad that it was only for a few days so next year we may have it for a week and move the retreat to a nearby lake.

Coming down off of the mountain with the college age we took another group back up for the kids camp ages 7-14.

Cynthia and I also had the pleasure of celebrating our 8th anniversary this August. Although with all of the things going on in August we are more likely going to actually celebrate it in September by taking a few days to get away.

Prayer Requests:

Prayer for the new Foundation Class that is going to start in Oct 2007

Prayer for the The Women's Tea Sept 22nd

Prayer for the the church to grow in Faith, Hope and specifically Love in a greater way.

Prayer for a digital projector

That the Lord would use the little church as a light to the city of Bistrita

Prayer for the key to the city of Bistrita
- For the Lord's guidance on effective outreaches into the community
- Prayer for ways to love people in very practical ways
- Prayer for the training that we are going to start soon for those in the body who want to know how to effectively share the gospel with those around them. That the Lord would place on the right people hearts in the church.

Prayer for Vasi to find a job

That the new believers would be grounded in the Word of the Lord

July Update 2007

2007-07-27T10:12:00.000+02:00

The Month of July was extremely busy with a lot of things happening. This month we held the Second annual Equipping the Saints Conference for our church with the theme verse 1Co 12:31 But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way. The guest speakers were Ernest Updike from Calvary Chapel Garden Valley and Ethan Larson from Calvary Chapel Bible College in Hungary. They really blessed us throughout the 3 nights with strong teaching about the Preeminence of Love, the Prerogative of Love and Lastly the Permanence of Love. We also invited Keala and Heather Hoe up from Calvary Chapel Brasov. And Keala was nice enough to help us with leading worship for all 3 nights. We were extremely challenged and comforted by what was shared through both of these men. We had an excellent turnout for all 3 nights and we are looking forward to seeing the fruit that will be produced from God's word.
The following week after that we received a team of 11 women from Majorca, Spain. The team was made up of 4 adults and 7 teenage girls ranging from ages 13-17. They spent 5 days working in the orphanages in Bistrita and Nasaud and the local large hospital. They were a great group to host, what was more amazing was that this was their 1st time on a short term mission. Carolyn the coordinator for their group was very blessed by the experience that the girls gained from visiting children that were less fortunate then them. It was a real eye opening experience for some of them.
While the team was here one of the weekends the city celebrated what is called Bistrita's Days' which is a huge event held in the center of town. If you could imagine a huge carnival that engulfs the whole town that would be a great description. What that means to us is lots of great food, concerts all day and shopping for different unique crafts that come available during this time. The days were hot but the kids had a great time of walking around eating ice cream and riding on some of the rides and eating a lot of good junk food.
A week later Brian and Adi went to a week long pastor's conference at a cabin outside of Cluj. We hosted a couple that belong to an organization called Evangelism Explosion. We packed 13 weeks of training in 3 days, they were very long days, but very much worth it. It's an organization that trains Romanians how to share the gospel with anyone and how to apply sharing the gospel as a way of life. Something that is very needed in Romania. It was very good material and we are looking forward to starting the training in the church here in Bistrita for those who are interested.

We are in the process now of finishing up final preparations for the concert outreach in Aug. So please keep this in prayer.

Prayer Requests:

Prayer for the August 11th Concert outreach in Bistrita.
- That the Lord would touch the hearts of those who come
- Prayer for all of the logistics, costs, setup etc..
- Prayer for the radio advertisement for the concert that those who need to hear it will
- Also pray for the salvation of the manager of the radio station as we were able to share the gospel with her.

Funds for replacing the roof on the ministry house. The cost is going to be approximately $5000 dollars

Prayer for the the church to grow in Faith, Hope and specifically Love in a greater way.

Prayer for a digital projector

That the Lord would use the little church as a light to the city of Bistrita

Prayer for the key to the city of Bistrita
- For the Lord's guidance on effective outreaches into the community
- Prayer for ways to love people in very practical ways
- Prayer for the training that we are going to start soon for those in the body who want to know how to effectively share the gospel with those around them. That the Lord would place on the right people hearts in the church.

Prayer for the Youth Retreat coming Aug 27-29th

Prayer for the Kids Camp Aug 29th-Sept 1st

Prayer for Vasi to find a job

That the new believers would be grounded in the Word of the Lord

June 2007 Update

2007-06-02T13:54:00.000+02:00

John 12:21 21 Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."

That was the theme verse for this year's Foundations conference in Hungary for all of Eastern Europe. After a long night of driving. It was great to be able to relax the 1st day and unwind before the 1st session that night. We were really blessed by 4 great speakers for the whole week. Tom Stipe from Crossroads Church of Denver, Brian Broderson, Associate pastor of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, Bil Gallatin, New York Regional Pastor and Bob Caldwell, from Calvary Chapel Boise. The Lord blessed our whole group immensely with the teaching of his word from each of the men. One particular teaching that Bob went through was on the Love of God, and how if a person knows that they are loved its easy for them to love. The Lord really spoke through all of the messages that were taught, but the series that Bob taught specifically spoke to me individually. I am convinced now more then ever that what Romania needs is not more churches, we have plenty of those, but just the Love of God working in our lives in a very real and fresh way. That is the greatest need for people to see the Love of God flowing through our lives. To see a Christianity that is based on God's heart not man's religion.

The Weather in Hungary was fabulous we had hot sunny days the whole time that we were there and the pool was quite enjoyable in the afternoons with the kids. It was a tiring week all together and we could tell the kids were getting more and more tired but they held up with the help of some naps where they could get them. We drove home Saturday night and got ready for Sunday morning. We were tired and sun-burnt but overall it was a wonderful week.

In the beginning of this month we celebrated National kids day June 1st, meaning its like a birthday for every child. We had close to 40 kids show up and played games, had bible quizzes with prizes and ate a lot of food, its amazing how much food kids can eat. Overall they had a great time, just playing and getting crazy.

We also celebrated Kaidon's 5th birthday this last month. He has been anticipating his birthday for the last year. He is always giving us ideas about his presents for his birthday and he has a very long list that he keeps adding to. We had some friends of Kaidon's over and celebrated it outside with a BBQ, mom even made a special dinosaur cake. Overall Kaidon was very happy with his birthday and is already working on his plans for next year.

The latest update on the Religious Association for Calvary Chapel Bistrita is that we are fully approved. We are just waiting on the final paperwork to come back from the government, which according to our lawyer should be 30 days. This is a great answer to prayer for us, it means that we have a better legal framework for the church being in Romania.

Praise Report:

Calvary Chapel Bistrita is an approved religious association in Romania

Prayer Requests:

Prayer for us as individuals and corporately as a congregation to grow in the Love of the Father

Prayer for the speakers of the Equipping the saints conference

Prayer for upcoming concert in Aug; logistics and that the Lord would really pour his spirit out on the people that come.

Prayer for Unity in the body

Prayer for Sunday school teachers

Prayer for the Lord to give us continued vision for how to reach the Romanian People

Concert update

2007-05-16T19:04:00.000+02:00

I just thought I would send an update on the progress for the concert outreach we are planning for this Aug 11th. We just received the contract for the City Cultural Center for Aug 11th. This will include a Sound system and the people to setup it up for the concert. Please be praying for the rest of the logistics to come together in the next couple of months.

1) We are needing to find some equipment for the band and have been having a hard time locating it
2) Finances for the cost of putting on the concert. We were able to rent the center but it will cost us ~ 1500 Euros for the day. Please pray for the Lord to provide the rest of funds.
3) Pray specifically for the city of Bistrita that we will see the Lord pull people into the free concert and work in their lives in a very powerful and personal way.
4) pray for number of helpers that we are going to need to set things up, promote it, tear things down and follow up with people.

Blessings,

Brian

May 2007 Update

2007-04-27T18:43:00.000+02:00

Mat 16:15 Then Jesus asked them, "But who do you say I am?"

That was the theme verse for this year's Calvary Chapel Romania National conference. We had close to 90 people take time out of their busy schedules and drive up to the center of Romania for this annual conference. The theme that was chosen, "Who Is Jesus", was a great subject for the main sessions. We had 2 invited speakers come from America and bless us from the word. The 1st night we heard from Ken Sutton, Ken has planted churches in Romania, England, and the states and was a real blessing to hear from. The other speaker was Bob Caldwell from Calvary Chapel Boise. He spent most of his sessions really speaking on the Love of God towards his church. The topics that were taught on where right on the mark for what is really is needed for a country that is so caught up on dead tradition and legalism. It was great to hear what the Lord wanted to say to his churches in Romania, how He really loves us and wants us to just believe Him and trust Him for everything. We are excited to see the lasting fruit that this word brings to the body of believers in the Romanian Calvary Chapels.

The Weather was great during the days with very warm weather followed by really awesome lightening storms at night to cool things off. The kids had a great time playing on a trampoline and through God's grace no one was injured

Overall the conference was a great time of refreshing and refocus before the busyness of summer arrives with the local conference and concert outreach this summer.

The Last thing for this month to inform you of is that it is with great sadness that we are losing Natalie Bridges for the summer. She will be leaving Romania June 4th to travel back to the states for the summer to tie up loose ends and prepare for returning to Romania for a longer stay. We already miss her, she has been a great help in the ministry here and has had a great attitude in serving the body and the city of Bistrita in many ways. We are looking forward to her coming back in September ready to pick up where she left off. Please keep her in prayer as she travels back to the states for a short stay.

Praise reports:

We were able to reserve the cultural center of Bistrita for the concert outreach on Aug 11th.

Prayer Requests:

Prayer for Natalie on her return to the states as she ties up loose ends develops personal support for her return in September.
Prayer for the logistics for the concert, the people needed, finances required it is going to cost 1500 euros for the day please keep this in prayer.
We are also needing to find some band equipment, which we have not had to much luck yet. Please pray that we will be able to locate it and use it or rent it.
Pray for the Foundations conference that is coming up in Hungary this June. That it will be a blessed, challenging time for all of us.
Pray for Equipping the saints conference in July for Bistrita. We are having Ernest Updike and Ethan Larson come and share from 1 Cor 13, the chapter of love. Please prayer for the lord to guide their hearts in what the body needs to hear here.
Prayer for the city of Bistrita that we will see the Lord pour his spirit out in a fresh, new powerful way.
Pray for the things that were shared at the conference to sink deep into those who attended and to bring forth fruit in its time.

April 2007 Update

2007-03-27T13:23:00.000+02:00

Ephesians 5:21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the Fear of God.

This month Brian had the great pleasure of ordaining Adi Blaga as an assistant pastor for Calvary Chapel Bistrita. Adi has been serving in Bistrita for many years and in various capacities. With the changes that are being implemented in New Beginnings and with the growing need in the church Adi will be overseeing the development of the children's program for Calvary Chapel Bistrita. He will be organizing the summer camps for the kids and looking to develop a good core group of Sunday school workers for the Calvary Chapel Bistrita children's program. Brian is excited about this new season in Adi's ministry and looking forward to seeing the fruit from his hard work.

The main changes that are happening in New Beginnings is the addition of a new administrator from America. Chris and Faith along with their two children Levi and Chloe have come over to take over administrating New Beginnings. Chris has a lot of experience in this area and we are excited to see what the Lord is going to do through Chris as he learns his job in the Romanian setting.

This month was also a blessed time of celebrating the resurrection of our lord Jesus Christ. It was exciting to see some new faces show up Sunday morning to receive the Word. It could not have been a more beautiful spring day. There is nothing quite as inspiring then waking up to the sound of church bells ringing throughout the city. It just makes it that much more special to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

One big answer to prayer this month is that we received our approval from Bucharest for our religious association. With the new law that was signed in January we were not sure if we would get the approval but the Lord took care of it as always, so we are continuing in this process here locally. The tough part is done now. We want to thank all of you for praying about this matter as it proves that no matter what the world has planned God is sovereign.

This month we managed to hold the 1st annual marriage conference for Calvary Chapel Bistrita. We took a few nights to study in depth marriage the way God intended it along with focusing on the roles of a husband and wife. We had a few couples come and participate along with some new people. We also had a good showing from the youth. We are hoping, Lord willing, to make this an annual spring event and that more people step up to work on building their marriages up.

This month we also celebrated our youngest girl Sage's 1 Year birthday. It turns out that her birthday is within a day of Chloe, Chris and Faith little girl. So we combined the parties and celebrated both their birthdays.

Praise Report:

We received our approval from Bucharest for religious association. We now have to work through the process here locally.

Prayer Requests:

Prayer for the August 11th Concert outreach in Bistrita.

Prayer for the rest of the process to register our religious association in Bistrita would go without any problems.

Funds for replacing the roof on the ministry house.

Continued healing for Leana and her mother from the car accident

Prayer for the the church to grow in Faith, Hope and Love

Prayer for a digital projector

Prayer for the Romanian General conference in May 21-25

That the Lord would use the little church as a light to the city of Bistrita

Prayer for more workers for the Harvest

For the Lord's guidance on effective outreached into the community

For the Youth to catch on fire for the Lord

That the new believers would be grounded in the Word of the Lord

March 2007 Update

2007-03-02T10:09:00.000+01:00

Acts 2:44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common

This last month has been a very busy one to say the least. The youth have just finished studying the book of Daniel so we took a break for one Thursday and decided to take them all out for a night of Bowling. It was a lot of fun to see. Some of them had never been bowling, which was good luck for us because it had been a while for the adults also. Natalie was the big winner for night with a whopping final score of 120.

Pastor Brian came in second but was hampered by an injured thumb compliments of Nicu, while playing soccer the week before. Being the man that he is he played through the injury. All of the kids had a great time learning how to bowl and also just hanging out with one another and fellowshipping together. For all of the pictures of this fun night please visit our church website. www.calvaryromania.org/bistrita/

This month we also drove down to Bucharest for the monthly pastor's meeting. This was a special monthly meeting because we managed to bring everyone's families together also. We had a great time of worship and fellowship. Calvary Chapel Bucharest planned a nice meal for everyone and it was great to just spend sometime with all of the families that we usually don't get to see. We all managed to coordinate a group picture children included this time.

We also got to celebrate our middle daughter Sedona's birthday. We had a few family friends over and Sedona was the person that was the focus of all the attention, this is usually her preferable position, so she was one happy girl. Mom made a carrot cake which her brother at first was protesting due to the perceived vegetable content but in the end liked it. She had balloons, flowers, things in pink, everything a little girl could want. Mom and Dad even bought her a pink bike, with a Hello Kitty logo.

The thing that has been keeping us the most busy this month is working on Cynthia's b-day present. Brian decided to do a low budget kitchen renovation at the ministry house. With the completion date set for March 22nd. So all of his Tuesdays are engrossed with sanding and painting and fixing the existing kitchen. The hard work is paying off though and it's almost done. Cynthia is very excited about the changes that have been made and can't wait for the final finished product. Its been a lot of fun for Brian also because this is the first time he has ever renovated a kitchen.

The last thing to mention this month is that we are adding Romanian translations to the website. This is going to be extremely helpful for Romanians that visit the site and want to know more about us. We have also added updated pictures and added a prayer tab with updated prayer requests. We are continuing to develop this website as a communication tool so things are always changing.

Praise Report:

We received the last of the funds for the heating for the church. So we can have the work start this summer.

We saw Leanna and her mom this month and they are doing much better recovering from the car accident

Prayer Requests:

Prayer for the completion of the religious association papers for the church

Prayer for the the church to grow in Faith, Hope and Love

Prayer for wisdom in leading the church and the household

That the Lord would use the little church as a light to the city of Bistrita

Prayer for more workers

Prayer for the Marriage conference in April

Equipping the saints conference July 4th-6th

Concert outreach August 8th

For the Lord's guidance on effective outreached into the community

For the Youth to Catch on fire for the Lord

February 2007 Update

2007-02-13T07:35:00.000+01:00

Psalms 9:1 I will praise You , O lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works.

Its been an interesting winter to say the least in Romania this year. 2 weeks ago we received our first significant snow of the year and it looked to be turning into a normal winter in Bistrita with lots of cold and snow. But here we are again with days that are looking like spring. Its not that the adults are complaining its makes it a lot easier to travel when the roads are clear this time of the year.

This last month we managed to travel down to Brasov for the monthly pastor's meeting. We had not made it down to visit with Keala and Heather yet since they moved to Brasov in August of last year. While we were in Brasov we spent a couple of extra days visiting with Keala, Heather and family. What a great time that was. It was exciting to see what the Lord is doing there in their fellowship and to see the new place where they are meeting for church. While we were down in Brasov we were also able to celebrate Keala and Heather's twin daughters 7 year B-day. It was a lot of fun.

While we were having our pastor's meeting the ladies also decided to start planning a women's retreat for next fall. We had a great time seeing familiar faces that we had not seen for a few months due to being in the States. It was a great time of prayer and fellowship. We were also able to be a part of a three year pray request. One of the families that have become great friends of ours, Shane & Randi Herman from Calvary Chapel of Bucharesti, have been trying to adopt a Romanian boy for the last 3 years or so and running into a lot of set backs and frustration through that process. As of Thursday the 8th of February Brennan is finally theirs. What a great answer to prayer and encouragement to all of us. God is great!

Cynthia and I also managed to fly on Hungary for a pastor and wives marriage conference. We had a wonderful time at the conference. The conference was focused on having a oneness to your marriage. It was a great time of refreshing and focus. While we were there we were able to visit with Ethan and Elysa Larson and Andrew and Dori McCall. It was great to see faces from Boise and spend some time with them. Cynthia and I also managed to have some time before our plane ride home to walk around the city center in Budapest and enjoy the beauty of the city.The last news that we have for this month is the changes that we have made to the church website. We have added a section for photos that we can easily update. The other thing that we have added to the website is a photo section on the opening page that updates automatically with the latest 10 pictures that have been added. you can check it out by clicking on the following link. www.calvaryromania.org/bistrita/

prayer requests:

Prayer for the completion of the religious association papers for the church
Prayer for the the church to grow in Faith, Hope and Love
Prayer for wisdom in leading the church and the household
That the Lord would use the little church as a light to the city of Bistrita
Prayer for more workers
Prayer for the rest of the funds to come in for the church heating system

January 2007 Update

2007-01-12T17:55:00.000+01:00

Changes to the Romania Religious law

Act 4:19 But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye:
Act 4:20 for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard.

This month we find a new law taking affect and with this new law in Romania we ask that you will pray with us. We are not sure how this is going to affect us yet. The new law states "Under the new legislation religious denominations can only receive official registration if they have at least 20,000 members, about 0.1 percent of Romania's total population." The law also creates a tiered system of religious communities, with different rights associated with respective levels. The legislation was signed into law by the President of Romania, Traian Basecu. Here is the following excerpt.

The draft law's three-tier system of state recognition is completely inconsistent with fundamental rights as it contravenes the principles of equality and non-discrimination. Enjoying the greatest rights under the proposed new law are the recognized "religious denominations," a category that it is almost impossible for some faiths to join (applicant religious communities for the most preferential status must wait 12 years and show their membership exceeds 0.1% of the population of Romania, or 23,000 adult citizen members persons). Of the 18 currently registered religious groups, approximately one-fourth would fail to meet the proposed numerical threshold.

Religions with fewer than 22,000 members can register as "religious associations" with lesser rights, while religions with fewer than 300 members can only function as "religious groups" which have no legal status.

Religious communities such as Calvary Chapel that are new to Romania and have less then 300 members will be deprived of the rights to purchase property, build houses of worship, to protect their rights in legal proceedings, to own assets or have paid staff or clergy

The Good news is that the EU is already planning on challenging the law in the Constitutional Court and potentially, the European Court of Human rights.

As some of you know we are working currently to have an religious association approved for Calvary Chapel Bistrita. How this will affect us is yet to be determined, but please keep this in prayer.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Joh 15:18 If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me before it hated you.
Joh 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Joh 15:20 Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
Joh 15:21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.

Man's religious system has always sought to destroy God's plan for a personal relationship with him. It's been this way since Cain and Abel.

In other news we have been blessed to have Natalie Bridges working with us as a volunteer since June 2006. We had been praying for a year before her arrival for a way to reach into the community of young people here effectively in Bistrita and the Lord provided that with some contacts that have allowed Natalie to teach conversational English to approximately 8-11 Romanian teenagers in an after school social program that provides after school services for 250 kids. She has been teaching them twice a week and developing relationships with these teens. One of the girls that she teaches came to the youth group after being invited during December. She has also been volunteering 3 times a week at the orphanage, working with the disabled children, and has recently been approved to work at the hospital, that should start up in the next couple of weeks.

Even in the midst of things not looking good God is still opening doors for his word to be shared and his light to shine into the darkness.

Prayer requests:

Prayer for God's will and protection in regards to this new law.

That God would pour his Spirit out in an amazing way.

Approval of our Religious Association

Divine appointments

That God would pour his love into our hearts anew both individually and corporately as a church

That we would see the Lord work like he has in the past in the early church.

To be obedient to what the Lord is doing in our lives

health for kids

Home at Last

2007-01-05T09:08:00.000+01:00

We left Wednesday early afternoon. It was sorrowful leaving family but we had a great time visiting and seeing everyone. The plane trip was uneventful which is always a good thing. Thanks for all of your prayers on that.
Praise the Lord we arrived in Budapest without missing any bags. Although it did not start out that way. It seems the airline lost our luggage along with about 6o other passengers. But before we made it through the lost and found line they made an announcement that they had found a bunch of missing bags so everything was fine. The bus ride was nice, the kids being exhausted along with mom all slept. Adi picked us up just a little bit across the Romanian border.

The rest of the ride home was nice. We noticed it started snowing, I guess all of Romania is covered right now except our area. Adi said he was praying for a clear road when we came so God answered his prayers. We woke up to a small blanket of snow on the ground with a crisp cold Romanian winter, feels like home.

2006 November-December update

2007-01-02T18:01:00.000+01:00

Exodus 33:19 "Then He said, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

After nearly two years in Romania we made our first trip back to the States. We were greeted by loving and open arms all over Idaho and Oregon. We spent the month of November in Boise visiting with not only our friends and church family from CC Boise but also from other Calvary Chapels in the area. We were blessed with the opportunity share what is going on in Romania with Calvary Chapel Boise, CC Treasure Valley, CC Garden Valley, CC Emmit and CC Mountain Home. It was just amazing how many people wanted to know what God is doing in Romania.
After a very busy month in Boise we went on to Oregon to spend the rest of our with family. While we were in Oregon we were able to share with several more churches near our families. It is a long story how those connections came about but the Lord was definitely a part of those appointments. We again shared what God is doing in Romania with believers from CC Corvallis, CC Lebanon, CC Cottage Grove and Lebanon Foursquare. It was so great to meet so many other people with a heart for missions.
As you can imagine after being away for so long we had a fantastic time visiting with family. We had all of our family, in the area, from both sides together to enjoy Thanksgiving and hear about what has been going on in our lives. After that we went back and forth staying with Brian's parents and mine. Brian's parents have adopted to young children so Kaidon and Sedona were thrilled to be able to stay and play with their aunt and uncle that are their ages. Since we don't live near the ocean we always try to take the kids over to see it when we are in Oregon.

This trip we also took them to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and that left them speechless. While we were there my older brother and his wife had there first baby dedicated. then of course there was Christmas and New Years. The stores and Christmas shopping left us all about as speechless as the trip to the aquarium.

The last great news item from this trip back to the states is that we have an official church webpage. You will notice that you are receiving email in a different format then usual the reason for this is that we are blogging all of our new updates. Its a great new tool and a lot more efficent in our use of time. We would invite you to take a look at the new website, its a great blessing for us. www.calvaryromania.org/bistrita/. We would also encourage any of you who know someone that is interested in Romania send them out to our website and encourage them to sign up for our updates. Its very easy now there is a subscribe text box on the right hand side of the website. You just have to enter your email address and it will guide you through the whole process. For those of you that are interested in things of a more personal note we have also linked our personal family blog to the church website under team members.

Our entire visit was not only busy but fruitful. Yet somehow we were able to relax and be refreshed during all of that too. We are extremely excited about the next year and go back with high expectations of what the Lord is going to do. The Lord is good!

As always we close with our prayer requests

Safe trip home
A quick turnaround on getting back to work
That the Lord would pour out his spirit on us and the ministry in Bistrita
The Lord would provide guidance on what he wants us to do with these new relationships in the states
Wisdom as always
Show us how to effectively reach the lost in our city and the surrounding areas

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T21:47:00.000+01:00

We just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone. We covet your prayers and look forward to the great things that the Lord is going to be doing in this next year. Its been a great time being able to visit in Both Oregon and Idaho. We have seen the Lord bring more relationships with people and other churches through this trip then we could have hoped for. In our next post we will share in more detail about this amazing trip through Idaho and Oregon.

We pray that the Lord would bless you abundently during this time when we celebrate his Son's birth. What a great time to sit with family and reflect on the greatest gift that could have ever been given.

Its amazing to think that we are fast approaching our trip back to home in Romania but we are looking forward to it and are excited about what the next couple of years will bring. We return with an expectation of great things to come.

Prayer Requests:

Safe return
Finishing up all of the little things we need to do before heading back
readjusting back into the schedule back home

2006 May-June update

2006-11-16T05:02:00.000+01:00

Psalm 46:10a “Be still, and know that I am God”
Greetings Brothers & Sisters in Christ,
Well, at the rate we are going with our newsletters this summer maybe we should just call this one our
“summer” update rather than a monthly. Not a whole lot went on in May. We spent most of our time adjusting to
having Sage and resting up in preparation for a busy month in June. We did enjoy a wonderful birthday celebration
in May as Cristina turned 18 this year. In Romania that makes her an adult as opposed to being an adult at 21 like
most of you are used to. As for June, we had something new about every week.
We started off the month with National Kids day on the 1st. Ionela and Niki planned a wonderful party filled
with Bible trivia, games and snacks
for the kids we have in Sunday
school. After that we did get a little
break to work on some planning for
the rest of the month. Kaidon had
his 4th birthday this summer and Ani
celebrated her 19th birthday just two
days later. Her and some friends
had a great time celebrating with an
American style pajama party. Just a
few days later a group of us were on
our way to Hungary for a week at the Calvary Chapel Bible College
Foundations Conference. That was an amazing time of worship, Bible studies, meeting new members of the body
and catching up with some we already knew. Even though it was a busy week with all of the teachings offered,
many of us noticed it was a little like a family camp too where we could just relax and be refreshed. We were joined
by five members of our church family
from Bistrita and are praying for more
to make the trip next year. When we
got back from the conference we
quickly changed gears and started
preparing for the short term missions
team that was scheduled to arrive the
next day. They unfortunately ran into
some delays with their flights and
arrived a couple of days late. Although
we were anxious for their arrival it did
work out well to have them arrive on
the day they did. We were truly
blessed by their visit. We had our first annual Leadership Conference that the team was able help with by providing
childcare. It was three evenings of a couple hours each. The teaching this year covered Biblical leadership in our
families, jobs and in the church. In addition to childcare in the evenings they gave us several hard days of work
cleaning out the basement rooms here at the ministry house. After that
they packed up for the cabana to
spend four days there doing a kids
camp for the church/ New
Beginnings kids and some of their
friends. This was an adventure in
itself as we took the refrigerator up
there just the day before the camp
started. The theme of the camp was
the armor of God and how we need
to equip ourselves for spiritual battle.
The kids all had a great time make
armor that they can wear while
listening to teachings about what each
piece of armor does. At the end of the camp the kids all watched the Chronicles of Narnia and really enjoyed seeing
everyone wearing their armor in the movie. This was a wonderful visual for them as they could really see how
important each piece of armor is.
Answered Prayers:
• A van provided for our family and another one for New Beginnings
• Safe travels for the teams
• Workers for the harvest
Please continue to pray for:
• Startup of weekly Bible clubs for kids
• Outreach in gypsy village near Bistrita
• Changes that are going on the church; that they would be fruitfully led by the Holy Spirit
• Monthly financial support for our family
• Planning and safe travels for our visit to the States in the fall
With His loving grace & peace,
Brian, Cynthia, Kaidon, Sedona and Sage Fouts