Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia!

Hey guys! This past month I have been on a crazy adventure, serving the Lord, learning soooooooo much and experiencing so many new things! As you know, I am leading a YWAM Discipleship Training School outreach team of three students: Mario from Bulgaria, Veska Also from Bulgaria and Lorraine from England. We started off in Sophia, Bulgaria where Mario and Veska are from. There we met with some of their friends and did some team prep. for our outreach. Then we had a change of plans and ended up going to Kratovo, Macedonia for a week where I had been for my DTS outreach last fall. It was so good to reconnect with people and to encourage the growing church there. We also met with two young guys, who gave their lives to Jesus just few days after we left Macedonia. It was so cool to see God working in their lives, showing them the truth. Macedonia was a huge blessing for us!

After Macedonia we went to Nis, Serbia where we had all kinds of opportunities to serve: in an orphanage for teenagers, at a public pre-school for gypsy kids, in a village with kids and young people where they have no church, visiting elderly ladies who needed encouragement, in the local churches, and visiting families! Lots of variety for just two and a half weeks of being there. It was so interesting to learn about Serbia and the issues they are dealing with. There is such a big need there for encouragement and hope...Pray for this nation!

And now we are are in Sarajevo, Bosnia...my favorite place so far. The whole country is full of gorgeous mountains and green green trees!! The river Drina is the most amazing green blue color I have ever seen in a river! This place is really breath-taking. The great missionary couple we are working with here, Tom and Kristie Trowbridge drove us up into the mountains around the city and see where the 84 Olymplic games were held, (most all of the sites now destroyed from the war).

There is really too much to say about this place for this short update, but i can tell you that I am so glad God has brought our team here. Our prayer is to bring hope, life and light in Jesus to the people here and we need your prayers. We will be working with Tom and Kristie's ministry center, which reaches out through all kinds of creative activities: english classes, community nights, worship nights for seekers and more...with the intention of building relationships with people where we can share the hope of Jesus. A lot of missionaries here deal with division and so we need prayers for unity and love. This is a Muslim nation and in Sarajevo alone there are 150 mosques. A new one is built every month.

Our good friend from YWAM, Don Stevens lives here and has been introducing us to his friends, some, young muslim guys that are quickly becoming part of our team family. Pray for God to use us in this place and for him to continue to work in the lives of the people we met in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia.

For those of you interested in supporting me for this outreach I am still in need of about $800. You can send a check to His Hands Foundation, 1045 N. Main St., Ashland, OR 97520...Thank you so much for your prayers and support! Oh and keep in mind that I will be in the States June 16 through July 28th! Blessings to you all!

Outreach to Bucharest

This past week was AMAZING! Last week, we traveled with our team of four to the capital of Romania where we had the opportunity to share our lives and love with some very special ladies at a girls home in a village outside of the city (the same place where I was with my DTS for a week), Teen Challenge- a ministry to young people living in the street and those struggling with addictions, Calvary Chapel's neighborhood kids outreach, Stepping Forward ministry to orphans, and the YWAM National Office. We had a very full week but were so encouraged to see God using us to bring his hope, life and love to everyone we met.

My team was made up of Sarah Buchkosky, my closest friend here in Romania (also from the States) and myself, leading, and two people who are greatly impacting my life: Veska and Mario from Bulgaria. These two grew up together in an orphanage and have powerful testimonies of God's grace and changing power. Their hearts for others are amazing and it was such a blessing to see them sharing with the people we ministered two. God has such amazing purposes and plans for these too and I am blessed to have them on my team again as we go to Bosnia and Serbia for our big outreach.

Please pray for us as we continue to grow in the Lord and in the gifts that God has given us. And praise God for using this past week in Bucharest!!

Discipleship Training School

I LOVE DTS!!! It is such a blessing to be staff for the Discipleship Training School here in Constanta! We have just finished our fourth week and I can hardly believe it! We have a group of 6 students and 6 staff for this school and it is going very well. The students are sooo special, coming from Romania, Bulgaria, America and England! The youngest is 19 years and the oldest is 55 so it is quite a mix of people and cultures. It is amazing to see the Lord working in their lives, healing them and letting his truth soak deeper and deeper into their souls. It is really an honor to be here with them and to be an encouragement for them along the way.




And of course they are not the only ones being changed during this school. The Lord is touching my heart as well, encouraging me to use the gifts he has given me with boldness and to continue learning what is means to serve WITH him in ministry. I am so blessed to be here right now.




We are currently planning a week long outreach for the week of Feb.26 to March 3rd. We will be reaching out here in Romania and look forward to being a blessing wherever we go.

During the week days the students have been joining in with different local ministries reaching out to street people, older people, children at the Day Center, with the poor families and to the youth of Constanta through a film club held here at our base! So lot of great stuff is going on and we can really thank God for this. He is blessing us in so many ways and drawing us closer to him.


















Thank you for praying for us during this time! And be blessed with the Love of the FATHER!!!

Christmas was Sensational!

With only a few days to bring things together, it was amazing to see how well things went for our Christmas Dinner with the street kids. God really blessed us with an amazing time with our friends from the street. We had 7 people serving and setting up and 12 people from the street come. It was much smaller than we had expected but with the amount of staff we had, it was perfect.

Our staff team was made up of two members of the YWAM street team: Therese from Norway and Dave from the U.S., Lorraine from England, who is a missionary serving her in Constanta through our local church “Good News Church”, Irina from Constanta, who used to translate for the street team, Cristi from Constanta, who helps out with the other street project in town and attends our church, and me and Leisl, my friend from home. Irina’s church opened their doors to us last minute, so in their small, but cozy church we had our dinner.

It was such a special time to share together, knowing that many of the kids would have sat all day on the street getting high had they not been invited to the dinner. We sang Christmas carols and ate Sarmale, the traditional Romanian Christmas meal. Dave shared about Jesus and his power to change our lives and talked for a long time afterwards with a teenage girl who we had never met before. She was really interested in what Dave was talking about and we hope to see her again to keep up the relationship and see her grow in knowing Jesus.

Thank you so much to those who donated money to make this dinner a reality! I hope this will become a new tradition here in Constanta and that it will grow! Thank you Lord for blessing our Christmas day!

Christmas Eve with Friends

Christmas Eve we spent the evening at my base leader’s home with his family, friends and some other YWAMers spending the holidays here in Constanta. It was so nice to be together with so many of us being so far from home and family. We ate the BEST traditional Norweigen Christmas food, as my base leader is Norweigen and so is another of our staff members. Such good food! I think next year I should go to Norway and get some more! J After dinner Andreas, their 8 year old son, read us the Christmas story from Luke in Romanian and we spent the rest of the evening enjoying each other’s company. A very nice Christmas Eve!

Visiting Families for Christmas

The Thursday before Christmas we had the opportunity to visit the poor families I had been visiting with the street team before DTS. Again it was wonderful to see the families after such a long time and to see the great job that, Dan, a Romanian YWAM staff member, is doing now leading this project to reach out to families in need (The project is actually now a church-planting effort, in cooperation with a local church here in Constanta- Good News Church). We took Christmas presents to the children and extra food to the parents, and sang a couple of Christmas carols, wishing them a Merry Christmas and inviting them to church on Christmas Eve. It was quite a marathon run, visiting nine families in one afternoon, but it was fun and hopefully we were a blessing!

Leisl's Visiting!!!

December 16th, my dear friend Leisl Wehmueller, my best friend from college, came to visit me for the holidays! It has been such a blessing spending time with her, catching up, sharing what God is doing in our lives and serving together through the different holiday events that have been going on. She has such an awesome heart to serve and it it sooo fun to be with her, even though she has been sick a lot! Thank you God for good friends! January 8th she will say “adios” and go back to Spain where she will be teaching English for the next year. Yeah Leisl!

Girls Home Close to Completion

Many of the guys at our base have been working very hard to finish up the renovations for our girls home. The construction is mostly complete and now we look forward to the addition of the kitchen furniture and appliances. Please keep praying for staff members as we are unable to make the home available until we have two more ladies who can stay with the girls a couple nights a week each. When we have a team of ladies together we will open the home with one of the girls who is now attending our Day Center. We will receive more girls into the home as our staff and facilities can accommodate them with the appropriate skills and services. Our desire is to provide emotional, spiritual, educational and vocational support for girls coming from abusive homes, helping them to succeed in life. My plan is to be one of the staff that will stay a couple of nights at the girls home every week. I will keep you posted on how things come along with this project!

Back on the Street!

My second week back in Constanta I had the chance to go out again with YWAM’s street team to visit my friends living on the streets. It was so great to see their reactions as they realized that I was actually back in Constanta, and also for me to realize how much they love and missed me while I was gone for DTS. It’s actually a pretty humbling realization. These people have so little, and yet they give so much love- to me- who in the grand scheme of things really doesn’t do much for them. It is my desire to give them value through loving them with God’s love, but at the same time they are giving so much value to my life by loving me. Yep, it’s pretty amazing.

Its Official! I am YWAM staff!

A couple Fridays ago in our base staff meeting here in Constanta, Romania, following our base tradition, I was “prayed in” as an official Youth With A Mission staff member. One of my leaders said that I was being “promoted” after all of my hard work as a volunteer, kind of like if I was in an army. :) It was a really special time, hearing all of my friends’ prayers for me and realizing that God has blessed me with a very special family to serve with here in Constanta. So, my long time dream of being YWAM staff is now a reality. I am committing the next two years of my life to serve here in Constanta. I can’t wait to see all that God does!

Interested in a DTS???

Just to let you all know, we are starting a Discipleship Training School January 14th here in Constanta, Romania, and we are still accepting students! Please email me if you are interested! The school consists 12 weeks of teaching on the character of God, worship, spiritual warfare, the holy spirit, the Father heart of God, missions...and much more, and 10 weeks of outreach in Turkey and Bulgaria or Serbia and Bosnia. This is an awesome time to grow in your relationship with the Lord and to discover how he wants to use your life to touch the nations. Its not too late to apply so pray and contact me quickly!!! tortillaleah@hotmail.com

Back from Macedonia and DTS is over!

Hey all! Last week I got back from Macedonia and I must say that the trip went really well. We had some great opportunities to love and encourage the people and to see God work in their lives. The majority of our time there was spent with people from a tiny two year old church plant. Some of the members had stopped coming and it was our joy to be able to encourage them to get back into fellowship and to pursue the call that God has on their lives. We met so many wonderful people and I miss them already!

After we arrived back in Cluj we spent the week in school evaluations, packing and saying good bye. We had a very nice graduation dinner and received our diploma for finishing Youth With A Mission's Discipleship Training School! Praise the Lord I am official now! I could hardly believe that my DTS was over! It was sad to say good bye to the friends I have made in these past few months but my excitement for what is to come has been keeping me going!

After DTS I went with a good friend from the school to Budapest, Hungary to see the sights and take some days off to relax before heading back to Constanta. The city is GORGEOUS and we had a great time! I even got to spend time at the YWAM base there and with a friend who works with them, joining the team for an English club outreach and a prayer time. It was a big blessing for me and was great to see what a beautiful YWAM family I am now a part of! Praise God for all he is doing through YWAM :)

Now I am back in Cluj for the night and will be taking the train tomorrow to go back to Constanta where I will have a month of rest and renewal before rejoining the base there as fulltime staff for the next two years! This next season of life will be very different for me as I won't be working with the street children's ministry, the families, or the Day Center. Instead I will be staff for the January DTS (the same kind of school I just finished), leading worship, leading a small group, living with and discipling students, and leading the outreach to Bosnia and Serbia, Lord willing! So this is a big change. And, next to this, a couple nights a week I will be staying at the Girls Home that should finally be openning in January as well, beginning with just two girls from the Day Center. Your prayers will be needed!!!

I hope to be in the States in May for two months to see family and friends and do fundraising. So that is the story with me. Thank you for all your love and support and for checking my blog even when I had no updates! Sorry for that! Blessings!

Macedonia!!!

We made it to Macedonia! After over 24 hours of traveling by train and bus we made it to the beautiful city of Kratovo, Macedonia in the North Eastern part of the country. I love it! And I am excited to see how God will use my team here. We will be working with YWAMers who are planting a church here, the first Christian church in this city. It is an awesome work and there is a lot of opportunity to encourage people in this place. We will be sharing testimonies, doing dramas and dances, reaching out to the youth by hanging out with them and playing music with them. Practically we will probably be painting a bridge in the town and cleaning up garbabge as well. May we be a blessing to all we meet!

Thank you for your prayers! More info to come later!

The Baptism

This was one of the most special moments of my life. Who would have known that something with only 4 hours of planning would be so amazing and powerful?! All of the students and many of the staff gathered together in the living room of one of the couples where we had one of the best church experiences that I have had in a long time. Bob shared about baptism from Jesus' example and after that the four of us students getting baptized shared why we felt led to do this. Three of us had been baptized as young children and wanted to make the stand again as an adult. For me, the realization of recieving Jesus' righteousness in place of my sin, hit me so hard that I wanted to recieve that in all its fullness through the symbol of baptism.

When Bob took my hands and said "are you willing from today forward, to renounce the world, the flesh, the devil and all the works of darkness, and walk in newness of life? Are you willig to give and recieve council from godly people that you respect?" it was as if I was saying my vows to get married. And actually that was exactly the kind of thing that I was doing! I had such a revelation of how I was chosing Jesus again, taking his name and identity through identifying with his death and rising again to life as I went in and out of the water. It was awesome! One of the most beautiful experiences of my life, even if it was in a bathroom, in someone's bath tub :)

These past months have been a huge growing experience and blessing for me. Tough times, fun times and powerful times. Thank you Lord for drawing me nearer to your heart!



Next up....MACEDONIA!!!

The end of the lecture phase has come!

The past three months we have had some amazing teachers visit us at our school in Cluj, Romania. In the first picture is Graham Powell, a New Zealander coming to us from Canada and bringing with him his testimony of deliverance from strongholds. During the week that Graham was teaching I experienced some deliverence myself from certain fears. It was a powerful week and I learned so much about how to fight the spiritual battles that we find ourselves in every day, that we many times don't realize.



In the picture to your left is Bob a Menonite Pastor from Pennsylvia. God used him to communicate the heart ministry and has resparked my interest in the Old Testament and in Jewish tradition as it points to Jesus. Bob is such a wise guy! Also through his teaching God revealed to me some amazing things about grace and how I can't work to maintain my salvation. Jesus died for my past sins, the sins I commit today and the ones I will commit tomorrow. Such AMAZING grace! Its hard to explain without writing a novel, but God really touched me through Bob's words, so much so that me and some other students decided that we wanted Bob to baptize us--that night!

A week with the ladies

Last week we had a very special experience spending time with some very special ladies. The girls from my DTS all went together to a village outside of Bucharest. There we visited a home for young ladies from age 22-26, who had all grown up in orphanages and had either ended up on the streets or without any other place to go.

We spent time talking with the girls, getting to know them, cutting hair, painting nails and sharing our lives and our faith with them. My eyes were openned to the need among girls like these, especially with discipleship, encouragement in finding vocations, and in support in every area.

One Year in Romania!!!

Today is my one year anniversary of coming here to Romania! This is amazing! I can hardly believe that it has been a whole year. God has done SOOO much and I am sooo thankful for everything I have experienced here. It has been such a growing year. So...A BIG THANK YOU to all the people out there who have been praying for me, writing me emails, encouraging me and supporting me financially to be here! I couldn't be here without you! Thank you for letting God use you in such a big way!

Discipleship Training School!

My crazy fellow students in DTS!!!

Hello there! I am here in Cluj, Romania, over halfway through with the lecture phase of my YWAM Discipleship Training School. The point of the school is to know God in a deeper way and then to go out and make him known in mission. This time has really been whipping me into shape. There have been lots of challenges, but my heart is learning new things about God, living with people and healing some hurts in my life, and all of this is going to have such an impact on how I continue in ministry.

I am missing Constanta so much! I miss the kids, the families, the base, my friends...the sea :) But I am getting to know some wonderful people here in Cluj, and as time goes on I am seeing more and more that this is just the place where I am to be right now. We have one more month of lectures and then we will be off to outreach. My outreach team is planning to go to Macedonia. We are in desperate need of money for this to happen, but of course that is no problem for God. Yesterday we just recieved news that the YWAM base in Tyler, Texas raised $2,000 for all of us students to help pay off our lecture phase. So awesome! So God is providing for us. I am learning to trust him, even when the food is running low and things don't look too good. It is such a good stretch for me.

Well this is all for now. I just wanted to say hello and let you know what I've been up to. If you haven't recieved my latest newsletter please let me know and I can email it to you. Love to you all!

Leah

Neighborhood Outreach

Last Wednesday we had such a great time reaching out to some children from poor families in a neighborhood where we have been visiting street kids. A couple of weeks ago we were going about our normal routine, visiting some of our street kids and one of the families where they come from, when about 15 little kids from the neighborhood came out of nowhere, jumping up and down, so excited to see us! So we decided we should take the opportunity and reach out to this neightborhood.

Since we have a team serving with us from Norway we decided to make a special night of it. Wednesday morning we started off with a short prayer walk around the neighborhood, told the kids we'd be back later that evening for a kids program. The team organized the activities and by the end of the night we had had an amazing time, singing, watching dances and dramas about Zacheus and The Good Samaritan, playing soccer and basket ball, drawing with sidewalk chalk, face painting and loving on the most beautiful little kids! Man, it was one of the greatest nights of the past few months! Thank you Lord for working it all out!

This Wednesday we will go again to spend time with the kids, telling them about Jesus and his love for them and playing games. Most of the kids are from poor families and some of them don't go to school. It is a great opportunity to bring light and joy into their lives and to share with them the Father's love! These kids are so open and teachable, it is amazing. A little group of them came up to me that night and wanted to pray! I didn't even have to initiate a thing. So God is openning up some unexpected doors...very cool! Please pray for the Lord to lead us as we consider continuing reaching out there this summer. Multumesc! (Thank you!)

I'm still alive :)

Hello! I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long! Wow, so much has been happening. Just a quick run down...

We finished our Alpha Bible study course with the street kids and families that we have been ministering too. The attendence really dwindled by the end but not without fruit! God did such a work in one of the girls, Nadia, and she told us at the last meeting how life has changed for her, in the way she acts and sees things. Its so encouraging to see and we pray that she continues to hunger for more of God. Besides Nadia, we also have seen a big change in the lives of a couple named Dodo and Mirela. They have been coming the most consistently and it is amazing to see how much especially Dodo loves being there and learning about God. He said that the only things he would change about our bible study would be that we could pray and worship God more! So, God's moving in hearts and we are enjoying seeing this happen and praying that God will direct us to facilitate more opportunities for them to grow.

Lately with the street team we have been praying about where the Lord will be taking the street ministry next. Our leader will leave to work with training schools in Sept. and so there is a big question of how things will continue after that. From July 10th to around the middle of August we will have a break from the street ministry while people are out the coutry fundraising and visiting their families. I won't be going home but I will be hanging out with some VERY special visitors from the 17th of July through the 25th! Yep, my parents are coming!!! Yeah! So I am looking forward to enjoying a bit of a break with them.

I am still waiting on the Lord for direction for what to do after my commitment here is up in September. I would definitely appreciate your prayers. Thank you so much for keeping up with blog even though I am a terrible updater ;) Love to all!
Leah