Moldova update

Greetings from Moldova,

I apologize for the tardiness in this update, this is from last week

This past week has been rather fast-paced. On Monday, Michelle, Emily, and I and five girls from the small group went out to a small town.  There we aided a local church in their ministry for street children. Our goal was to help and work alongside the Moldovan people, hopefully spurring them to continue going on trips like these in the future. In Cornesti, flexibility was a grace given by God.  The girls had planned outdoor games and activities for about 50+ kids.  We were also told that the language of the village was Russian.  We all planned for an evening program where we were to share our grace stories, show a skit, etc... It rained the whole time we were there... so the outdoor games were a no go (the indoors was too small to hold them).  The number of kids that came were about 20, half of which were older than what we had prepared for. More than that... the language was completely Romanian (not Russian).  The girls who had prepared the lessons spoke mainly Russian so they had to work hard to translate all that they had prepared.  The evening program became us attending the local youth group.  The power went out right before we were to show our skit, so we could not use the music and had to improvise with Emily's iPod.  But God moved in our hearts.  The girls changed their plans and lessons without any complaint.  Michelle, Emily, and I learned to be servants of our fellow sisters in Christ.  I learned most of all that God can move to show his love beyond the barriers of language and culture.  On the morning of our second day there, we went to the house of 5 kids.  Their parents had left them.  They rely partially on the church for support.  The oldest is 15 and he acts as a father to his much younger siblings.  We helped with cleaning their two room house.  I mostly helped with washing the mountain of dirty clothes that had been festering for quite some time.  One of my favorite little boys is part of that family, his name is Pavlusha.  He is six years old and washed dishes in hot water.  He helped us clean the house and was wonderfully behaved during the lessons.  But, just like any young child, he enjoyed making faces, funny noises, and imitating me.  This reminded me that though life may be harder for some, God can give them joy in the small things.  A lesson to us all.
The day we came back to Chisinau, I had no time to rest because I had two English classes to teach.  God has kept me going, and has been strong in my weakness.  I continue to learn to give all to Him to handle as I prepare for it, because I can do very little but He can move mountains.  In the midst of loss and grief, God gives comfort, strength, and hope.
Please continue to pray for me...

Please pray that God will continue to teach and stretch me through my last few weeks here.
Pray that He will bless my English students with understanding.
Pray for Emily that she gets a good grasp of what to teach for the children's curriculum that she is writing.
Pray for Moldovan people that they would step away from nominalism and see God for real.
Thank you all so much for your prayers, they are encouragements to me.
Sincerely,
Naomi Lynn Vann
P.S. Happy 4th of July (belated of course).