Feb. 1, 2008
February 14th will mark one year since we landed on Romanian soil and started our lives anew in Galati. We can honestly say it has been full, not only speaking of busyness, but full of newness, full of learning, full of joy, and full of sadness. But we write this letter with gratitude and humility, giving thanks to our Father who has brought us here and has shown His faithfulness yet another year, not only to us, but our family and friends as well.
In this letter we would like to share with you several things: how we celebrated the holidays, what we have been doing in January, our financial status from this past year, and what is coming up.
Celebration
I think we can say that this is one of the most memorable Christmas' we have experienced in our lives, not just because of the newness, but because of how Christ was celebrated in a way we haven't seen.
Caroling with the children on the 23rd and 24th of December was the highlight. We walked for hours all over the city and went to the children's homes and to the homes of people who are connected with Word Made Flesh in Galati. It was the first time for us to visit many of the children's homes; muddy, worn paths led up to crumbling houses, dark in more ways then just the obvious lack of electricity.
Yet, can you imagine what it is like to enter these courtyards with 25 beaming children...belting out the birth of Christ, the gift of Hope? "Do not be afraid!" a child would always loudly proclaim, "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is..." (and the voices of all children ring out in chorus) "Christ the Lord!" (Luke 2:10-11) To sing these songs and to proclaim this truth with our new friends was an absolute joy. It brought us to a place of peace, truly knowing that God who became flesh is now Immanuel, God with us and with these children.
Then for Christmas night, all of us including all of the children, spent the night at the center. We had a huge meal together at 11pm. Then each of the staff shared how we have seen each of the children change this year and how we have seen God work in their lives. Next, the children opened gifts. And then the whole night we watched movies together, trying to stay awake, often failing, then waking up again to a child's laugh or scream. It was a fun night but we were glad to go home and snuggle up in our own bed to rest.
And during this whole Christmas season we had our good friend, Kevin Wright, with us. He came on the 19th and stayed until the 2nd of January. This was definitely one of our year's highlights. He was our first guest here so it was a joy to be able to show him what God is doing at the Valley House and what our lives look like day in and day out. We hated to see him off but we were truly blessed by his presence here. And if any of you know Kevin, you can imagine that he made us laugh a lot but also encouraged us to embrace life and follow Christ a little closer.
And during all of this, it snowed! Not a lot but just enough for it to look and feel like winter. This has been one of the most beautiful Christmas' I can remember. Everything was frosted white, and like we have heard Romanians say, "like in a story!"
Then lastly, for New Years we celebrated with our good friends Joel and Monica Klepac and their boys, Simeon and Abram. The Klepacs have been here for almost eight years now. It has been a comfort and a joy to live next to them and to share our lives with them and be a part of theirs.
A New Year
After everything calmed down and the smoke from all the New Year's fireworks settled, we resumed our normal routine of going to the center, but with a new twist for January. For the whole month we are taking more intensive language lessons. We are with someone for about three hours a day, asking many questions, speaking Romanian (and getting corrected), translating sentences and essays. Then after these lessons we spend time alone trying to retain everything we heard and learned that day. We have had many headaches and go to bed really tired but we can already see it is helping our language ability.
A Look at Finances
And so a new year has begun and we look back at the last one trying to honestly assess our lives here. And that includes our finances. We would like to remain open with you who so generously give to us.
Every month we require around $1,100 for everything, including health insurance, taxes, administration feeds, administration costs (postage is the big one!), putting money back for travel when we will head home to the states (probably a year from now), food and administration costs at the Valley House, and lastly, our monthly salary that is put directly into our personal checking account.
Every month $400 is put into our personal checking account for monthly expenditures. This money is for our daily lives here. Listed below is an average of what we spend monthly:
Rent: $85
Utilities: $75
Food: $110
Misc./Household: $85
Internet: $15
Savings: $45
Total: $415
In the month of September we asked for our salary to increase by $100 from $300 to $400 per month because we saw that we were spending over what we were receiving. We have heard from others that the cost of living in Romania will continue to go up with the entrance of Romania into the European Union (Jan. 1 2007). But for now, we are sitting well with monthly donations that exceed our need. We had enough this year to direct some of our donations to places of Word Made Flesh Romania that were in need.
Also, just to inform you, in 2007 our community bought a piece of land just right around the corner from the Valley House for which we have the dream to begin a job creation project that will create life-giving jobs to those who we are in relationship with at the center. This includes many of the older kids (17, 18, 19 years old) and parents of some of the children. There are ideas of what this could turn into but we are still open to where God might be directing us. Ideas include: a wood workshop where we build furniture and other products, a catering service or bakery, a coffee/pastry shop, and a sewing shop. These are the ideas now, and again, we are open to what else might be a life-giving occupation to our friends. So if you feel led to give for this, just address on the monthly slip that you receive that you want the money to go to "Word Made Flesh Romania: Job Creation Project."
Covenanting with Community
And lastly, please be in prayer for us as we prepare our hearts for our "covenant ceremony," most likely to occur this February. The two of us will gather in the chapel with the staff here and covenant ourselves to community, and they to us. This covenant ceremony is a somewhat new thing for WMF but the reason behind it is to openly express to those you are serving among that you are committed to them for a certain duration of time (for us at this time, this means 2 years). It is a time for your responsibilities and gifts to be named and confirmed. It is a time for the whole community to renew its dedication to serving Christ among the poor. Please pray for us that we will be assured that this is where God has us for now and that we will commit ourselves fully to the work that He is calling us to.
We recognize that this has been a long letter but if you have made it through, thank you for putting time into hearing about our lives and what we are thinking about and being a part of.
Our Prayer
We know that many of you don't fully know what we do here and what goes on at the Valley House everyday, but you have still committed yourselves to us, to pray for us, to give to us, to support us with emails and letters. We do hope that as we continue on this journey together you will feel a part of our lives here, and a part of the lives of the children for whom we are advocating for. As you do know, we are trying to serve Jesus Christ among the poor, to be advocates, in small ways, of God's redeeming work in the world and His love for all. And we also want to continue to be small, subtle voices against the ways that continue the cycle of poverty: power struggles, corrupt politics, greedy rich, lack of care for the environment, those hungry for violence, racism, and the list continues. Our prayer is that all of us will learn that in the Kingdom of God, the poor are blessed, those who mourn are blessed, those who seek and create peace are blessed, those who are humble are blessed, and those who seek after God are blessed. May we be those people together.
With deep love and growing hope,
Joshua and Robin Fowler
