September Update - Plane Tickets, Fund Raising, Prayer Card

We are only six months away from our three month trip to Romania!  It is hard to believe, but it will be here before we know it.  We are progressing, thankfully, along in this journey.  Our families fund raising is almost completely done.  We had set out to raise $15,000 by September and we are right around $14,000 with at least $600 pledged for the near future!  This means that Jana and I (and Ella) can focus our fundraising toward the team who will be meeting us in June 2015!  We are really thankful and excited for the response we have had from everyone!  And, we are pleased that we can help the group so it is less work for them.  God is good!

Speaking of raising money for the group, we have a number fund raising events coming up including a "Donation Basis" yard sale, Par 3 Golf Tournament, and a Soup Sale & Lunch.  Also, a dinner theater, coffee sale, and "Tuesdays at Cruiser's Cafe" is included.  I (Joel) am also doing a weight loss fund raiser.  You can see more about that here & here.

Picture by Reflective Light 

Some other exciting news is that our plane tickets have been reserved!  We leave March 19th!!  Thanks to Highpoint Mission 963 travel agency, who have been extremely helpful, this process has been a lot easier and we will each have three bags to check . . . for FREE!  We will be flying out of and into Philadelphia, which is easier and closer than New York.  God is good!

We are also thankful to Nicole at Reflective Light Photography for taking family pics for us to use as a prayer card. We are hoping to get these out as soon as possible.

If you are interested in getting us to our goal financially, you could send a check (Romania Trip in the memo) to the church, RMC, 167 Church Street, Richfield, PA  17086 or you could give online (online donations are NOT tax deductible) at GoFundMe.com.  Also, we are looking for prayer partners.  If you would be willing to pray for us on our journey, please subscribe to this blog AND either comment below or contact us personally.  Again, God is GOOD!

Reducing For Romania

Check out my personal blog on my weight loss fund raiser for the team coming to meet us in Romania . . .



A BUNCH OF STUFF: Reducing For Romania: On Sunday at church I announced that I would be trying to loose weight and needed some help. I asked some people to consider sponsoring ...

What's Happening?

Romania 

March - June, 2015 

It has been a little over a month since our last post and I thought we should update you a little. Actually, there isn't a lot, other than finances, that has changed with the exception of Mariana's health.

Let's talk about Mariana's health first. Mariana went in for surgery to remove a mass. The mass was determined to be malignant and she is now going to be going through 80 days of chemotherapy. This was a concern for Jana and I as we didn't want to impose at a bad time. Mariana's answer was that the ministry in Romania is bigger than Mariana and that it has to go on with or without her. What a great attitude! We are waiting to hear how the chemo works but are praying for God's intervention and healing. 

Financially, our support is progressing. It seemed to start out fast, but in the past few weeks, things have slowed a bit. We do have over one third of what our Global Outreach Committee at the church suggest we have to go. We definately have enought to get us there and back (planefare), :-) so now we are praying for the funds for our three month stay. If you are interested in supporting us financially, our church is collecting all those funds or you could give without the tax decuction online via Go Fund Me. 

Prayer is the biggest way you could support us and we are gathering names for our army of prayer warriors. If you subscribe to this blog you will get all of our correspondence here or you could let us know you want to be on the list by contacting one of us personally. (Talking to Jana is the best way!! Joel might forget.) 

We will soon be finalizing the team that will meet us in Romanaia in June, 2015. Fund raising for that team begins sometime in September. So far we have a great group of what I call "probablies" who are thinking of going. We are looking forward to working with them. 

 Check back often for more updates.

God Is Good! Yard Sale Style!

Joel and I always try to make yard sales a little more exciting by doing fun things like guessing what people will buy, picking an item or two that we are sure no one will buy, or guessing amounts for the day.  It helps the time pass and adds a little extra excitement to sitting and watching the day pass by.  This year our yard sale was different - it was a fundraiser for our trip so instead of pricing all of our things and all the items that were donated to us by other people, we just made everything for sale by donation.  Whatever you think it is worth - we will take!  If you need it please take it, even if it is for free.  I had never thought of doing that until I had talked to another church member who had just recently done the same thing for her daughter's mission trip.  

I spent the day setting up on Wednesday with a few friends and neighbors coming to pre-shop - before night fall we already had 132.00 - we are so excited!  So I decided I would set a big dream goal for our sale of 900.00 - that number came to mind because my friend had earned that amount for her similar sale.  Thursday was not very nice weather-wise but we we still able to bring the total over 300.00. Then Friday we had a beautiful day - though slow when it came to customers, but people filled with great generosity - so we moved into today with 717.00 in sales and less than 200.00 to the big goal.

Saturdays are always slow and we weren't expecting a huge turnout but we were getting steady customers all morning.  Joel would text me the totals as I was working an event.  As we closed out the yard sale and began packing up our boxes we totaled our paper and found we sold drum roll please...... 893.50 - we were thrilled to have such a great success and so close to our big goal.  But then something really cool happened, we had one more car pull up and each of the people in the car bought an item or two and they handed Joel their dollars and started to walk away - they saw one more item and decided they must have it - Joel told them to just take it, but they searched in their pockets and handed him a few quarters and were on their way.... Joel counted the dollars and it came to 5.00 then counted the change and it came to 1.50 - totalling 6.50 which made our yard sale grand total - 900.00 exactly!!!  God is good!  We felt so blessed by all those that donated!  Thank you!

A Prayer and Praise

We were shocked when we heard that our Missionary friend Mariana Cocar (the wife of the couple we will be serving with in Romania) was taken to the hospital with possible colon cancer.  It seemed to come out of no where.  We had just talked to her last week and she didn't mention anything but having a fever on and off over the last month.  They decided to do surgery within days of her trip to the hospital.  When we chatted with her before her surgery she seemed in very good spirits and was honored that we would share with others the call to prayer.

Her surgery was last Thursday and it was very successful as she said.  I chatted with her yesterday online and she said she was out of ICU and would be at the hospital for a few more days.  I asked her about chemo and other treatments and she said they needed to wait 21 days to find out what treatment will be next.

So would you please join us in praying for our friend Mariana as she recovers from surgery and as the doctors decide what to do next.  Your prayers are greatly appreciated!

A "Not So Small" World

I am not sure why happenings like today surprise me, but they do.... God has an amazing way of putting the right people in the right place at the right time.  He does it over and over again, yet I am surprised.  I hope I get it one of these days.

Anyway - back to the Not so small world moment today..... Joel and I had a meeting today with a new counselor that will be taking over a local counseling ministry in July to get to know him and talk "shop" a little bit.  His name is Joe Samples and what a great guy he is and I look forward to working with him as a colleague in the Counseling profession.

One of the purposes of the meeting was discussing some options for referrals for my clients during the time that we will be in Romania.  I was mentioning we were going overseas and the conversation led to us talking about our mission trip to Romania and he said - wow - that is great, my wife is Romanian!  Oh my goodness and then he proceeded to tell us she was from a small town not too far from Timisoara.  The first Romanian words out of his mouth was the phrase Buna zuia (Hello!) which just happens to be the only phrase I know up to this point.  We were so excited about this local connection and the potential to learn more about the culture and the language from someone who had be born and raised there.

I have yet to meet Mrs. Samples but I must say that I anxiously await the time that we can spend together and get to know her.  She knows what it is like to be a pastor's wife, to be a ministry mom, and is from the country we are exciting to be serving.... I sense a great new friendship about to be formed.

Our God is a God of the details.... for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord!  His plan is perfect and we are so blessed to be part of it.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for us!

The Fundraising Begins

So . . . we began our "FORMAL" fundraising for our trip to Romania at the church yesterday.  We figure we need around $12,000 for our plane tickets and other travel, living expenses, (rent, electric, food, etc) and ministry expenses for our trip.  We don't want to be a burden on the couple we are staying/working with.  (We will tell you more about them in a future post.)  We are hoping to get this part finished as soon as possible (I am sure that's what all missionaries would like to do) so we can concentrate on helping the "team" that is going to meet us in June get their fundraising done.  Also, we want to be able to prepare in other aspects of our trip as well.  Our big push for the fundraising is the numbered envelope board.

Each person can take an envelope (or more than one).  The number on the envelope corresponds to the amount to be given.  i.e. If you take #57, you should put $57 in the envelope and put it in the offering or hand it in to the office.  If ALL the envelopes are taken and returned, we would have enough money for our trip AND a really good start for our team as well!  I think the total would be 20,100!  While we aren't sure if our church of 200+  families will be able to fill all of the envelopes, we are praying for a good response through this project.  

If you would be interested in giving financially for our trip, you could send donations to RMC, 167 Church Street, Richfield, PA  17086.  Write "Snyder's Romania Trip" in the memo.  Or, if you would like to give online (not tax deductible) you could check this option out as well:  http://www.gofundme.com/8sd8xg

We have already been blessed by many people who have donated or have pledged to donate.  Thank you all for your generous gifts!  

Preparing To Live In Romania

This will be the first of many posts about our little family travelling to, living and ministering in the country of Romania.  This will be short on purpose, but in the future, we are hoping to give you a lot of information about our three month ADVENTURE!  Come back often to see what we are doing to prepare to go and then during our stay.