As everyone has by now surmised the team has been back in America safely since July 24th, Praise God, and have as busy as ever. I hope that you were all able to enjoy the pictures that we posted from the trip.

As everyone in the Kansas City Area should know by now, tomorrow, Sunday, August 19th, we will be having our 4th Annual Mission Madness. This is a time to thank all of our supporters for their dedication to Deaf International’s ministry. However, anyone is welcome! At 5:30 we will be having a dinner called “On The Table of Our Father,” which will feature dishes from several countries around the world. At 6:30 we will have a program featuring testimonies from the team’s missionaries, songs in different sign languages, a presentation of the trip, and a preview of next summer’s missions. Mission Madness will be hosted at First Baptist Church of Olathe at 2024 E. 151st St. in Olathe.

We understand that our suppporters are from all over the country, and I apologize that many will not be able to make it to the program. However, we do appreciate all of your support and prayer. We will be posting the video of our trip that we will be using at the program in Kansas City on this blog. Also, Jacob will be organizing a presentation of the trip this fall at Harvard for our supporters in the Boston area.

Finally, this blog will continue to be used to post additional pictures, and the videotapes that we promised. Noah has been busy all week downloading them to his computer and putting together a video clip for Mission Madness. That video and others will be placed on the blog. We will also be posting any speaking engagements that Deaf International has so that people can attend if they are in the area. So feel free to subscribe to the blog so that you can get an e-mail reminder whenver we post, or simply check-in occassionaly for any new material.

God Bless,

The Romania/Moldova Team

The Romania Team
Left to Right: Matt Keller (Deaf Missions), Stacie Filley, Beti Keller (Deaf Missions), Jacob Buchholz, Maleah Eubanks (Not Pictured: Pastor Noah)

The Deaf Club in Bucharest, Romania
See the Day 14 post for the stories.

At the Deaf Club
Angela (right), a Romanian Sign Language interpreter, talking with a deaf man. Angela has always been a tremendous help for us with interpreting English/Romanian/Romanian Sign Language, guiding us through the cities in Romania, and so much more.

At the Deaf Club
Jacob Buchholz talking with a deaf man.

Jacob
Jacob sharing a story about a martyr.

Matt
Matt (Deaf Missions) drawing the parable of the four soils. Praise the Lord for his remarkable talent of drawing. He can really bring God’s Word alive to the Deaf, which is especially important because most of the Deaf can’t read or write becasue of the improper education they recieve.

Pastor Noah
Pastor Noah preaching… something about being scared by a bear?

The Team on the Train
Left to Right: Beti Keller (Deaf Missions), Matt Keller (Deaf Missions), Maleah Eubanks, Stacie Filley, Jacob Buchholz (Not Pictured: Once again, Pastor Noah (one of the disadvatages of being the photographer))

Ploesti Deaf Singing
Avramescu (the man who wants to be a pastor, but is struggling with reading the Bible in Romanian) is the one on the left.
See the Day 16 post for the stories about the worship service in Polesti and Day 22 post for a story about Avramescu.

The Deaf Congregation in Polesti
See the Day 16 post

Avramescu
See Day 22 for his story. By the way, he is trying on hats and gloves that were knitted by First Baptist Church of Olathe members… thank you so much!

The Deaf Congregation in Bucharest

That is… Romania!

…in green pastures

Community Worship Service in Cluj
Members of the deaf church in Cluj singing praises. See the Day 19-21 posts for the stories.

Pastor Torok Ioan
A deaf pastor at the deaf church in Cluj happily showing a hat for one of his daughters. More than one hundred hats were generously knitted by First Baptist Church of Olathe members and gloves were also donated by them.
See the Day 22 post for a story about Pastor Torok.

Hats and Gloves
Two kids trying on hats and gloves that were donated by First Baptist Church of Olathe.
See Day 21 post.

Marcela and Oana
Marcela (Deaf) and Oana (Romanian Sign Language interpreter) were such a huge help with traveling around the City of Cluj and interpreting.

Selfless Love
This picture reflects the common behavior of Romanian hosts when Americans stay at their homes. They spend quality time cooking delicous food for Americans, keeping a small amount of food for themselves. That night Jacob and I had one of the most amazing soups, green pepper (with meat inside) and sour cream, while Pastor Laszlo, our host, and Avramescu treat themselves to only breads, butter, sausages, and tomatoes.

Bible Translation Meeting
Pastor Noah led a successful Romanian Sign Language Bible Translation meeting. He is hoping to return to Romania again before offically starting the Bible translation procedures in Romania.
See the Day 22 post for more information.

Bible Translation Meeting Attendance
Even though all of the Romanian leaders were not able to attend the meeting, their ideas and discussions helped the Romanian Sign Language Bible Translation team to succeed in their essential first step.
See the Day 22 post for more information.

Team Devotion
We had a team devotion every morning and a team meeting every night. We took turns leading the devotions everyday.

A Deaf Missionary from Ukraine
Please remember to pray for him (see Day 2 for more information).

Victoria (Russian Sign Language interpreter)
She has helped Deaf International in many amazing ways, especially with communicating with the deaf leaders and churches in Moldova.

Only Cold Meat for the Deaf
Please see Day 2 for the story about this.

Pastor Vasea’s Family
Please see the Day 4 post to learn more about Vasea and his family.

Visiting Deaf Shut-ins
See Day 10 post.

Bible Translation and Deaf Christian Association Meeting
Pastor Noah discussing the establishment of a Moldovan Deaf Christian Associaton (See Day 3 post).

Bible Translation and Deaf Christian Association Meeting
Nadea (in the blue shirt) is the bi-lingual counstlant for the translation team.
Vica (in the orange shirt) is the on-camera translator of Ruth, the book that they completed last year, and will be signing the book of 1 John.

One of Our Newest Sisters in Christ
See the Day 3 post for the story.

Noah’s Box
Helpers packing supplies (toothbrushes, shampoos, soaps, etc.) into bags to give to the Deaf Moldovans (see Day 9 post).

Drama
We did four different dramas for every worship service we conducted. This drama highlights how worry can weigh our life down. (Left to right: Jacob (devil), Stacie (non-believer), Pastor Noah (believer))

The Proverbs 31 Wife
See the Day 9 post.

Today has been another amazing day with God at work to control our trip and make sure that everything comes out according to his plans.

Last night was our last worship service in Bucharest. There were some non-Christians there, and our dramas were really effective in conveying the Gospel message. A lot of deaf in Moldova and Romania whenever they are told about Jesus will use the excuse “Oh, I’m already Orthodox,” but their faith actually means nothing to them, nor do they have any relationship with Jesus. This was the case with someone in attendance, and the message of Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life hopefully hit home.

Today we woke up at 5:00am for our eight hour train ride to Cluj. We will be here through Sunday staying with local families. Noah and Jacob are staying with one of the pastors of the Cluj deaf church, and when we arrived we wondered why they were staying with this specific pastor, when it seemed the other one was more influential in the Christian community and could help us achieve our work. On top of that, the condition of the apartment was pretty shoddy.

However, tonight we saw God’s hand at work. All the team members settled into their sleeping accommodations and then gathered at a deaf woman’s apartment to meet together. While we were both of the pastors of the Deaf Cluj church came to visit.

For a couple of hours the discussion focused mainly on theological issues, but then the discussion of evangelism came up, and the pastors started expressing their frustration. This Saturday during the day, there is going to be a big meeting with deaf leaders from Cluj and nearby cities such as Oradea and Timisoara. We will be discussing how to continue Bible Translation work as well as the future of mission work in Romania. Noah had been planning to start the Romanian Deaf Christian Association at this meeting with all of the leaders. When the discussion of evangelism came up, God led Noah to go ahead and tell the two deaf pastor’s about the vision of the organization. Praise the Lord, because one of them didn’t know about the meeting and actually can’t be there, but would be crucial to setting up the organization.

Both pastors loved the idea. They are so passionate about the organization and the future of evangelism and Christian work in Romania. They said they were so frustrated with organizations who would promise them money to do evangelism and then never follow through with their promises. These organizations would pledge money, but would have no plan on how to provide the money, or what should be done with it. Noah used this opportunity to thoroughly explain to them how the Romanian Deaf Christian Association would work. They loved the idea of a round table made up of representatives from all of the deaf churches, and the associations vision of financial accountability so that charitable contributions can be made to the association with full knowledge of how the money is being spent and by whom. They actually already had ideas of people who could fill some of the non-voting member roles of the organization. Praise God that already on our first day in Cluj when we were supposed to be getting settled in after our long train ride He is already working. That conversation needed to happen tonight because of circumstances preventing one of the pastors from attending Saturday’s meeting. Plus, it will allow support for the idea when it is presented to all of the other leaders.

To add to God’s goodness, it turns out that our original understanding of the Romanian Deaf church as a whole was wrong. The pastor with whom Noah and Jacob are staying is actually in charge of Romanian ministry, and is the leader that everyone else turns to for guidance. Please pray for our conversations with this pastor during the week.

Prayer Requests:
1. That God will continue to work in conversations leading up to Saturday’s meeting, and that the meeting itself will be Spirit-filled and God-led.
2. Pray for rest for the entire team after little sleep last night.
3. Pray for our worship services in Cluj that many can be reached with the Gospel.

Praise God for his goodness tonight!

 God Bless,

The Romanian Team-James 5:17-18

We’ve already seen so many things here that we want to share with everyone through video that we’ll be able post onto the blog once we get back. But we want everyone to know that all of their hard work and support of the trip has been well worth it, and we’re excited to share our experiences with everyone. Day One Tomorrow!

Here are our prayer requests:
1. Pray that we will be able to effectively spread the word to the deaf community about our community worship services.
2. Pray for our rest as we are about to go to bed (11:15pm here on the 29th) after traveling for two straight days on planes and in airports.
3. Pray that God’s Spirit of clear communication be with us! (It’s a challenge trying to have good conversations in three different sign languages-Russian, Romanian, and American, all of which are so completely different.)

TODAY
9:30am- Depart Kansas City
12:29pm-Arrive Detroit, MI
3:15pm-Depart Detroit, MI

Tomorrow
5:35am-Arrive Frankfurt, Germany
3:00pm-Depart Frankfurt, Germany (yup, 9 1/2 hours layover)
6:20pm-Arrive Chisinau, Moldova

note: different time zones

Prayer Requests
For now… pray that we will arrive there safely!

We will start updating the blog everyday once we leave, which will be this Thursday, June 28th. See you then! God bless.

 P.S. You can get e-mail reminders everytime we update our blog by subscribing to our blog (see upper-right corner, “Subscribe to Mission Blog by Email”).

Transpcript:
Hello, my name is Noah Buchholz. I am the co-executive director of Deaf International. Welcome to our Mission Blog. The last four years that Deaf International’s mission teams have come back from Romania and Moldova, they have wanted to tell people about our projects, what the deaf people there are like, their culture and their language, and to show God’s wonderful work through us to spread His Good News and to serve the deaf people there. But the conversations we have had with people, the presentations we have given, the pictures and videotapes we have shown, have not seemed like enough to communicate our experiences. So, we have decided to set up this mission blog. We will be updating our mission blog everyday while on the trip. No kidding! EVERYDAY! This will give people an opportunity to be a part of our ministry while it’s happening! While we are on our trip be sure to check back to our blog everyday to know what we are doing. We will be posting our prayer requests to let you know how we could use your prayer, because prayer is one of the most powerful tools for ministry. We will be letting people know where we are and what we’re doing that day, whether it’s meeting to train deaf leaders, or hosting community worship services. That way, you can visualize what we’re up to. We will also be posting testimonies, stories, and devotions. You can read these and know that God is around us, and that God does not ignore deaf people, but hears and responds to the needs of deaf people all over the world. We will also occasionally be posting photographs of our trip that you can look at, and after the trip we will put videos online. I encourage everyone to come to view our updates everyday, and help us serve the Lord through your prayers, thoughts, and spreading the word about our ministry, because the deaf are one of the largest spiritually unreached cultural groups in the world. I ask that you join our team in going to Romania and Moldova, by visiting our blog and taking part in our ministry. Thank you!