We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and... A Happy New Year! At the end of each year I (Rebeca) like to pick a word to guide me into the new one. For 2022 my word is "Holy" and the verse that I thought of to go with it is 1 Peter 3:15: "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you..." I pray that in 2022 we will become more like Jesus, living a life of holiness and being a witness to many. It's hard to believe that December is over! It has gone by so quickly, but has been so busy for us. We've continued to work on the prayer and fundraising campaign that Youth for Christ Romania had going these past two months, in different capacities. We were blown away as the Lord raised ALL the funds needed for this campaign—praise God! In our ministry we continued to do our youth Bible studies and our small group Bible study. We spent a day with the youth for the National Day of Romania, on December 1st, where some youth cooked burgers for us and we got to know two of our youth girls' boyfriends better. We had a small white elephant party for the youth, which is something pretty new for them, as it's not done here in Romania. The two evenings prior to Christmas Eve we had a total of 20 people who went caroling with us, visiting over 21 families, over several hours each night. Close to half of those families were people who had never heard a youth group carol or who've never gone to church before and they loved it! Some promised to come to church for our Christmas services. We had church for Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, and Sunday morning this year, as well as for the last day of the year, where the youth (along with Rebeca and her brother) lead the worship, so we had several rehearsals for that. We are so thankful and proud of our youth for their dedication to serving the body of Christ here in Slatina and selflessly giving of their time over and over. We also had a New Year's Eve service, before which Beni and David drove to Alexandria to pick up the Christmas boxes delivered for so many needy youth in and around Slatina. The last night of the year we always have a youth lock-in, where we welcome in the new year, eat, play games, and enjoy fellowship together. We're really starting to feel our age when this time of year rolls around and we get so busy with all we have to do at home and at church to get ready. But we also love it very much and are thankful to be able to serve! We had a great night! As far as family goes, this month we had plenty of opportunities to hang out because we had 4 birthdays, as well as Christmas get-togethers! We got to celebrate Chàris, Rebeca's dad, Rebeca's mom and one of our nephews. Phew! We've also been working on our trip to America in 2022, so for that we've had to go to the capital (Bucharest) to renew Rebeca's and the kids' passports at the embassy. Thankfully, it was a smooth process. Then, we shifted our focus to getting our plane tickets. The tickets proved to be an ordeal. We had issues with our bank in the States and tryed to get them to release our money to pay for tickets for the over 6 nights, going to bed at 4 am several times, with no results. God has been answering our prayers and providing for our financial needs in trying to plan this trip through the generosity of our amazing sponsors and friends! Thank you all again for making our trip to the States possible! As we've mentioned in our past newsletter, our trip to America is necessary at this time not only because we miss family a lot, but because we also need to raise our support. We've been doing ministry here for the past 2 years at half the financial support we were supposed to have raised. As it stands, if we don't raise our monthly support by at least $2,000, we might not be able to continue serving here in Romania. And that's not something we want at all! So we ask that you consider partnering with us. Or, if you're not ready to do that yet, but want to learn more about our ministry, we would love to hear from you about visiting with you when we are in the U.S. We are working on our schedule while we are there, so the sooner we can hear from you and can set something up, the better. Please let us know, and we look forward to connecting with you and/or your church. May God bless you all richly in this new year with all He knows you need, and may we all draw ever closer to and become more like Jesus each day! Prayer, Praise, People Here's a snapshot of how to pray for the ministry right now:
The Month In PicturesSPOTLIGHT: Rebeca Clinkscales
I've been asked by our leader in YFC Romania to help with taking some pictures for them this year and managing their social media, and I've enjoyed doing that and learning more about it.To that end, David got me a camera for my 40'th birthday, and I've been playing with it quite a bit, trying to learn how to use it and take better pictures. I have a very long way to go, but I am excited to develop this skill. I've gotten a couple of photography classes, but haven't had time to go through them all yet. Ah, the life of a very busy mom and missionary. We're so thankful for our personal and professional growth during our time with Youth for Christ Romania, and for the opportunities to serve through media creation. Please check out our social media for more of Rebeca’s amazing photos, and our website to see more videos and info on the mission here. Now, our UNITY Questions!:
Have a wonderful New Year, everyone, and thank you for reading our E-Newsletter! If you'd like to see the previous or next month, click these navigation buttons below, or view the archives from the BLOG link above to view other posts from other months of previous years! |
AuthorThe Clinkscales' here share their monthly passion for reaching Youth for Christ, progress in the marathon of discipleship, and their Hope for Slatina. Archives
December 2021
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