October 2013 - Newsletter

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"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35 and 38-39

      October 2013 - Newsletter

Dear Friends,

 

My prayer for you is that this letter finds you doing well and prospering in all things! I am very sorry that it has been such a long time since my last letter. The first part of this summer started out to be very busy with raising our family, the kids finishing school, ministry activity with the children and teens, visiting needy families sharing the love of Christ and working to build the dorm buildings at the kids camp in Laz.The last two weeks of July, we had our annual camps and both of them were very successful. At the teen camp, some of the teens accepted the Lord, others renewed that commitment and made some crucial decisions in their lives. Overall we had a great week and thank you for your prayers!

The small kids camp was also very successful with many of them accepting the Lord, it was a joy to see them praising the Lord and having so much fun. We had five of the teens come and help with the lessons and they did an excellent job doing skits to teach about Daniel, in the lions den and Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego. We are happy to see that the teens are starting to get more involved in the work with children and that they also enjoy going with us to visit and encourage the needy families that we help.
 
During the last week of camp, I received the letter in the mail that I had been waiting to receive for six months, concerning my permanent residence. The next few weeks I was able to complete my paperwork and I am now an official resident of Romania, after 20 years. Now we can start the next set of paperwork to officially adopt our five children and I can now travel outside of the country, once again. Right after this Ashley, Jacqueline, Annabelle and I flew to America to visit my Mom/Grandma. The girls had not been to the States in over five years and they had wanted to see grandma, we only had three weeks because their school was starting and Romanian school does not easily allow missed days for travel. I knew that this trip was going to go very fast but three days after we arrived in the States, my Mom fell and broke her hip so I spent much of my time staying by her bedside and trying to help her. Many friends helped out by taking care of the girls so that I could do this and our girls had a wonderful time. 

You can view a video of this on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhg8-yZLiQs

 

We returned to Romania in mid-September, with only a few days left before the start of school and we also had a missions team visiting us at Casa Ezra. Two days after arriving back to Romania, on Sunday morning when we were traveling to our church, one of our vehicles which was being driven by a member of the visiting team, went off the road, down over a bank and rolled twice. Ashley was in the vehicle along with the team members. She had her seatbelt on and was unhurt. Two ladies from the visiting team were seriously hurt. One (Jordan) was medically evacuated back to the States after a week, but because of lung damage the other lady, (Jessica) could not fly and had to endure two serious operations and almost four weeks of hospitalization in Romania. This was a very difficult time for us taking care of all the legal matters of this accident, and caring for and translating for those injured. It was a bad accident and we can only praise the Lord that nobody was killed and all have returned to the States to continue their recovery.

  We are needing to buy a larger vehicle, our family now has ten people and we have a seven seat van. We had planned to eventually sell the van that wrecked and put more money towards a 12-15 seat bus. Since this accident occurred, we feel an urgency to do this, we have recovered the money from this accident but still need approximately $15,000 more in order to buy a decent used vehicle of this size. Good vehicles are much more expensive here, but as we have learned can save lives. Please pray that the Lord provides for this vehicle soon.
 
The day after this accident our kids started another school year! Here in Romania the first day of school is a big deal and parents need to attend the first few hours, Ashley was in attendance even though she had been in the accident the day before. Schooling is very difficult and it requires the whole family to work together for the kids to be successful. Please pray that all of our kids will have a good school year. This is a picture of the kids on the first day of school.
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On October 10th, I was working in Laz, where we are building the dorms for the kids camp. It was a nice day and I was happy that the doctors had told us in a few days Jessica could leave the hospital and that her lung had healed enough to travel by airplane back to the States. Having been gone for three weeks in the States and then losing three and a half weeks to the accident, I was way behind in the work that we need to do before winter, at the kids camp. We are trying to get the dorm buildings under roof before the bad weather sets in. It was then that I received a call from my sister telling me, that my Mom had another stroke and a UTI. She was in a coma and not responding. Two days later she passed away. For those of you that have lost a mother, you know how difficult this is, and for those that have your Mom's, cherish every moment... It is a sad time for us, but I was blessed with a Mom who loved us kids dearly and she made a major impact on my life. We will go forward trusting the Lord!
 
I flew back to the States for the funeral and will return to Romania on Monday October 28th. Maria's Mom is also struggling with health problems...she just celebrated her 86th birthday. Your prayers for us are so appreciated during this time.
 
 

At the moment, I am looking forward to getting back to work in Romania. Maria has done a good job holding down the fort (so to say) and the outreaches to teens and the kids seem to be going well. We will be planning our Christmas outreaches in the next weeks. We are planning to have the teens and kids do a special program about the true reason for Christmas and invite all of their parents. For this we must start soon because time is now going fast.We also will decorate Casa Ezra once again, we have done this the last three years and people come from all over to see the house and they can walk in the courtyard were we have a manger scene,which is the center of it all and our goal is to meet new people and share the love of Christ.
 
We also havethe teens and kids make ornaments for the city Christmas tree and present them to the mayor and city council the first week of December. We have done this for three years also.
 
God has blessed us again with a shipment of food that we were able to purchase, for the cost of transportation. So Maria and some teens have been visiting many poor families this week. I always enjoy hearing how these families are doing and our goal in this work is to share Christ. We have approximately 20 families that we visit on a regular basis thanks to these shipments of food. I would appreciate your prayers that these shipments keep coming.
 
I am praying, that we will be able to finish the roofs on the dorm buildings before winter at the camp in Laz. We have got the walls mostly completed and there may still be time to cover them before the winter weather sets in, for this we are needing finances for the project. The buildings have turned out nice and will provide sleeping areas for 30+ children, as well as two meeting rooms in case of bad weather.Once these dorms are completed we can start organizing camps throughout the summer, rain or shine... For us to cover these buildings we are needing approximately $5,000. In order to completely finish these buildings we are needing a total of approximately $15,000. Please join with us in prayer that the Lord will provide for this project.
 
Thank you for taking of your time to read this, for your prayers, your encouragement and support of the work we are seeking to do.
 
Take care and may the Lord bless you in all things!
 
    Love In Christ,
 
 
 
 
Dan, Maria and kids
 
 
 
 
We can be contacted via e-mail at: dhurrelbrink@yahoo.com
 
 
Or found on facebook at, www.facebook.com/asociatiabarnaba or www.facebook.com/dhurrelbrink
 
 
 
For financial contributions:
Please make checks payable to "Barnabas Ministries". Attach a note stating for the support of Dan and Maria Hurrelbrink / Barnabas Ministries in Romania and mail to this address;
 
BarnabasMinistries  Inc.
P.O. Box 23
Emlenton, PA 16373
 
At the end of the year, you will receive a taxdeductiblereceipt for your giving       
 
 
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