We are sending out this special letter inviting you to help with our Christmas project this year . . . it is called the "Christmas Bag Project".  We did this same project two years ago and it was wonderful and blessed so many children. . .please don't underestimate how much you can do if you try and how blessed the children will be who receive because of your effort!

Each year, Outstretched Hands of Romania (OH) works to provide Kids Camps, which we call "Saptamana Copiilor",  to children in the villages of Romania.  They come to our event hungry for love and curious about our message and then leave having been deeply touched by the Holy Spirit and wanting more.   These children need a place to meet when they leave, so OH works toward connecting them into the local church.  In the upcoming years, OH will begin to branch out and use the children outreaches to penetrate into villages where there are not local churches now.

Tsunami . . .earthquakes . . .hurricanes . . .war . . .violence . . . murder . . . corruption . . . such topics as these seem to be what characterize the world news each day.  Where is the balance?  We need to hear the "good news" too!  Unfortunately, there are so many bad things happening in the world today that the negative obscures the positive and the good that people do is so easily lost, overlooked, or forgotten.  How sad.  		

But Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven."  The following story, "a feat to beat cold feet", was a newspaper article that was written about three Wisconsin teens who visited us in Calarasi, Romania this past October.  I am very proud of these three teens and what they did for children as a response to their short term mission trip to Romania with their fathers.

God is doing a great work through Outstretched Hands of Romania and we would like to share some of the many things for which we give praise.  Enjoy the pictures and testimonies as you read this month's praise and prayer report.  Continue to keep Outstretched Hands in your prayers.

Please forward this article to anyone that you know.  Prayer and financial support to provide humanitarian assistance is of great need at this time. Outstretched Hands of Romania is actively supplying relief to those devastated by this natural disaster.  

"I have 6 children and no place to go. . . I don't know what we are going to do"!  These are the words of a distraught woman that I sat and talked with two days ago at an evacuee camp just outside Chiselet, Romania.  Thousands of Romanians from 12 counties ravaged by the overflowing Danube River in the last week shares this woman's dilemma and despair.
	

This article was prepared and printed on the front page of a recent issue of the Christian Courier, a Christian publication circulated in the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin, USA.  The Christian Courier wanted to do an article about the Hayes family and the Outstretched Hands ministry.

"Lord, if you want, I will go wherever, do whatever, and become whatever, to bring the gospel to the children of Romania".   These were the words I spoke to the Lord in June of 1996 on the return flight of my first trip to Romania.  I was deeply impacted by all that I saw while traveling through Romania, especially in the lives of the street kids commonly referred to as "nobody’s children".  

At the beginning of each year our OH team sets aside time to pray and consider what we believe we need to trust the Lord for and do through us in the coming year.  We write down those things, they become our goals for the year, and then we diligently work towards their accomplishment.  At the end of each year we look back and reflect on what the Lord did in and through our team.

VISION sees the future . . . as if it already IS REALITY!

I mentioned last month in part 1 of this article that I would share some specific testimonies of how our vision is becoming reality. I will now share just a few. Our vision statement is, "Raise an army of children and poor to bring the Gospel to the unreached parts of Romania". The testimonies I want to share can be characterized by the first word in our vision statement . . .raise. I knew that I needed to actively ... 

"Lord, what do you want me to do in Romania"?  This was my constant prayer before I moved to Romania in 2001.  From that prayer came two distinct impressions in my mind.  The first impression was an understanding of what the Lord wanted to do in the area of Romania that I would be moving to and working in.  From this understanding, I prayed for the words which would help me to communicate...

"Pray for me . . . I'm paralyzed".  When the woman said these words from the back of the room, all the church leaders who had gathered for this service looked at me as if I was the person to fix the problem.  I shouldn’t have even come to this meeting in the first place.  I was totally exhausted from the Children’s Week activities in Chiselet and had a flu virus.  The pastor of this church called me three times, each time I said no.  He called late on Saturday again and due to his persistence I said that I would try to come if I was feeling better.  

This months article is written with the intention that we would be more thankful for what we have and also that we would better appreciate those who sacrifice much for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Due to the sensitivity of this story I will not state the name or village of the Pastor of whom I write about.

I have been working more regularly with some village Gypsy churches along the southern border of Romania.  Some of these pastors had wanted to spend more time with me to discuss ways to evangelize their area.

During the harsh years of Communism in Romania led by the dictator Nicolai Ceaucescu, the population was driven upwards for the sake of power.  Ceaucescu's desire was to build Romania's military into Europe's second largest outfit, second only to Russia.  Although he had a good relationship with the government of Russia, Ceaucescu was very insecure and built this army to protect his Kingdom.  One of the ways he built the army was to drive the population upwards in order to extract the males from it and make it mandatory that all males join the army.  He drove the population upwards through "forced childbearing".   His government did provide jobs and apartments for families but required most women to work.