Hello Again!

   I’d like to give you an update on my endeavors to work in Romania full-time with H2H International.  Before anything else though, I want to express my deepest appreciation for your prayer and financial support of my upcoming ministry.  I am excited to partner with you as I seek to follow God’s will for my life with the orphans of Romania.

   This winter I was privileged to spend over two months in Romania.  I was able to spend Christmas with the H2H Staff and graduates from the Transition Program and spent a lot of time shoveling snow!  After Christmas, I ministered alongside H2H’s Holiday Team.  This team visited the orphanages in Rosiori and Peris, delivering Christmas presents to the children and enjoying holiday-themed activities with the kids.  It was great to spend time with all the kids during their Christmas vacation and provide a little entertainment and friendship during what usually is a pretty dull few weeks away from school! 

   After the Holiday Team returned home, the staff and I started the school program at Peris.  This year, H2H is teaching music, dance, cooking, art, and morality classes.  I was an active participant in all of these classes- although I attempted to remain just the ‘camera man’ for the dance class!

   Since returning home, we’ve started planning H2H’s Summer Ministry.  This year we are doing something completely new and taking a group of older boys backpacking in the mountains.  We hope to develop deeper relationships with these teens as we explore God’s creation together.  H2H is in need of the necessary gear for this type of ministry so I have been researching cost-effective ways to outfit a fifteen person backpacking expedition.  

   After the backpacking trip my plans are to assist with H2H’s mini-summer camps for the younger orphans.   We’ll take the kids hiking, swimming in the lake, teach Bible stories, and send them down a zip line! 

   I am hoping to join H2H’s full time staff by this summer.  In the fall I would like to start a new boating and water safety class at the Peris Orphanage.  We recently shipped a half dozen donated kayaks and I want to get the kids in them as soon as possible.

   My financial support is coming in slowly and is the only thing keeping me from moving to Romania permanently.  I am still seeking monthly commitments as well as one-time donations.  If I could find 150 people to commit to $10 per month, my support would be raised and I could be back with the kids in Romania right away.  If you have not done so already, would you consider partnering with me in my ministry in Romania?  I am also looking for opportunities to share about my ministry.  If you have a small group or Sunday School Class that might be interested in learning more about this partnership opportunity, please contact me.  

   I am excited to begin investing in the lives of the children of Romania by teaching them about the world around them and more importantly, introducing them to the Creator of this world.  Thank you again for your prayers and support!

   JohnThomas Sorrels

My winter trip is coming to an end soon, staff members are starting to return from visiting family and furloughs.  Last weekend we went down to Rosiori area again, the drive down was a bit unnerving, as the weather was interesting the whole way; snow, rain, dense fog, etc.  We stopped in at the boys transition house in Nenculest, water and power were out from the storm but we had a great time hanging out with the boys and Doru, playing games and had supper using a car battery and headlight for illumination.  The next day we went to Alexandria and handed out some donated winter clothing to the girls from the orphanage there, it was nice to see a lot of familiar faces that I hadn't seen in a few years.  On Saturday we stayed in Rosiori, visited a few of the orphan apartments and ended the night with around 20 of the older kids coming over to our apartment for games and cookies.  On Sunday we went to church and headed back to Bucharest in the afternoon, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures most of the weekend but today we headed back to Peris and had classes with the "monkeys" (smallest kids) and I got a few shots.  It was definitely a day I'll remember, the kids were all behaving great, it was almost relaxing just hanging out and loving on the little ones.  I am definitely not ready to go home quite yet but I know I need to so that I can raise support to come back full time, God willing I'll be back by summer.  Please pray that I'll be motivated to raise support when I get back and that funds come in quickly,  also, if you don't know me, I'm not much of a talker/ speaker, so I'd really appreciate your prayer as I will be having to speak at churches, etc. 

Thankyou and God bless,

P.S. If anything comes up in the next week before I leave I'll post up.

Since school has technically started back up after the Christmas break we have been holding our own classes at Peris.  Each day we teach some music classes of varying levels, from basic identification of instruments and their sounds to reading and playing music on the recorder.  We also have a lesson about real life heroes, so far we've learned about Joan of Arc, Vlad Tsepes, Lance Armstrong, and Martin Luther King.  There have been crochet classes and other small craft projects too.  One day I got to drive a few of the girls out to our Girls Transition House in Snagov to have a cooking class with Sanda, they were so excited to ride in a car and were all wanting to sit in the front, after a system ws worked out where everyone got a turn we were on our way and arrived shortly after, the girls immediatly were put to work baking some delicious apple cake (with driving responsibilities comes taste testing priveleges!), when they were done we played some games at Snagov and headed back to the orphanage.  We recently started dance classes with about seven of the kids, Mariana is teaching them a dance to the song Tears of the Saints by Leeland and they are picking it up really quickly.  Below are some quick videos of a couple of the classes...

We celebrated Jesus' birth with the H2H staff and Transition House kids at Pipera, one night a couple of us went into Bucharet to look at lights and participate in local festivities.  The team arrived after Christmas and I went with a small group down to Rosiori to hand out gifts and have Christmas parties with some of the orphans in the area.  We saw a lot of familiar faces and got to know many of the kids better.  We came back to Bucharest and have been spending time with orphans and babies here since.

Just a little update, I've been given the opportunity to spend Christmas and a few of the winter months in Romania.  I'm currently waiting on a connection flight  but once I get to Romania I'll be joining the Holiday and winter Teams ministering in Peris, Rosiori de Verde, and The Baby Hospital.  I'm still raising Support to go full time but for now I'll try to update occasionally with pictures from this winter.  For now heres a quick shot of some of Amsterdams christmas lights...