All you ever wanted to know (and then some) about the Dunckels' life and ministry in Bucharest, Romania.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Only in Romania...
... would a great-grandmother stop my children on the sidewalk on the way to school, reach into her bag with a shaking hand to give them each a candy, give them a kiss on the tops of their heads, and I call it an average, everyday walk to school.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Orthodoxy
So today I was waiting for the bus with Isobel when a woman asked me for directions. And as happens so frequently here we started chatting. When I told her that we are in Romania as missionaries with the Baptist church she gave me her insider's perspective on Romanian Orthodoxy. " Romanians are very, very Orthodox. We are deeply religious, going to church almost daily," she told me. "That is why God has allowed us to be so poor, because we have faith and we have hope."
October Prayer Letter
We have been back in Romania for
almost two weeks as we write this letter (a month before you read
this). School has started for Noemi (1st
grade) and Joshua (teaching US Government).
Stepping off the airplane in Bucharest was rather like diving into a
pool on a summer day. We were instantly
immersed in Romanian language, and unlike our arrival two and a half years
earlier, we had the tools to manage. We
were so thankful for our language skills as we dealt with lost luggage (now
found), kitchen repairs, and reconnecting with our neighbors. That said, the more we learn, the more we
realize we have to learn.
Before our
visit to the US Joshua had made remarkable progress in learning Romanian yet
fell short of our team’s language requirements.
Joshua also felt that something wasn’t clicking in the language process
for him. The lessons, homework and
practice didn’t produce the progress he wanted.
Kara began researching learning disabilities and by God’s grace we found
helpful information.
One of our goals for our time in the US this year was to have
Joshua evaluated for a condition called Auditory Processing Disorder. It is a learning disability that affects the
brain’s ability to decode sounds. So, in
a crowded room at a party, a person with APD struggles to pick out the sounds
of the person next to them even though they are speaking loudly enough to be
heard over the din. Or in a normal
conversation using everyday language a person with APD will be decoding the
conversation two words slower than it is progressing, and miss the end of the
sentence. Some people with APD hear
random words in a sentence as nonsense words or mumbles. Approximately 20% of adults have APD and
males are two times more likely to be affected.
When the
evaluation confirmed that, yes, Joshua did have Auditory Processing Disorder we
began looking at solutions. It is not
“curable” but we found tutoring with proven results in improving
processing. This tutoring was expensive,
but once again we saw God’s goodness, this time through His people. Our church in Minnesota covered the entire cost
of evaluation and training. We returned
to Romania equipped with our two years of language lessons as well as processing
tools for APD. We are looking forward to
seeing what God will do this term.
- Please pray for Joshua as he strives to meet an ambitious language goal by December.
- Pray also for his continued efforts to encourage young Christians to fulfill their role in the Great Commission. We are certain God has brought us here to do His work and are privileged to be a part of it here in Romania.
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