The blessing part!

Here we are in church before the children took thre tree out into the garden. Our Chaplain, Revd. Martin Jacques, blessed both the tree and the wall hanging (photographs to follow of that wonderful creation!)

Planting the Jesse tree!

Our Sunday School continues to go from strength to strength! Last Sunday therre were around 11 of them in church, with ages starting at less than 1 year! They had a very busy day. First of all we blessed in church a wall hanging that they had made the previous week (at the same time as enjoying pizza at the home of their leader, Cate Johnson!). Think it's called mixing work and pleasure?

After that we blessed a Jesse tree that the children had dressed during advent last year. They then planted it in our tiny church garden. Bucharest cats and city pollution permitting, we hope that it will survive and can come back into church next advent season!

From the shouts that came in through the church windows during the sermon it seems that they were also mixing work with pleasure while they were planting the tree!

Thank you children!

new baby in Sofia!

Our congregation in Sofia has received a wonderful addition with the birth of baby Gabriel, son of Jonathan and Tsveta Dunne. Jonathan and Tsveta are leading members of our congregation in Sofia, with Jonathan acting as "treasurer" for our activities there, as well both assisting and leading services.

We give thanks to God for the gift of Gabriel, and we remember in our prayers Jonathan, Tsveta, and Gabriel. In the coming week the Bishop of Gibaltrar in Europe, Bishop Geoffrey, will visit both Sofia and Bucharest. He will be able to see that our congregation in Sofia is very much alive and growing!!!

Our beautiful country

Bucharest is a typical capital city, big and beautiful but also very congested, busy, and incredibly noisy at times! Some people say that it is

even too noisy and too busy!

However, get away from the capital and there is beauty almost impossible to describe. These are just two pictures that prove that God's handiwork is by no means confined to humanity!

Church of the Resurrection-a truly international fellowship!

Our Anglican church is located in Bucharest, but within our congregation there is a multitude of nationalities and Christian denominations represesented. This is the first of a series of introductions to members of our church from around the world.

Arnold (Noldy) and Lavie Lengkey are long standing members of our church. Noldy is studying for a doctorate at the Agricultural University in Bucharest and Lavie is here with him and attending the German school in Bucharest. They enrich our worship every Sunday, with Lavie an enthusiastic member of our Sunday School. On Easter Sunday they easily won the prize for the "most smartly dressed couple attending church" as these photographs confirm.

Noldy's wife has stayed in Indonesia with Lavie's sister, and they are waiting eagerly for Nlody's studies to finish in the autumn of 2008! From Bucharest we send Christian greetings to them in Indonesia!

On Palm Sunday our service was enriched, both by the children giving us a wonderful start to the service by entering waving willow branches and leading our singing of the opening hymn "Make way, make way, for the King of Kings!", but also by a baptism. We welcomed through baptism as a member of the church family, Valeria Turp, tha daughter of Craig and Amelia.

It was wonderful to have a full church, a combination of family and friends of Valeria and our regular worshippers. Although our Chaplain, Martin Jacques, was taking many baptisms in his former parish in England, this was his first baptism in Romania. Suffice to say that he handled it magnificently with not even a sign of a potentially dropped baby! It was overall a great day-welcome to the church family, Valeria!

The Bedingfield's return to England

Last Sunday we said a sad farewell to two of our regular church members, John and Helen Bedingfield. John and Helen have been living in Bucharest for more than one and a half years, while John has been working as an EU resident advisor in the Ministry of Public Finance. Now that his contract is coming to an end they are returning to England.

We wish them well, although we will miss them greatly. Visit us whenever you are able to please, John and Helen!