Moving Soon!

Hello all!

We are excited to share with you all that we have bought plane tickets, and will moving to Romania, Lord willing, on August 3rd!  God has been so faithful during this past year!

We spent the first 3 weeks of June at a counseling retreat center for pastors and missionaries in Kalamazoo, MI, called Alongside (http://www.alongsidecares.net).  We really enjoyed our time there, processing how this past year of traveling around the States raising support has affected us.  We were able to walk with missionaries and pastors from around the globe and form deep and lasting friendships.  We learned healthy skills for better communication, self care, and ways to express ourselves.  It was a deeply enriching and sustaining time for us.

From there we went to Northwest Iowa for a time with my family.  During that time we were able to spend time over the Fourth of July (eating Tropical Sno!), have a goodbye party with my family, preach at Hope Reformed Church in George, and go to Worlds of Fun with the fam.  (Yes, we were the cool ones that used a Selfie-stick for this picture :)).

I would say one thing that was difficult was saying goodbye to family.  It was difficult to say goodbye to grandmas, to places, to aunts and uncles, to cousins whom we love dearly and will have to miss their weddings that will be great celebrations.  I had an especially difficult time saying goodbye to my Grandma Harberts who is physically healthy, but is forgetting things more frequently.  I was so grateful that we were able to say goodbye well together.  One thing that made these partings a bit easier was that my sister, Keshia, got engaged to Drew!  So we know we get to come back to see everyone in September 2016.

We have been in SW Michigan for a few days now, and were able to go to a RCA Global Mission Conference.  We were able to go to this last year, right at the very beginning of us being called to Romania.  Now we are leaving - these conferences have bookended our fundraising journey, and we praise God for the time we were able to spend with RCA Mission Personnel and Staff (these people...seriously...they are wonderful.)

One couple we greatly enjoyed spending time with was Al and Sue Schreuder.  They were missionaries in Chiapas, Mexico, for 35 years.  They are in the process of retiring in Pella.  We have been so blessed by them prior to spending the past couple of days with them, in that many of the churches that supported them during those 35 years are transferring their prayer and financial support to us.  We were blessed by Al and Sue through the stories they shared with us about these beloved congregations.  What wonderfully beautiful people!



The next two and a half weeks will be a whirlwind.  We are going to Illinois to speak with a supporting congregation, and then we begin the process of filling the 11 wonderful suitcases everyone has given us.  That's right...we are going to try and fit our entire life of possessions in 11 red, blue, and brown suitcases (there will be a hot pink one in there too :D).  Please be praying this process goes well.  I know we will get through it, but it could provide a bit of stress.  Another big decision we have recently come to is where we will be living in Lupeni once we get there.  More to come on this, as t's haven't been crossed on it yet, but we are excited to be moving forward on this decision.

Ways to pray:
* Please be praying for us as we continue to live in the paradox of being excited to be in Lupeni, and to living in the pain of saying goodbye to all we love.
* Pray for our parents as they say goodbye to us and Lorelei.
* Pray that our travels go well, and that we are able to transition well.  We will be starting language training the about 2 weeks after we get to Lupeni.

Thank you for reading and supporting!  Blessings to you all!  Grace and peace - Chelsea

Visiting Supporters

Hello!  We hope you are all well!!  We have done a lot since this blog was last used - we decided to resurrect it in order to better communicate how we are doing.

Jeff and I are now finished with seminary and grad school.  We are parents of our beautiful daughter, Lorelei, who is already 19 months old!!  We have also been appointed and called as Reformed Church in America (RCA) mission personnel in Romania (rca.org/lampen).  We are partnering with New Horizons Foundation (NFO) (http://noi-orizonturi.ro/index.php/ro/?lang=en).  Here is a little bit from our letter we wrote to family and friends:

"As students at Western Theological Seminary, we thought that the next step God was preparing us for was to work in a church setting and that, someday in the distant future, we might have the opportunity to visit Eastern Europe again. Jeff had volunteered in Hungary with the RCA for a year, and Chelsea had studied abroad in Romania during her time at Northwestern College. But God has his own timing for things and presented us with this opportunity just as we were graduating!

As RCA mission personnel, we will partner with New Horizons Foundation, an organization in Romania dedicated to encouraging young people to follow the Gospel by investing in their local communities.  This is accomplished through adventure education camps and weekly youth groups, referred to as IMPACT clubs.  We believe that the Holy Spirit works in communities to create wholistic change, and we are very excited to join that work in Romania.  Together, we hope to discover the gifts that God has planted within the young people of Romania, as well as within us as a couple, so that the full richness of the Gospel might take deep root and produce something beautiful in the lives of the Romanian people.  Chelsea will support this mission through her role as Supervisor of Community Development and Social Work Internships, while Jeff will develop faith-based curriculum as IMPACT Development Director, as well as ministering to the community and spiritual life of the staff."

Many of you who are reading this probably received letters similar to the one above.  If you would like to see a video of us explaining this, follow this link:   http://vimeo.com/109236306. We wanted to catch those who had not up to speed, but all to tell you all what we have been doing since then.

Over the past 5-ish months we have traveled to northwest Iowa, South Dakota, New York state, Minnesota, Illinois, central Iowa, and all over Michigan.  We have been extremely blessed by many who have taken us into their home, fed us, and blessed us with great company.  Lorelei has played in MANY nurseries, watched numerous episodes of Sesame Street, and given many people all over the RCA hugs and blown kisses.  

We are currently about 60% of the way fund-raised.  Before we are able to move to Lupeni, Romania, we need to raise 123% of our budget.  This way, we are secure in insurance, daily support, travel, and other fun adult things like pension :).  We are grateful to the RCA staff who continues to help us.  

Once we reached 50% in our support we began receiving a stipend from the RCA so that we are able to more fully engage in raising support.  Within the month, Jeff will be ending his position at Out of the Box in Zeeland.  (That doesn't mean we will stop promoting the shop - - - check this store out - amazing board games, puzzles, and kid's toys!!!)  We have been extremely blessed by Jeff and Hillary who understood when Jeff needed to leave to visit various churches.  

Where we are looking within the next couple weeks/months:

Lord willing, on March 29th, I will be ordained in Sibley, Iowa!  We are going to be staying out by my family for the following month to spend time with them.  We are also looking forward to going to a week-long family counseling retreat later in the spring to better prepare us for moving overseas.  We ask you to pray for both these things.  

I know this has been a LONG post, one with a lot of information, and not many great stories of all we have been doing.  I wished to give you an overview and glimpse into the life of the Lampen family.  More detailed posts will follow.  I ask you to prayerfully consider following this blog and commit to praying for us while we continue to raise support and then move to Romania.

We would ask you also to prayerfully consider partnering with us in our call to Romania.  We count it a blessing to have the opportunity to carry your prayers and support to the work of the New Horizons Foundation and the people of Romania.  One-time gifts would help us establish roots in Romania and begin our ministry (see www.rca.org/lampen for how to contribute a one-time gift).  Any yearly recurring amount that you might give to this mission would be gratefully received and would help maintain us on the road that God has called us to walk.  If you think your home church would like to support us, we would also be delighted to meet with pastors, consistories/leadership boards and congregations to provide more details about this opportunity and to simply get to know them better!

Blessings and love to you all!!

Jeff, Chelsea, and Lorelei