Dear Friends,!

In the midst of a mild winter, we were hit by a week of severe blizzards that shut the city down and kept everyone indoors. Although I had never seen so much snow in Galati, the weather quickly warmed and melted it off in a few weeks, setting off and early spring. Our fruit trees have and owers have already bloomed.! !

The nice weather was helpful as we, together with the children from the Community Center, visited all of the local evangelical churches, presenting our activities and sharing songs and prayers. We are thankful that the local church sees this ministry among the vulnerable as their own - bringing the gospel to the hurting and incorporating them into the Body of Christ.!

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In March we grieved the departure of Paul and Ana Rase and their new baby Winter, who decided to move to the US to serve with Lifegate church in Omaha. We lose their gifts and skills and contributions to the community. But much more than that is the difculty of being separated from close friends that we have shared so much life with. We pray that God will be with the Rase's as they adjust to life in the States and in the new ministry they are part of.! In March we also received a volunteer and two Servant Team members from the States who will serve with us until May. It is enjoyable to see people come and serve with us. I also love watching their growth as they are discipled by the community as we serve among the vulnerable.! For the past 8 years, we have been building relationships in serendipitous places with people involved in re-imagining the urban church. I traveled to Berlin to participate in a conference on the topic, where the key-note speaker was Ray Bakke. It was educational to see Christians from diverse ministries coming together to act in and for the city. I also was able to visit a good friend from Word Made Flesh, Brent Anderson and meet his family for the rst time, who are living in northern Germany.!

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Last spring I was invited to present a case study at a conference in Moldova on evangelical mission in an Orthodox Context, which was recently published in a journal. I presented on ecumenical relationships in service among vulnerable children.!

Recently, our friends Andrew, Mark and David visited us from the UK and helped us paint lockers and begin building an earthship out of recycled tires. This will serve as a greenhouse for an aquaponics project that we hope will reduce our food costs and enable us to grow vegetables year-round. The construction materials are a signicant investment, so if you are interested in helping support the project, please let me know.!

In the coming weeks, we will host a joint team from Scotland and Rotterdam. These are churches that have led the conversations on becoming a church for the city, working among immigrant and marginalized populations. We hope to learn from them and to develop our relationships with them.!

Please do keep us in your prayers. Over the past months, we have been intervening in situations where a young girl was trafcked with the help of her parents, where young vulnerable boys were being abused by a foreign worker, where our kids have had their parents go to jail, and where our kids witness and suffer domestic violence. !

! Thank you for supporting us, praying for us and partnering in this ministry among the vulnerable,! !
david and lenutsa!