The Bakers Fall 2025 Update - and Merry Christmas!

 Hi friends!

We're back again with a long over-due update, but before we get into what's been going on here in Romania (spoiler alert: there's been a LOT happening!!), we want to wish you a blessed Christmas!

Ministry Update

Since we last shared an update in the spring, we've gone through the summer and fall ministry seasons and we have lots to share!

We ended the spring with a Romania-wide Calvary Chapel church conference, open to all the Calvary Chapel churches across Romania. We met just outside Sibiu at a conference centre and enjoyed 4 days of worship, teaching, and fellowship.

Jerry was in charge of the worship for the entire conference, and thankfully Calvary Chapel Brasov was well represented, so he had lots of help leading worship. It was a great time of connecting and re-connecting with friends and ministry colleagues, enjoying the gorgeous weather, and letting the kids run wild, and enjoy hanging out with so many other kids their age, some of whom are also third-culture kids.

A team from Calvary Chapel Treasure Valley in Idaho came and helped with the conference, specifically with the teaching, the kids' program, and the meals, and Jerry was very busy with the team before and after the conference doing community outreach events and prayer walks in Brasov.

The summer season was slower for ministry, since we weren't meeting with the youth group (Ablaze) and we took the summer off WOW Nights. Jerry focused a lot on his studies in the summer, preaching some sermons and preparing for the fall ministry season. He worked on a large project in Biblical Exegesis, read many, many books, and met regularly with his academic advisory team online. 

Jerry's progress toward his Master's has been a little slower than we'd hoped, mainly because of the demands of ministry, but we're thrilled to report that after making a few changes to his program, he'll hopefully be graduating with both his Bachelor of Arts AND his Master's within a year or so. 

We hit the ground running in September with Ablaze. We started the year with two new youth leaders, and we're so grateful for their contributions and their leadership abilities. A highlight has been the development of a youth band, with the hopes of drawing more youth into serving in the church.  We have anywhere between 10 and 18 youth attending regularly.

Jerry has been leading a study on the topic of being "Unashamed" as a Christian, and each Ablaze night includes games, a study, and discussion groups, and snacks, of course! Thanks to a few donations we've been able to order pizza for the youth nights every few months, which is always a hit.

We are still looking for a youth group to sponsor our Ablaze youth group with a donation of $100-200 per month. This would fund the entire youth ministry and allow us to do activities outside the church with the youth that have a cost, or provide pizza or other snacks more regularly.

WOW Nights continue to be a meaningful time for our church family to go deeper in worship, testimony, prayer and fellowship. After leading it for one year, Jerry has officially handed off the leadership of WOW Nights to Pablo, a gifted worship leader and ministry leader who attends the church with his wife and daughters (who just happen to be besties with our girls!). Jerry is still involved with helping lead WOW Nights, supporting Pablo, and helping however he's needed.

Jerry launched a new evangelism initiative called Street Reach. The vision is to get into our community and share the gospel with whomever we meet. We began with simple prayer walks, which have been a great experience for those participating. Recently we held evangelism training and started with some street evangelism. Although we didn't encounter a lot of openness initially, we were grateful for one connection in particular, someone Jerry has met through his baseball team! He lives near the church and He was open to praying with Jerry and the team. Please pray for Eduardo, originally from Cuba.

Jerry preached at church several times throughout the summer and fall from the book of 1 John. It has been encouraging to see how God has developed his preaching abilities during our years in Romania. When we first arrived almost 10 years ago the thought of preaching a sermon terrified Jerry. But over these years God has faithfully equipped Jerry with wisdom, understanding, and confidence to preach His word - with only a minimal amount of anxiety (probably what most preachers experience!).

Part of the reason for our silence these last few months has been the fact that there are a LOT of changes happening with the ministry, and we wanted to wait for some dust to settle before sharing details. We found out back in the spring that Pastor Nicu and Silvana will be moving on and moving away from Brasov. This wasn't completely unexpected, but the announcement brought about a series of difficult events and challenging conversations, and lots was left unresolved for months and months. 

It was a challenge for us, but it was one we felt peace about - especially after all we've been through over the last 9+ years. We knew God would provide, we knew God wasn't calling US to lead the church right now (even though Jerry was offered the lead pastor position, we knew it wasn't God's timing for us), and so we were able to trust that God had someone in mind for us to serve alongside.

After much prayer and searching, God has brought Chris Anderson, his wife Faith and their children from Mangalia, Romania to serve as the lead pastor starting in January.

We know the Anderson family well, having done mission trips every year to Mangalia with the PdF Bible School to serve with the Andersons' ministry there. We believe the Andersons will be a great fit, and we're looking forward to serving with them. Our girls are thrilled, of course, because the Andersons have SIX boys, ages 5 to 17, with 3 of their boys right around the same ages as our girls. They've known each other for many years, and they're great friends.

We spent some time with the Andersons this summer when they came to Brasov to visit the church before committing to move and serve here, and it was a fun week of adventure with their boys, which included sliding down the side of a mountain in a rainstorm while we were on a hike!

Chrissie has continued to lead the teen Sunday School class every Sunday, and we've been studying through the Gospel of John. It's been a great time studying through the scripture with the youth, and we've had a lot of lively discussions and the class has grown significantly with the Anderson boys joining. With anywhere from 7 to 10 youth participating each week, plus any visitors who come, it's pretty crowded around the kitchen table (that's the only place in the church available for the youth to meet on Sunday morning), but it's a problem we're grateful to have!

This fall Jerry's residence permit was approved by the Romanian immigration authorities for the next 5 years! We're thrilled about this, and it means not having to pay huge fees anymore and easy renewal if and when we need to do that. Chrissie and the girls can now apply under Jerry's residency, which makes our residency process a LOT easier. We're so grateful for this. 

Family Update

We last updated you in the spring, right after Chrissie's parents had come for a visit. 

The girls finished their school year, the last one at the private school they attended for almost 5 years. Eden transitioned from the 4th class to the 5th class, which here means a transition from primary school to middle school. 

The both dance ballet, and their end of the year ballet production (The Princess and the Frog) was held at the end of June. The girls danced in 3 separate numbers during the performance, and it was lovely to see them do so well and enjoy ballet so much. 

We're very grateful they have found a ballet to be something they enjoy, and their ballet teacher Didi is amazing. They're even starting to learn how to dance in pointe shoes now, which is very exciting for them!

After the ballet production was over we headed to Sibiu as a family for the Calvary Chapel conference, which was a great time spent with friends. Any time the girls get to connect with other third culture kids is a great experience for them. They spend most of their time at school and in the community connecting with Romanian kids. This is their new normal, and they fit in well. But to be with other kids who fully understand what it's like to feel like they don't fit in completely with their passport culture OR the culture they live in, is something special. 

When you see third-culture kids together, it's a unique kind of camaraderie and we love that our girls have so many good friends who are also third-culture kids. 

After the conference we packed up the car and headed to Croatia for two weeks for our annual camping trip by the sea. It's quickly become our favourite place in the world, and it's a time when we all just come alive, enjoying the sunshine, the water, the snorkelling, the paddle boarding, and, of course, the seafood. It's always a HUGE highlight of our year, and it's just the best family time we could ever ask for.

The rest of summer was a bit of a blur of work, studies, and preparing for going back to school. The girls did several weeks of swim lessons at the local pool near our house, and they played outside with the other kids from the neighbourhood, going to the corner store for popsicles, playing football (soccer) at the local field, and riding scooters.

We joke that we're raising our kids in the 1980s, where you just tell the kids to come home when the street lights go on in the evening, but that's pretty much how it is in our town. And we love it for them!

One highlight of summer was going to Bucharest for a weekend to celebrate Miriam's 13th birthday. We went with our friends Doug and Camelia Howey and their daughter Attalia, who also turned 13 this summer. It was a fun celebration weekend for both our families.

School started in September, and the girls now attend the local state school in our town. The start of the year was more challenging for Eden than Miriam, but as the fall has gone on Eden has settled in very well and adapted to the change from private school to public. Miriam has struggled a little more, especially after having had a sub-par math teacher for the last 2 years. Romanians take their mathematics VERY seriously, and she's struggling to keep up with math that's probably 3 to 4 grade levels above 7th grade (if we're comparing to the Canadian curriculum, that is). Math tutors are a hot commodity here, but thankfully we just found a really great one in our town who has happily taken Miriam in every Saturday morning for 2 hours of tutoring. It's a challenge for her, but we're grateful God provided for us in this way!

Both girls have LOTS of homework, and although they get out of school every day by about 2:00 in the afternoon, they're often doing homework well into the evening.

One Saturday this fall we ran an ultra race, hosted by our friend Nic from church. Chrissie and the girls ran the family race in the rain, first thing in the morning, and then the skies cleared just in time for the real ultra race which Jerry participated in.

The girls have both have continued with their ballet class this year, twice a week, and they've also joined the school choir. The choir has been a great challenge for them, learning songs in Romanian and performing traditional Romanian songs at churches and festivals. 

They recently performed at a beautiful Orthodox church in our town for a Christmas service, and it was beautiful to be a part of. 

On a more sombre note, another reason why we're late with this update is because this year has been full of health challenges. Eden has had chronic headaches for over a year, and after investigations with a neurologist, a psychiatrist, and an ear nose and throat specialist, it was determined that she had a very severe sinus infection that was causing a dangerous buildup of pressure. After some fevers and fainting spells, she was put on a 10-day IV treatment of antibiotics and steroids, and underwent surgery in November to remove her adenoids and open up her sinuses. Thankfully she is doing MUCH better and we are so grateful for your prayers and support for our family as we went through that.

And after months of pain, we discovered that Miriam has a large cyst growing quickly in her elbow joint. Whether it's from a tennis injury or not, we're not sure, but the orthopaedic surgeon has scheduled her for surgery on December 23 to remove it. She's being a total champ, the surgery should be straightforward, and the recovery should be minimal, but having surgery two days before Christmas isn't exactly fun for anyone. Our Christmas plans have changed, of course, but we're VERY grateful for an excellent surgeon, a great hospital, and amazing health insurance that covers everything. 

Because we have such great health insurance, we're able to access the private health care system in Romania, which means Chrissie has been able to stay with the girls in the hospital (that's not always allowed in the state hospitals here), and receive really excellent care. We can't even put into words how thankful we are to have this insurance and access to the private system, and though Chrissie's full time job has basically become submitting medical insurance claims at this point, you can't really put a price on the ability to get an MRI within a matter of a couple days, or schedule surgery within the week. It's definitely not something we take for granted. 

As we go into this Christmas season, we're feeling very peaceful and grateful. Even though we've had some unexpected challenges, God has carried us through and He is so good to us. We are so grateful, too, for the lessons we've learned over the last several years and how what we've learned has helped us approach these difficult situations with more peace and grace, both for ourselves and others. 

We appreciate you all so very much, and we are praying you have a blessed Christmas season and new year. We hope to see you (well, those of you who are in Winnipeg, that is) in the summer. We're tentatively planning a trip to Winnipeg to visit family and our home church Riverwood Church Community in Summer 2026, and we'd appreciate your prayers and support as we work toward this.

We plan to host a party while we're in Winnipeg to celebrate 10 years of ministry in Romania, so stay tuned for details on that to come.

Merry Christmas friends!!

Prayer Requests

Please thank God for:

• His financial provision for our family. Jerry has been receiving his full support this year and we are SO grateful for the difference this has made for us!
• providing great doctors, nurses, and surgeons for us and our kids this year; and for the excellent health care we receive here in Romania!
• our health. Although we have head health challenges this year, we've spent a lot of the time healthy and strong, and we're so grateful for this!
• bringing the Anderson family to Brasov and providing a new pastor for our church!
• our home and low rent! We just signed another 1-year contract with our landlord and he didn't raise the rent even though he could have charged us hundreds of euros more!
• for good friends for our girls! They have lovely friends and a great group of youth to be a part of at church, and we're grateful they have good, solid Christian friends they want to hang out with.

Please pray with us:

• that God would continue to bless and grow the ministry of Calvary Chapel Brasov, and that He would give wisdom to the leadership team and elders as they lead the church.
• that God would provide for the Anderson family as they settle in to their new home in Rasnov; that He would provide financially for the increased rent they need to pay here.
• that God would continue to bless and grow the Ablaze ministry with teenagers who desire to grow in their walk with God, grow in their understanding of who God is, and live unashamed of the truth.
• that God would open the hearts of the members of our community, that they would be open to the gospel and to receiving prayer during street reach events.
• that God would continue to deepen the relationships between the church members, for an increase in fellowship and friendship, and for spiritual growth for the members of the church. 
• that God would help our children each day at school to learn well, study effectively, and perform well on tests.
• for Miriam. That God would help her understand the math as she goes to tutoring, and that she will be prepared to perform well on the big national exams in one year's time. 
• for Miriam's surgery in just a few days. That God would protect her, sustain her, and bring healing to her body so she can continue to be active in sports and dance.
• for Jerry's schooling. That God would make a way for him to finish his degrees this year, for good concentration, time management and boundary-setting, so he's able to be diligent with his studies.
• For Chrissie's continued recovery from burnout, that she would continue setting good healthy boundaries and prioritizing rest.