Heidi Longworth Newsletter Spring 2023

Spring 2023 - Hristos a înviat!

It’s been a whole quarter of a year since I came back to Hunedoara, and what an eventful few months it has been!

I had such a lovely welcome from my church family here. They had cleaned my apartment and got some shopping in for me, which was lovely to come home to. It had been a mild winter, but started snowing for the first time just as I got in the door! However, the cold has now turned into Spring, and although the weather has been a bit mixed, it’s been great to see some sunshine too!

It has been so good to be back at Deo Gloria Church. I had wondered how it would be after nearly three years away, but I already feel so settled and it has been wonderful to be welcomed back with such warmth. As leader of the worship team, I’ve been really encouraged in our rehearsal times and am really enjoying seeing the team develop musically as well as worshipping together. We were asked to lead worship at a regional conference for leaders of Awana. We run an Awana children’s club at our church in Hunedoara and it’s great to see many unchurched children coming each week, and the older ones becoming junior leaders. So this conference was an opportunity for them to meet with others who lead clubs in other towns. Although I’m not directly involved in Awana myself, it was a joy to lead worship there and encourage the young leaders. As a worship team, we are in the process of going digital with all our music. I managed to find a program that works well for Romanian songs, and although we have to input each one individually, we are gradually building up our database and it has made a huge difference in reducing the amount of paper we were using to print out songs, and the amount of time it took to file them all away too!!

Other things I’ve been involved in at church include being part of a team leading the youth group. There are almost 20 young people (mostly unchurched) who come each week and it’s been great getting to know them and encouraging them in making steps towards following Jesus. For Easter, they all learned parts for a drama of the Easter story and brought various family members with them on Easter Sunday morning to the service. Please do pray with us for these precious young people - we are hoping and praying for a baptism service in the not too distant future!

For International Women’s Day, I organised a ladies event at church. It was a fun evening of games, pizza, cake and an encouragement about how precious we are in the sight of God. I am also co-leading a small group of teenage girls. We have been meeting every other week, cooking together and working through a series of studies on women in the Bible. As well as just being a lovely time together and chatting about all sorts of things, I love that they feel at home to use my kitchen, organise the food themselves and experiment with the best way to make a good cup of coffee with my coffee machine.

I also did another week on the En Route Romania course. I taught one of the sessions and translated for a couple of others too. It was a somewhat abrupt way to get my Romanian language skills back up to scratch but it has helped me get back into the swing of it.

As well as all that, it has been a little bumpy along the way….quite literally with a couple of fairly substantial earthquakes not long after I arrived back. Thankfully no damage was done. I have had some health issues too. After taking ill rather dramatically whilst leading worship one Sunday morning a few weeks back, a trip to A&E meant the discovery of a non-serious heart condition. It was rather scary at the time, but I’m very thankful that it isn’t anything more serious, and that I wasn’t on my own when it happened. Please do pray for me as I continue to recover and for the ongoing treatment I need. I have had to put my MA studies on hold for now and will resume working on my dissertation again once my health is on a more even keel.

Praise Points

• For a lovely welcome back and that I’ve settled in well
• For all the different things I’ve been able to be part of and the people I’ve spent time with
• For Deo Gloria Church who have been a great support especially whilst I’ve been unwell

Prayer Points

• For the youth group - for those who don’t yet know Jesus, and for the group of leaders as we share God’s love with them
• For us as a church as we plan events for the next few months, and for the camp we are hoping to run in the Summer for the children from the Awana club and the youth group
• For my health and ongoing treatment

As always, many thanks for reading this, for praying, and just for being there - it really does make such a difference.

Love and blessings,
Heidi