Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The Ramont Family Website

We are excited to announce the creation of a new website for our family and friends:

http://rramont.blogspot.com

We want you to know about all the exciting things that are going on with our family as we live and work in the mission field here in Sweden. You will get periodic email updates from us and if you visit the website, there you will find photo and video galleries, links to ways you can contact us, and even local news and weather. So go ahead, check it out, and tell us how you like it either by posting a comment at the end of a particular article or simply by sending us an email. And if for any reason you would rather not get email from us, just let us know (we won't be offended, honest). Also, please pass this around to anybody we may have missed and let them know that they can subscribe right on the homepage.

Thanks and enjoy!

~Richard & Roxana

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The Ramont Family - http://rramont.blogspot.com
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Sunday, August 19, 2007

Trip to LegoLand

LegoLand
From LegoLand

Recently, my mom and sister came over for a short visit. One of the highlights of our time together was a trip to the original LegoLand in Denmark. We assumed it was located somewhere near Copenhagen which is about an hour's drive from where we live but it turned out to be a 3 1/2 hour train/bus ride beyond to the little town of Billund. The only redeeming factor to it being out in the sticks is that it was close to an airport. But all in all, it's worth the time spent getting there. Millions and millions of little tiny plastic bricks form beautiful scenery at every turn. It's a lot of fun to see and of course the boys throughly enjoyed it. For some scenes, they claim it would take a person 12 years to build by himself! I think it would be a lot of fun to work there. Can you imagine saying, "yeah, I play with Legos for a living"?

~Richard

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Trip to Romania

From Elviras Wedding

From Mama Ana

This summer right after we wrapped up the VBS, we headed off for Romania. Roxana's sister was getting married and we didn't want to miss it! While we were there, we met lots of relatives on both sides and we even took a trip to visit Roxana's Grandmother on her mom's side out in the country. We enjoyed a wonderful 2 weeks with some of the best weather we've experienced in a long time.

~Richard

Vacation Bible School

From VBS

We had our VBS in May since most Swedish people leave for the summer. Our church here has never heard of a VBS, so we organized our first one this summer. Not many Christians in this country, so we were hoping for at least 10 kids from the community besides our own. We called our program "Spring Fun." And the kids did have a lot of fun. We had perfect weather the whole week (which is a big deal here:). Our first day started with 10 kids and our program ended with 27. Our theme was, Who is Jesus? Each evening we started with outdoor games, then we had a lesson from the Bible, Jesus our Shepherd, our Provider, etc. and then we had a craft. The Lord really blessed our program.

~Roxana

Friday, August 10, 2007

Ambassadors for Christ 2007


Ambassadors for Christ is LifeStyleTV's biggest and most important event of the year. It goes for nearly a week and a half, ending on Easter Sunday. During the week, we hosted a series of Bible training classes called Bible Boot Camp with a health seminar series for the public each evening. Then, over the last weekend, we featured a special guest, Sebastian Tirtirau (pictured), who talked about his extreme mission adventures from the Arctic to the Kalahari dessert. His stories have captivated audiences everywhere. Click here if you would like to listen to one. In all, we came away with over 40 hours of finished programming. Directing this one was a real marathon!

~Richard

Monday, August 6, 2007

Zachary's First Words


Today we started counting up how many words Zachary knows at 15
months. Here's a list of what he says:
  1. no
  2. mine
  3. I know
  4. what?
  5. papa (food)
  6. yuck
  7. apa (water)
  8. mama
  9. tata (daddy)
  10. Richard
  11. happy
  12. I'm fine
  13. te rog (please)
  14. gata (I'm finished)
  15. arde (it's hot)
  16. nani (sleep-baby word)
  17. hi
  18. bravo
  19. moo (when asked what the cow says)
  20. amen

~Roxana

LifeStyleTV Goes Live!


On the 3rd of March this year, LifeStyleTV went live from our studio for the first time. It was also my first time directing a live show. And who better to film than Mr. Danny Shelton, President of 3ABN, and his lovely wife watching over my shoulder the whole time!?!? Needless to say it was a real adrenaline rush for me and by the end of the half hour interview, I was nearly shaking.

A lot of our solutions at LifeStyleTV are home-baked, cost-effective guerrilla techniques that don't always perform the way they should. But some how, by God's grace, we made it without any significant problems. The Shelton's were impressed and feedback emails from viewers confirmed that we were on the right track.

~Richard

Inspiration Weekend 2007, Norway


Our first big trip of the year, Oslo, Norway. It was the beginning of February and -4 F outside . Snow and ice covered the road as we made the 8.5 hour road trip North. It actually ended up taking us close to 11 hours. A section of road in Northern Sweden had completely disappeared in a mud slide a few months earlier and traffic had to be routed another way. Sometimes trying to follow foreign detour signs can be a little unnerving, especially when the road suddenly ended on the banks of a large river. Before we could decide what to do, we were being motioned to proceed onto an old barge which carried us to the other side. We shuttered to think how much we were going to be charged before they would let us go, but it turned out we were on the right path and this was part of the planned detour.

Our destination was a small village on the outskirts of town, called Skotselv, home of the European Bible School. They were hosting a weekend of youth meetings and LifeStyleTV was asked to cover the event. The keynote speaker was a young Hispanic from BC, Canada named Jeffrey Rosario. He was a lot of fun to direct. He was full of interesting stories and strong spiritual applications. In fact, to hear what he said, click here.

Filming took most of my time, but Roxana and the boys had a lot of fun sledding when they got tired of sitting. The air was so cold, that crystals would form on your eyelashes and the inside of your nose felt like Velcro. Norway is gorgeous any time of year. I would have preferred Summertime, of course, but it was the family's first time and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. Although the trip home took just as long, I'm still amazed at how well our 1 and 3 year olds did. They're real road warriors!

~Richard

Friday, August 3, 2007

My First Blog

This is my first attempt at blogging so excuse me everyone! I'm still trying this out to see if I like this way of communication or not. It's a bit more hassle than simply shooting off an email to people. Besides, how do people venture across this blog to begin with to even know that I've said something new? Anyway, at least they can look back at previous posts once they find it. And for me, I've got a neat way of looking back and reminiscing, ahhhh.

~Richard