Thursday, October 30, 2008

Today I am headed to Hunedora and Maranatha orphanage. This is the first project I started when I began working here in Romania in 1993. It is an orphan sponsor program. I have not personally done the sponsor updates in about 5 years. A lovely young Romanian woman, Adina Luca, has been doing the twice yearly letters and pictures. This relieved me of some work and helped her with her college tuition as I paid her a little to help. Adina is going to the States for a year so I have had to take this back over. I am looking forward to seeing the children and that facility again.

I am going to try and do most of the sponsor updates and pictures by e-mail. I hope this will be OK with the sponsors. My work load is requiring some reorganization and labor saving plans. Right at this time I do not have the help I did last year and also I have had some health challenges but Praise God everything is getting done!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

I wrote about Elizabeth saving to buy a house dog. Following that posting I discussed with Elizabeth that if we go to the States next year we might be able to pick up a puppy and bring it back in a little carrier that would fit under our seats in the plane. Elizabeth thought that was a fine idea and would continue to save her money. Elizabeth's money has been stolen from her piggy bank. I have had several thefts in the last year but this one from Elizabeth effected me more. Who could steal from a child's bank? This theft robbed Elizabeth of more than money. I said I would replace the funds but it is not the same anymore. No one broke in to our house, it is obviously someone that we openly allowed in. How sad is this? It seems to me that it is only a betrayal when it is someone we trust - people we do not have a relationship with can not really betray us. Elizabeth feels betrayed. I now need to work on her forgiving the thief and putting this behind her. That is the path we all must take in life.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Switzerland


This gorgeous view is one I was blessed to have on a recent 6 day trip to Switzerland. We only had 3 days in Switzerland the rest of the time was spent in travel, but it was worth it. A ministry from the States, Bill Kaiser Ministries, has a Time of Refreshing every year for missionaries. I went once in 2003 when it was in Cluj but have not been since. May the Lord richly bless all those involved in making these available to us (at no charge to us by the way!) Who can't use 3 days of being blessed and babied? I like hearing about the ministries of the others. All of them have their struggles too.

Elizabeth's Birthday

It is hard for me to believe that Elizabeth is 10 years old! We had a party for her at McDonalds. That is Sarah in the red dress on the right, she is 8 1/2 now.

Elizabeth is saving her money for a dog. I do not want another dog. We added dog #3 to our menagerie this summer. The new addition, Rocky, just keeps getting bigger and bigger. He is only 7 months old now but is already HUGE, I think we should have named him Clifford. (For those of you who do not watch videos with kids or grandkids, Clifford is a house-sized big red dog.) Elizabeth wants a house dog, a pure bred at that. She saw one at a pet store and it is almost $800! When she asked for it I said what any sensible adult would have said "sure you can have it, save your money". If you know Elizabeth you know that it is a possibility!