Monday, December 29, 2008

Happy New Year!!!

I am still in Wales for the holidays. Christmas Eve and day was a little sad at times but that was not unexpected. Not knowing where the rest of my family is... and I miss the girls, I haven't had a Christmas without them before. As far as I can tell from the phone calls they are having a good visit with their father - however Sarah is ready to go home.

Today we are going from Wales to Devon England to visit Kay. I haven't seen her for a couple of years so this will be nice.

I am excited about 2009. I am getting out of survival mode and looking forward to what the Lord has planned. I am praying about a couple of new projects, one is having a summer camp for the kids in Vinga and the other is being able to establish the food bank. The food bank is a VERY large, long term project but I have found if I can figure how how to do these projects right off it may not be God...He is B-I-G. I hope to expand the Widow's Mite project also.

The start of a new year is always an adventure, serving the Lord is never dull! Thank you for your prayers and please continue to pray for me, my family and all that the Lord would have me do. That I can clearly differentiate between good ideas and God ideas!

I wish you all peace and joy, health and provision for 2009!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas

Well it is Christmas Eve day and I am in Wales for the holiday at Irene and Wayne's. They have a definite goal of getting me rested.

Elizabeth and Sarah are in England visiting their father. I pray they have a good time. They called last night and we had a nice chat. This is the first time they have been away from me at Christmas. I suspect it is harder on me that it is for them. We had our family Christmas Saturday before leaving.

I pray all of you have a joyful Christmas season! You are in my prayers.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Mocrea Day!



Left: Here are two of the ladies putting the decorations they just made on their Christmas tree. The tree was cut out of a green bed sheet and taped to the dining room wall. Irene and Wayne were in charge of helping the patients make the decorations. The upper left photo is of Ionut playing chess with a patient. I was in charge of coffee, soda and snacks. Next Tuesday we will go back and take Santa Claus with us. We sing carols and have a great time. I am hoping we can interest more people in volunteering there.

The photo on the right is of Wayne, Irene and our two Widow's in Paulesani. They did in fact hike up the mountain with food and gifts. It's a good thing it was a little icy up the path otherwise they wouldn't have made it - it's like a spring flows down the road and it can get pretty muddy. The lady on the right works up on the mountain watching cows. She said it is getting pretty difficult to make it up and down.

Well I learned how to correct the time on these postings - but how do you get a title or label under the pictures???? Oops, apparently I DIDN'T learn to correct the time - it is now scheduled to be published at a later time. S-I-G-H

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Don't they look loving? I didn't even ask them to hug. HMMMM, wasn't it just this morning they were duking it out? Elizabeth is a mature 10 year old and Sarah is more of a space-cadet. Elizabeth has always had the better grades but we have discovered that math comes easier to Sarah and her grade reflects it - much to Elizabeth's annoyance! Their personalities are so different but they both can be described as strong willed. I have no idea where they might have gotten that from.

Tomorrow we make Christmas decorations at Mocrea, the State mental hospital, and then go on to Paulesani to deliver food and Christmas gifts to a couple of widows. One of them lives way up a hill and the lane is impassable with a vehicle. Wayne and Irene mentioned they were hikers...seemed like they volunteered to haul food up the hill to me! Between them and Ionut we can get a lot of food stuffs delivered there. The road in to Paulesani is almost impossible on ice so I am not sure whne I can get back there.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Casa Alexandru - Sofronea

I went to visit the center in Sofronea today. I took flour, sugar, gris (like Cream of Wheat) and rice. When I walked in I was greeted with "oh, look it's Jackie!" There is a worker there that I knew when she was working at the orphanage in Neudorf years ago.

One girl there is Andreea. Cassandra knew her from the State facility at CP3 then she was at Mocrea. Andreea was excited when I said Cassandra would visit soon. A girl sat on my lap and is my new best friend I think - and I think her name is Susie.

I promised them that Santa Claus would visit and bring each a present. There are 4 females and 2 males at this house, it started out as a private facility but was given to the State when the foundation could not afford the help or the overhead.

I look forward to putting together a program there and getting some others involved.

I had an awesome photo included in this post with Andreea and Susie on my lap but then I thought "Ah Oh" State facility - no pictures allowed. Bummer.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

I received a phone call earlier today asking if I would attend the funeral of one of the street people. I remember faces and stories but names often escape me. His name was Vale and he was just 30 years old. Once I heard about him I remember him from from when I first started working here in Romania. I purchased farm equipment for an orphanage where the teen boys were trying to farm by hand. I had seen Vale on the streets over the years. It was rainy, cold and muddy, not a pleasant time to be on the streets - not a pleasant time to be buried. The street people by and large die young. It is one of the sadder aspects of the life here in Romania.

This evening a lady came to see me that runs a center here in Sofronea. She currently has 6 people in residence, most with mental problems. She sought help a few places and was told to come and see me. This seems like a natural, right in my home village. Two of the residents used to be in Mocrea. They need food and volunteers. I promised to bring some food on Monday and will work on getting some people to help there. I told her I did not think I was strong enough yet to come and volunteer there for a whole day but would do what I could. I'll write more about this new project next week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Friday, December 5, 2008

Vision

Irene, Wayne, Peter and Christine were over for dinner tonight. Irene and Wayne have taken over the British charity, Reaching Romania. We were talking of the year to come and going over some of the vision for the future. I talked about a food bank and expanded feeding program, this really excites me. We plan to expand the Widow's Mite program. I seem to have spent a lot of 2008 in a survival mode that it was nice to once again speak of future projects. I am looking forward to 2009!

I will be in Wales with Irene and Wayne for Christmas (the girls will be visiting their father) and will have a chance to share about the work here.

I continue to pray for people to come along side and help. Everything has been getting done, maybe not on the schedule I want but then I am not really in control of all this.

Before Peter and Chris head back to England we will be distributing much of the Widow's Mite Christmas gifts. This Monday they all go up to Galos Petreu for the distribution there. It is earlier than I would have liked but I need to be all done by Dec. 20th this year. We make up 140 gift bags for Mocrea Psychiatric Hospital for the big party we do there at Christmas. We have food and gift distribtion in Vinga as well as the school Christmas party.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

A Sarahism.

Sarah must have seen one of those pictures of an "almost blond" Jesus. Sarah wanted to know what Jesus looked like. Well...we have no photos but we assume he looked more like the people from the geographical area than some of the pictures depict. Sarah asked if he had blue eyes... no. probably not - in fact Sarah I imagine he had nice brown eyes like you do. Sarah thinks for a second and then...so, I am Jewish?