Thursday, January 27, 2011

What's New?

Gosh - a lot is new! I, along with many people worldwide, have been participating in a 21 day Daniel Fast for 2011. People are reporting some awesome things taking place. In my own life I have seen money literally multiplied in an envelope I was holding in my safe.

The vision for a program to care for abandoned babies has finally begun to materialize. This is the first step - it looks like Daniel's foundation, Humanitas, will partner with the hospital where these babies are kept. Once we establish our credibility and have funds for a building we can move the entire program to our own facility. We need volunteers! Since the facility will be to house babies we calculate it will be cheaper to obtain land soon and then build. I have no idea where the funds will come from yet - but the Lord does!

Also I wrote some time ago about being overwhelmed by a situation where I took in to my home 2 girls. In November I rented the girls and their mother a lovely apartment. The mother was to seek employment after the New year. The mother refused. She continues to self medicate and can not take care of her children. She has refused to let them be taken care of - she says "then who will take care of me?" The girls were no longer attending school regularly and the older girl had run away twice. Last week the older girl called me to pick her up off the street. When I arrived she had her younger sister with her - she was not about to be left behind! We were able to get them safely to a girl's home in Timisoara. We did not exactly do this legally but I gathered what documentation I could. I pleaded with Child Protection. The girls were cold and hungry and were in jeopardy, I had no choice, I could not leave them.

The church in Vinga is growing and we will have two more baptisms soon. I am training leaders and that is going well. We have a weekly prayer meeting that meets in a different home each week as well as a home group meeting. The teens still have a weekly meeting as well as learning English.

Mary Jill and I have another Women for Women meeting scheduled for March 12. The director of Elizabeth and Sarah's school had wanted to attend our last meeting but could not. She asked if we couldn't do a meeting here in Sofronea too. Yes we can! It is unclear whether it will be moms and other ladies in the village or is it the fathers too. We will do the extra meeting March 11. This next meeting on March 12 will be announced on the radio also.

I have hired Adina and Bogdan to help with all the projects. Adina has the heart for the abandoned babies so much of her time will be at the hospital. Bogdan is my Timothy and is in training to be a pastor. He is due to return to Ohio March 31 (if we get a visa in time)! with my pastor for 3 months of intense training.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Happy New Year!


OK, so I meant to do a really information packed Newsletter right after Christmas but in time for the New year. Oops. Instead of that I took the week off and the girls and I headed to Budapest to meet up with our friend, Mary Jill Callery - a long time missionary in Europe. We spent 3 days at the Ramada Aqua World. It was wonderful and I returned feeling stress free (well, as about stress free as I can get). I had a little difficulty in getting the girls back over the border in to Romania. I am going to have to go to court and get the documents straightened out. My attorney as well as the police say that Bucharest may have to write a new law for me as this situation has never come up before.

I will post a couple of more things on the blog later (I know, promises promises). I wanted to post pictures of all the Christmas activities for the widows, mentally ill, orphans and poor - ah, we didn't use my camera. I had pictures sent to me over e-mail and I am sure I saved them - somewhere. When I am involved in all these activities I am not usually thinking about taking pictures - sorry.

Irene and Wayne were here from Wales and together we gave out over 600 Christmas boxes. We had Christmas parties at Mocrea, at my school, at Maranatha Orphanage and the church.

At Vinga we had a wonderful Christmas Eve service including a baby dedication, a baptism, caroling and a candle light service.