Saturday, Nov 8: Devos out of Chapter 5, (The 3 Greatest Commandments), from The Hole In Our Gospel lead by Rosario. It was fun to hear her story of immigration from Bolivia and her perspective on global poverty. Drive to Cluj with a stop in Sighisoara, birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula. Fun times!
Sunday, Nov 9: Devos from Chapter 10 (What's Wrong With This Picture) of The Hole In Our Gospel lead by Kathy. Sponsorship visits! My sponsor family is doing well, although the mom is unexpected pregnant with triplets!! It's been such an honor to sponsor them for 8 years, and visit them 3 times. Wow Triplets! We were all excited, but also talked about the challenges. For a family that only made $70 per month when the mom was working, this is going to be very difficult financially.
We also got in a quick visit to Bannfy Castle Ruins.
Monday, Nov 10:
Morning: Double Devos! Chapter 4 (Towering Pillars Of Compassion and Justice) from THIOG, lead by me, and devos with the Cluj ADP team lead by Vali Sabua, what an amazing leader! He shared about Jacob wrestling with God and losing, but being blessed. The injury to his hip is translated into Romanian as his 'agony' and Vali did a nice job tying it to "The Agonies We Live With".
First Home Visit: Roma family visit demonstrating a nice partnership between the Orthodox church and the World Vision Cluj Team.
Second visit to a father who has liver cancer, and a 11 year old son. The mom is working abroad as a prostitute and sends them money regularly and visits them a couple times a year. They live in a converted pigpen/horse stable. We all wondered what would happen if the father doesn't make it. Obviously poverty/desperation can rob people of respect. This was a very hard story to hear. I won't show pics of this one.
Third Home visit and lunch: Pentecostal dairy farmers. Wonderful success story of a family that was responsible for 18 cows under communism, and now basically do the same thing, but reap the rewards of their hard work.
(Mary with the Grandmother)
Monday Night: Overview of Youth In Transition program with Edit the program manager & psychologist so that we are ready to meet with the teens Tuesday. Remember the 1990 20/20 show? Yeah, these are the teenages & early twenty year olds that were raised in that system. She explained the attachment disorders/trauma associated with institutionalization, and how the program works with teens to prepare them for life on the outside, and how to deal with the issues they face. She is a saint. These kids are in such desperate need of help. They call World Vision their 'mom & dad'. We discussed the program funding challenges for a long time and how we can all help her get the resources she needs to continue this important work.
Tuesday, Nov 11: Devos from chapter 25 (Time, Talent, Treasure) of THIOG with Phyllis. Her perspective is profound because of her life experiences.
Morning home visits with the Bus(h) family (spelled Bus, pronounced Bush). The girls walk 3.2 miles to school through the beautiful Carpathian Mountains (we clocked it on the odometer). Their dogs go with them to protect them on the walk because there are wolves (wow). We were all amazed to hear their struggle for education. They are in the sponsorship program but have never had a sponsor - we all agreed to fix that problem!
Lunch with a sponsor family (wow) what a lunch (6 course meal).
Tuesday Night: Youth In Transition program visit. We had a great time with the teens from YIT. They asked why we cared and how we were able to come so far to help the people of Romania. We each shared a short version of our testimony and tried to encourage them to have a goal, stay in school, and trust in God.
Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009
Devos with Kevin, Chapter 8 (The Greatest Challenge Of The New Millennium) of THIOG. The family visit today was particularly compelling. Annie Maria is a 26 year old mom, with 6 beautiful kids.
Her husband left her, and she has no income. The local Church has helped her by giving her a small 2 bedroom house to stay in for the winter, but it has to be used in the spring for another situation. There is no running water. The babies (twins) are just 4 or 5 months old. The highlight was seeing her excitement when we asked about her sponsor. She went and got the letters from Nicky Strang. (wow) great sponsor. (postscript - I spoke to Nicky tonight and told her all about the visit and sent her a link to the pictures. She said it was the highlight of her year). Our heart went out to Annie Maria.
Thursday: 9 Hour Drive Day! Instead of long devos we all just read and considered Psalm 103.
"The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed...
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love...
Friday, Nov. 12, 2009. Devos with the Bucarest (WVR Headquarters) Staff. We lead devotions by sharing about what we had seen. Sam Vorhees was also there and shared a bit about leadership challenges. We prayed for Anna, a girl abducted from one of the WVR program sites. They had credible evidence that she had been abducted and taken to italy (likely for prostitution).Morning visit - Sector 5 Placement Center (Orphanage). WOOOWWWW! What a miracle. 2 years ago we visited this same location. It was a very tired and sad facility. One person on the trip even had to walk out during the tour because it was so difficult to see, smell, experience. World Vision had just gotten approval to partner there with the staff and overhaul the facility and programs. Did they ever! You would never imagine it was the same place. The facility is beautiful, the programs are well staffed and organized. They showed us what they called their continuum of services, starting with a maternal shelter, and then a preschool, then counseling and services for parents of Children With Disabilities, and then the residential living area for 60 children. This was spectacular, and I'd imagine as good or better than anything we could do in the U.S.
I told Mariana the program manager that...
"We underestimated your ability to perform miracles"
She laughed and said it was all God.
For the afternoon visit the team broke up and saw different things. My group went to a very dangerous area of Sector 5 (the most impoverished sector of Bucarest) and visited a family that has 9 children (and the mom is pregnant). The apartment was roughly 10 feet by 6 feet (incredibly small). No bathroom. The fathers first comment was, "no one would help us until World Vision did". Both parents and the youngest child have Hepatitis C, and the government, because of confusion about their address, would not provide them with any services. World Vision stepped in and is actively working to get their paperwork straightened out so they can access governmental services. When we prayed for the mom she began crying loudly and thanked us. The sponsorship worker said they became aware of this family because one of their program beneficiaries said, "I'm poor, but this family needs your help more than me". And she took the World Vision worker to meet the family.
Saturday, Nov. 14 2009. Debriefing Day!
The schedule included:
A. Trip schedule recap & review (Wow, it's amazing how you can forget whole sections of your itinerary from just a few days prior. The hole in my short term memory)
B. Personal Reflection Time, answering 8 questions:
1. My experience has been...
2. For me, Romania means...
3. I will be going back home to...
4. When I go back home my prayers will include...
5. An area I have seen God work in my life is...
6. I see the Gospel differently because...
7. The thing about my experience I want to share most is...
8. I have seen God at work in (list each team-mate and give an answer)...
C. Follow-Up Items - what promises did you make, (or decisions) to who?
1. A wall adapter for my sponsor girl's new electronic toy (done)
2. A new (GN ) for my sponsor family
3. Orchestrating full funding for the YIT Program & visit of Olga & Edit
4. Contacting Nicky Strang the sponsor of Annie Maria and her 6 kids (Done, that was fun).
5. Get the trafficking DVD for Trinity off the Meero site
6. Get video greeting of Edit & Olga & Kristina finished for donors
7. Send a copy of all my pics and video to Trinity
8. Finish the expenses
9. Bring a track jacket to Johnathan next time I come
