Letter From Romania |
| January – February 2005 |
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| Dear Friends, | ||
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"Whoever welcomes a little child like this in My Name welcomes
Me" |
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| Greetings to you in the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach, the Lord Jesus Christ! | ||
| Catinca and Sebastian | ||
Three-year-old Catinca, recently taken into Casa Emanuel, still needs a sponsor. |
Recently we took a new girl into the orphanage in Iasi. Her name is Catinca
and, at three years old, she is the youngest child at Casa Emanuel. She had
been sleeping in a dog kennel and someone drew our attention to her situation.
Her parents had put the dog out to make room for her. Catinca was very skinny
when she came to us, but our staff and children welcomed her with love. She
soon put on weight and was showered with gifts: a winter coat, a pair of boots,
a pair of gloves, a hat, a scarf, some dresses and a nightgown. Praise the Lord
that her life was saved!
One of Catinca’s older brothers, Sebastian, is also at the orphanage. He has been with us for almost five years and was very upset when he heard how his sister had been living. When he first arrived in April 2000 he was afraid of people and of the dark. As we blessed him and prayed for him, he gradually understood that he was in a safe place. Sebastian has learned many Scripture verses by heart and even won a competition for Scripture memory. He knows that the Lord loves him. He is polite and well behaved and is a pleasure to be around. He is making good progress in English and is a gifted dancer.Sebastian and Catinca have a fifteen-year-old brother in a state orphanage in Bucium, a district of Iasi. Their parents are alcoholics who lived in a shack in summer and in a cow shed with a leaking roof in winter. Recently they were chased away from there by the landowner, and now live on the streets or in the sewers. |
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| Christmas Celebration | ||
Georgiana Bogza is thankful for the Christmas gifts she received at Cantina Adonai. |
Our staff worked for more than a month to prepare Christmas gifts from our
containers for about 1,200 children in Iasi and Târgu Frumos. These included
the 810 children in our regular care, 60 children of our staff and workers, 80
children from local churches and about 250 children from poor families in the
area. They will all have warm clothes and no child will die of cold this
winter.
Christmas was a joyful celebration. The orphanage children enacted the story of the birth of the Lord Jesus in Bethlehem. They were very beautifully dressed with silver crowns on their heads. They performed like great artists and danced and sang and read the Christmas story from our children’s book Sarbatori Fericite! At the end they received wonderful presents. Each child from the canteens and orphanage received a coat and clothes, boots and shoes, toys, school materials, personal care items, apples, oranges, bananas and candies. |
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| ISOM | ||
Cantina El Roi in Iasi, showing the progress of the extension work. 
Children watch a video message from Genovieva after the Christmas celebration at the orphanage. |
Twenty-seven lessons were covered in the International School of Ministry
(ISOM) program and the participation was 95% of the students signed up.
Absentees caught up what they had missed by individual video sessions
supervised by Dana Barbu, the organizer. She conducts seminars in which she
makes sure that all the subjects are assimilated by the students and nothing is
unclear.
At Cantina El Roi the construction work is waiting for the Lord’s provision to go ahead. The roof of the building has been completed and much progress has been made. Many of the orphanage children spent the Christmas holiday with our staff and their families. They came back to the orphanage for the celebration.We have several children at the orphanage still in need of sponsorship. Sponsorship means covering the basic costs of providing care for that child. We ask for $65.00 (£44.00) per month to sponsor a child at the orphanage, and that helps to pay for food, utilities and full-time care by our staff. There are also about 350 children at the canteens in need of sponsorship. We feed them every day in addition to those children who are sponsored, but they do not have regular support. Canteen sponsorship costs $20.00 (£14.00) per month and pays for food, utilities and staff salaries at the canteens.If you would like to sponsor a child, either at the orphanage or at one of the canteens, we would love to hear from you. We will send you a picture and a brief summary of the child’s family situation so that you can pray for your child. We again write this newsletter from Israel. The open air market always has a large variety of fruit and vegetables at wonderful prices. Genovieva loves to buy fish, dill, parsley and melons. She can already read and shop in Hebrew. We praise the Lord every day for the privilege of being in Israel at this time.Laurian Sfatcu, Genovieva’s half-brother, visited us here for a few days. It was good to meet with him and talk about what the Lord is doing in Romania. We recorded a video message for the staff and children. |
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Thank you so much for your support. We wish you a blessed New Year! |
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