Dear Family and Friends,
Daniel and I officially ended our three week “tour” of the Southeast on November 8th. We had a wonderful time meeting new churches, new friends, and sharing the story of what God is doing in our lives with so many. While we were visiting Daniel’s grandparents in Florida, we were given the opportunity to present our ministry to their church. We were so blessed in many, many ways. Daniel received a MAJOR surprise blessing when one of the church members (almost a left-handed guitarist) gave Daniel a guitar specially made for a lefty! Below is the photo of Daniel proudly displaying his new guitar and our precious brother in Christ, Dave Truman, who so generously gave Daniel the guitar.
After we left the Gulf coast of Florida, we traveled over to the East coast to West Palm Beach to speak at a chapel service for Palm Beach Atlantic. It was a wonderful experience, especially the afternoon when I was able to speak with a small group of social work students and two professors about being a Christian social worker in Romania. Here is a photo of that session:
We left West Palm Beach and spent one night in Jacksonville with new friends who had just returned the day before from Romania. They visited our ministry and reported all was well! We left them after a quick stay and headed to Charleston, SC for the weekend. My long-time computer geek friend, Clay Stuckey, who is now happily married to Terri, blessed me tremendously with a new techo toy! I am now the proud owner of a Ipaq mini-computer. It is about the size of a Palm Pilot thingy but has the power of a computer so I can check and write email, download documents, and keep all my contacts in something a little bigger than a lipstick holder. Yipee!!! It also has a built in camera so I don’t miss sending you any great shots from wherever we are! (That’s right, more hog shots coming soon.)
I talk to our Romanian staff at least twice a week and I have some praises and prayer requests to share with you. First, the praise is that we have wonderful heat in Agape Home because the new furnace is installed and pumping out great heat. Nicu and Flori were so cute yesterday when they told me, “It has a thermometer on it and we can set the heat to any setting we want to any time we want to!” For most of the world, this is not a big deal but to Romania and other post communist countries, this is a concept that is still very new.
Our prayer requests are for the Children’s hospital. Our social worker, Diana, told us they are simply overflowing with abandoned babies. Each year, when it turns cold, poor families who don’t have adequate living conditions give up and abandon their children. Some only do it for the winter but most do it indefinitely. Our expense for baby formula was $800 for the month of October, more than double what our sponsors from Vienna give us for milk. The hospital workers wanted to know which babies should not get the milk since the funds were not sufficient and we said, “Give it to all of them! We will believe in faith for the funds.” So, here we are once again, stepping out in faith for God’s provision. Please pray for the Lord to pour in the funds to feed these babies!
Also, I have a prayer request for me. I have completely lost my voice because of a sinus cold. I don’t mind being quiet but, last night, I could not sleep because of all the congestion and it doesn’t seem to matter what medicine I take, I can’t sleep because I can’t breathe. Please pray this will heal and pass quickly. I praise God because this is the first time I have been sick in more than over a year!
The final prayer request is for a family who attends the same church we do in NC. They are a family of 5, mom, dad, and three children, who have tremendous needs. Dad fell down a flight of stairs last year, broke his neck, and is now a quadriplegic. I have contacted several ministries about their need for a handicapped equipped van but have had no success. Also, since he didn’t have private insurance, he is only covered by Medicaid now and they are not scheduling enough physical therapy visits to help him gain some of the mobility he has lost. The mom had to quit her job to care for him at home full-time so their only income is social security. If any of you have any suggestions of organizations I could contact on behalf of this family, please let me know.
Thanks to all y’all wonderful supporters who bless us in so many incredible ways. We are truly humbled!
Basking in the Son,
Michelle -
Dear Family and Friends,
Daniel and I officially ended our three week “tour” of the Southeast on November 8th. We had a wonderful time meeting new churches, new friends, and sharing the story of what God is doing in our lives with so many. While we were visiting Daniel’s grandparents in Florida, we were given the opportunity to present our ministry to their church. We were so blessed in many, many ways. Daniel received a MAJOR surprise blessing when one of the church members (almost a left-handed guitarist) gave Daniel a guitar specially made for a lefty! Below is the photo of Daniel proudly displaying his new guitar and our precious brother in Christ, Dave Truman, who so generously gave Daniel the guitar.
After we left the Gulf coast of Florida, we traveled over to the East coast to West Palm Beach to speak at a chapel service for Palm Beach Atlantic. It was a wonderful experience, especially the afternoon when I was able to speak with a small group of social work students and two professors about being a Christian social worker in Romania. Here is a photo of that session:
We left West Palm Beach and spent one night in Jacksonville with new friends who had just returned the day before from Romania. They visited our ministry and reported all was well! We left them after a quick stay and headed to Charleston, SC for the weekend. My long-time computer geek friend, Clay Stuckey, who is now happily married to Terri, blessed me tremendously with a new techo toy! I am now the proud owner of a Ipaq mini-computer. It is about the size of a Palm Pilot thingy but has the power of a computer so I can check and write email, download documents, and keep all my contacts in something a little bigger than a lipstick holder. Yipee!!! It also has a built in camera so I don’t miss sending you any great shots from wherever we are! (That’s right, more hog shots coming soon.)
I talk to our Romanian staff at least twice a week and I have some praises and prayer requests to share with you. First, the praise is that we have wonderful heat in Agape Home because the new furnace is installed and pumping out great heat. Nicu and Flori were so cute yesterday when they told me, “It has a thermometer on it and we can set the heat to any setting we want to any time we want to!” For most of the world, this is not a big deal but to Romania and other post communist countries, this is a concept that is still very new.
Our prayer requests are for the Children’s hospital. Our social worker, Diana, told us they are simply overflowing with abandoned babies. Each year, when it turns cold, poor families who don’t have adequate living conditions give up and abandon their children. Some only do it for the winter but most do it indefinitely. Our expense for baby formula was $800 for the month of October, more than double what our sponsors from Vienna give us for milk. The hospital workers wanted to know which babies should not get the milk since the funds were not sufficient and we said, “Give it to all of them! We will believe in faith for the funds.” So, here we are once again, stepping out in faith for God’s provision. Please pray for the Lord to pour in the funds to feed these babies!
Also, I have a prayer request for me. I have completely lost my voice because of a sinus cold. I don’t mind being quiet but, last night, I could not sleep because of all the congestion and it doesn’t seem to matter what medicine I take, I can’t sleep because I can’t breathe. Please pray this will heal and pass quickly. I praise God because this is the first time I have been sick in more than over a year!
The final prayer request is for a family who attends the same church we do in NC. They are a family of 5, mom, dad, and three children, who have tremendous needs. Dad fell down a flight of stairs last year, broke his neck, and is now a quadriplegic. I have contacted several ministries about their need for a handicapped equipped van but have had no success. Also, since he didn’t have private insurance, he is only covered by Medicaid now and they are not scheduling enough physical therapy visits to help him gain some of the mobility he has lost. The mom had to quit her job to care for him at home full-time so their only income is social security. If any of you have any suggestions of organizations I could contact on behalf of this family, please let me know.
Thanks to all y’all wonderful supporters who bless us in so many incredible ways. We are truly humbled!
Basking in the Son,
Michelle
Posted on November 19th, 2004 by Michelle
Filed under: Michelle's Journal