Romans 3:20 “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”
Dear Family and Friends,
We had an extremely busy but very blessed August that went rolled quickly into September. I have lots of news to share with you in this email update! I share the above scripture because it helped me so much in my early walk with The Lord to understand Jesus BECAME THE LAW and because of his righteousness and perfection, I can clearly understand my sin and repent of it. As someone I was counseling recently said, “As a Christian, repenting of sin does not seem to be something I need to do once. It is something I need to do daily.” Amen!
In mid-August, we were blessed to have three men come from Rockford, Illinois to work at Agape Home. They got so much accomplished in the week they were here! They hung all the drywall for the basement half that will be a sewing room. In addition, Mark (second from left) installed a closet at the end of the hall while Dave and Wade (far left and third from left) installed electrical wiring and fixtures. For Daniel, it was like a big slumber party because he had three men to play cards with into the wee hours of the nights. J Here is a photo of the four of them when they are not all stinky and sweaty! (They were so proud of themselves for putting Dave and Daniel on opposite ends since they both had on orange. They didn’t want them to “clash” in the photo!!!)
A few days after the Rockford guys left, we had a visit from one of our board members, Margaret Moore, along with her husband and son, Jeff and Layton. Margaret came to audit our books in Romania and to see how the operation runs on this end. She states, “I am pleased with the outcome and how organized and complete everything was in the face of so much bureaucracy. Everything I verified was accounted for in the books.”
Their six days here were packed and extremely active. After finishing with the audit, Margaret painted the office at Agape Home including a mural with scripture. Jeff helped Daniel shovel rocks for the driveway and Layton helped me eat chocolate. J Daniel will certainly put me in the doghouse for sending this photo of him and Jeff working but his Romanian “sombrero” is just too much and I KNEW you would want to see him donning it in action. What a fearless leader I have!! Not many men could pull of this hat!
While they were here, we had the funeral service for the two abandoned babies. We thank those of you who gave so we could give them a proper burial. I think Margaret would say this was the least favorite thing she did while she was here. Her second least favorite thing was leaving all of the babies at the Children’s hospital. Here is a photo of us with the Moore family visiting the “Bear Caves” in our county and another one of Margaret in action with her plastic bag painting technique.
When Margaret, Jeff, Layton and I were leaving Agape Home one day, we saw this little girl, around 18 months old, sitting on the side of a main road all alone. It broke our hearts to see a precious little girl this filthy and neglected. I certainly had a fuller appreciation for what The Lord has us doing with Agape Home to prevent this type of scene. Here is a photo of the little girl sitting by the road. Please pray for her and for The Lord to show us how we can help this little girl once we find her again.
Agape Home is filling up and filling up fast! Yesterday, we took a woman and her ten day old baby because her family would not allow her to come home with the baby and she desperately wanted to avoid abandoning the child. Tomorrow, we will take a mother and her three year old child because they will be homeless after tomorrow. We will help the mother find a job and proper daycare for her child so she can begin a new life trusting in Jesus for provision. Two weeks ago, we took a young mother and her 4 month old baby making our total 4 women and 4 children. We ask for you to agree with us in prayer for The Lord to continue to make the financial provision for us to feed all these mouths.
Our hearts have been very heavy as we have viewed the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. We praise God for all the churches that have stepped us and housed families and for Christian ministries like Samaritan’s Purse who were on the scene first with aide and the love of Christ. What an opportunity for the body of Christ in the USA to reach out and love others as Jesus would. We continue to lift you to the throne of Grace as you minister to so many.
Many of you have followed the story of “Miracle Maria” for years now. I received an email update from her parents that she had her next major surgery yesterday. It was quite involved but Maria did extremely well and may get to go home in a couple of days. Please pray for a speedy recovery and for Romania to re-open the international adoptions for the cases like Maria’s that desperately need to be closed. She has been in their care for five years now and will continue to need intensive medical care and Romania still will not complete the adoption. As you can imagine, it is terribly heartbreaking for the family.
We plan on returning to the USA from October 15 – December 20th in time to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Romania this year. If any of you would like us to come and update your church or give a missions presentation for the first time, please let us know as soon as possible so we can plan our dates.
Once again, we thank you for your continued prayers and financial support for our ministry. It is an honor to serve The Lord with you in Romania.
Basking in the Son,
Michelle
Posted on September 13th, 2005 by Michelle
Filed under: Michelle's Journal