Michelle’s Journal - Fri, 06 Apr 2007
Philippians 2: 5-11 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Dear Family and Friends, The above text is what The Lord put on my heart to share with our employees in our staff/prayer meeting yesterday. It is so powerful to know that, one day, ALL people in every language will bow to Jesus and confess that He is indeed our Lord. Praise be the name of Jesus to those of you that already do! Within our small staff, there were three languages represented that confess the name of Jesus as Lord. How awesome is that! Here is a photo of all of us (minus the 9 foster mothers) and between us, we speak Romanian, Hungarian, and English!
The first part of the week proved to be very difficult. We were contacted by the social worker at the Maternity hospital a couple of weeks ago and asked if we could pay for the burial of two babies that they had in the morgue. As before at the other hospital, parents had actually received money from the state for the burial and then never returned to bury their child. To most people, this is unthinkable and it certainly shows a huge flaw in the system here. Our USA board voted immediately to issue funds to bury the two babies and we held a service for them on Monday. Our Arms of Mercy hospital worker, Ali, has a beautiful voice and sang like an angel acappella. Here are a few photos from the service:
Neli and I putting flowers on the graves.
The second part of the week proved to be much happier. First, my car was repaired for less than $75. On Tuesday, Neli made a long trip with Nicu to FINALLY get Ileana a birth certificate along with her youngest child, Ana-Michelle. Yes, that’s right, Ileana decided to name her youngest child after me since Ana didn’t officially have a birth certificate. The oldest child, Alexandria Cornelia, will be named after our social worker, Neli, who has done an outstanding job of arduously working to make sure Ileana and her children legally exist. It is sometimes hard for eveyrone to understand the magnitude of the bureaucracy that Neli has to deal with but I can tell you that God used her to work miracles for Ileana. Praise be His name! If you would like to drop Neli a note to congratulate her on this amazing accomplishment, you can email her at p_neli@yahoo.com and I know she can read English.
We also need to praise our ministry’s Administrator, Georgy, for the incredibly professional job she did in getting a contract put together for us to move our Arms of Mercy workers from the Children’s hospital to the Maternity hospital. One week ago, I visited the Director of the local Maternity hospital with Ali to ask permission to start working with the tons of abandoned babies they have. For about three years, I have been told an absolute, “NO!” to having access to these children. God has worked a miralce and opened a huge door through your prayers. After next week, Ali and Ibi, our Arms of Mercy workers, will be working in the Maternity hospital with as many as 25 babies who need love and affection! We will need to supply diapers for these wee ones so we ask anyone that was sponsoring milk to now sponsor diapers (the Maternity hospital does not need our funding for milk). We really need much for sponsorship to start coming in for this so the severity of the diaper rash will decrease. The Director was, shockingly, enough, very open to our help but made it crystal clear there would be no foreigners allowed in to help. This being the case, we will probably need to hire another hospital worker in the future to care for these little lives. Please pray for us as we seek His direction on this. If you would like to write Georgy to commend her on a job well done, her email address is georgybancse@yahoo.com and she both reads and writes English. Just so you have a face with all the names, here is a photo from yesterday of all four of us social workers with the ministry:
social workers (From left to right): Alina Cioara - social worker for Education Inspiration, Michelle Sims, Georgy Bancse - licensed social worker in Romania but works primarily on the administrative end with financial reports and contracts, Neli Pirtea - social worker for Agape Home and New Life Foster Care These women are domestic missionaries and I would not even want to think about doing the work we do in Romania without them! It is such a blessing that The Lord brought them into our path! My final piece of happy news is regarding our Agape Home resident, Mona, that we just transitioned into her own apartment. I am so proud to tell you that she got a job ON HER OWN and started working before she even moved out of Agape Home. Neli found the apartment and Flori found the daycare so her life is now much more independent than she ever thought it would be. Here is a photo I want to share with you from yesterday when Daniel and I visited her in her one room apartment. Although it is quite small, she is thrilled to be living on her own for the first time in her 25 years of life. Thank you so much to all you sponsors who allowed the Lord to use you to make this happen!
From all of us at Children In The Son and the staff of Viata Noua Pentru Copii, (our Romanian non-profit) we all wish you a happy celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Christ is Risen, indeed!!! Worshiping The Son for all eternity, Michelle
Basking in the Son,
Michelle
Posted on April 6th, 2007 by Bill Nixon
Filed under: Michelle's Journal