No, the subject title of this email is not a joke. I am very serious! On Septemer 23rd, there is a team of 3 people leaving from one of our sponsor churches to do a construction project in Romania. Many of you will remember my email update earlier in the year concerning an extremely needy Roma (gypsy) family that needed a new home. This church decided to go and we thought there would be some men from another church joining them in the construction but we found out this week that it fell through. The goal is to dry in a very small, three room house in 9 days! Definitely a God-size task!

If you are interested in going, please contact me immediately. You need to already have your passport because I doubt there would be enough time to get one processed before leaving. If you buy your airline ticket today, the total trip cost would be $1,800. But each day you wait, the cost could rise due to the fuel surcharges now. Or, if you have frequent flyer points to use, the travel dates for the group are September 23rd - October 3rd.

We really only need one or two men to join the group but if there are more of you interested, please contact me as soon as possible at 919-721-3833.

So you have a better idea of what will be happening, here is a link http://www.ncfchurch.info/ministries.html to the church’s website that shows photos of the house and family. Neli, our social worker for this project, Nurture Network, told me yesterday the family now has large rates (I think we call them warf rats) getting into the house each night. As many of you know, this is extremely dangerous for the family members if one of them should get bit. Please pray for The Lord’s protection over them.

Please pray about whether or not The Lord would have you join this group and if you do feel led, I look forward to hearing from you!

Basking In The Son,
Michelle

This is an unusual email for me to write because this has never happened before. We should have sent the wire to our Romanian account several days ago for their monthly budget but there were not enough funds. In fact, we are short about $5,000 this month. Although many of you are sponsors for our children, there are many projects that we have that do not have sponsors such as our foster care program (which alone is about $3,000 per month) as well as the salaries for our social workers. I want to make this need known so you can pray about whether or not The Lord would have you help our ministry this month.

I explained a little about what is going on economically to make things harder for our ministry in my newsletter and I decided to include the same explanation here. Like many other ministries in Europe, our ministry is suffering terribly because of the economic situation with the USA dollar falling against the Euro. For those of you who don’t understand exactly how this works, I will explain it like this. Romania is now part of the European Union and their prices on everything are being raised to be the equivalent in Euro rather than their old currency, Romanian lei. They still only accept lei in the stores but the prices are clearly reflected in Euro. So, the USA dollar that at one time equaled 3.8 Romanian lei is now equal to 2.3 which is a drastic fall. Our Board Treasurer recently told us she must wire over $2,000 - $3,000 more each month to meet our monthly budget which has not increased. Coupled with this fact is the reality that our American economy is not doing well because of the increased cost of living for everyone due to the soaring fuel prices. So, needless to say, giving is way down from where it normally is. We are really thankful for those of you who give monthly because we depend on it. We want to make sure the children and families we are distributing food and services to do not suffer. We have always believed in The Lord as our Jehovah Jireh (God our Provider) and we stand on this more now than ever.

On a happier note, my nephew, Samuel, was released from Duke Children’s hospital yesterday!!! Yay!!! Cheryl and Russ still face many challenges with the port that is now in his chest for his nutrition supplement each night but we are believing for The Lord to provide them with the needed strength for the task. They will have some home health care nurses coming to assist but they are unsure for how long and to what extent. Cheryl went through an extensive training last night. And, Samuel’s life will be modified from what it was (no more swimming, playing in large sand piles, etc.) until that port comes out for fear of infection.

Here is a photo of Samuel celebrating his 4th birthday in the hospital last week with Russ and Cheryl. Thank you so much for your prayers.

And thank all of you individuals and churches that do sponsor us monthly. We couldn’t do what we do there without you doing what you do!

Basking in The Son,
Michelle

I received some news from Romania today that I want to share with you. There is a young Romanian girl, Loredana, that our ministry has been unofficially sponsoring over the last year. I say unofficially because she did not really need the financial help our other students in Education Inspiration did until now.

Loredana’s story is a sad one but we would like for it to have a better outcome. Her mother abandoned her shortly after birth to live with another man leaving her grandmother to raise her. Her biological father is a severe alcoholic but the local child protection gave him full custody after her grandmother died last year. The conditions in their home were terrible. There was no electricity, no running water, and only a small room with a small wood stove for cooking on and heating. We took groceries to her home several times just so she would have something to eat. She was responsible for feeding and caring for herself but her biological father did get a job and managed to get electricity installed in January which we do give him credit for doing.

Amazingly enough, in the face of all of this, Loredana is a brilliant student who wants to continue her high school education and we want to help her. Like our other girls, we need to cover bus fare, all of her educational expenses, groceries, toiletries, etc. so she has the basics for going to school which totals about $125 per month. If you can sponsor any part of this amount, please let me know and I will make sure you are contacted by Alina. You are also welcome to send packages and cards to her through Alina. Here is a photo of Loredana so you can have a name with the face.

Although my nephew is doing better, there are now some concerns that we ask you to pray about. They thought Samuel had contracted a stomach virus from someone on the ward because six other families reported a stomach virus and Samuel was having way too many bowel movements after his surgery. Now they are beginning to think it is something else but they are not sure what. To complicate matters, Samuel is refusing to eat the food they give him. He has always been a bad eater but his refusal to eat now means he cannot go home until he does. They need to see how his body functions to eating solid food so they can have a better idea of what the problem is. My sister-in-law called my mother this afternoon and asked for prayer for this. We don’t know if he is afraid to eat because he is making an association with his stomach and the pain of the surgery or if he is just turned off by the food they are giving him.

I apologize for not personally answering all of those of you that have asked for my brother’s address. Their home address is:

Samuel Kelly
c/o Russ and Cheryl Kelly
2942 NC Hwy 24-27
Cameron, NC 28326

And, for those of you that can stand it no longer, here is a photo we had taken of us yesterday at 30 weeks pregnant. Yes, that really is my big belly and yes, I do look like I may topple over at any moment! Daniel was trying to fit his hand under my “bubble” but, as you can see, he was having trouble that made us both laugh!

Again, I thank you for all your prayers and for your support over the last week. The Lord showed me these verses this week that I want to share with you.

Psalm 107:19-21 “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men.”

Amen!!!

Basking in THE Son,
Michelle

I woke up this morning to an email message this morning telling me that our oldest foster child, Claudia, had to have an appendectomy yesterday. Neli had written me two days ago to say she was suspected to have appendicitis but I did not hear from Neli yesterday so I thought everything must be okay. Georgy wrote me this morning to say that Claudia was doing well but very weak from not having anything to eat for two days. Then Georgy wrote, “Michelle, she asked if you were coming to see her in the hospital.” I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I cry each time I think of her question. (Of course I could be a professional soap opera star right now because I cry so easily.) My consoling husband helped but it was one of those times when I desperately wanted to be back in Romania and he did as well. We have had Claudia in our ministry since she was 15 months old and severely anemic because she was abandoned in the hospital. She was not even able to lift her head nor did she have any muscle tone. Now, she is a bubbly, beautiful little girl that I have had the joy of watching to grow up in foster care. Daniel has wanted us to adopt her for years but, as you know, that was never possible because of the Romanian government.

I ask you to please pray for Claudia to heal quickly so she can go home. We never want an abandoned child to have to be admitted to the hospital because the sounds and smells bring back the memories of the trauma of being abandoned. Georgy told me the foster mother, Mia, has not left Claudia’s side for the entire time but today asked a friend to come and stay with Claudia so she could go home and take a shower and change. We also praise The Lord that NOT ONE BRIBE had to be given in order for Claudia to receive the necessary surgery! Truly a miracle in that system!

I just called Claudia on her foster mother’s mobile phone and got to talk to her so I feel a bit better now. I explained that Daniel and I were very far away and could not come and visit her but that I would call her again. She was quite excited to talk to me and tell me about her surgery. She sounded really well but her foster mother said she was weak because they would not allow her to have anything but liquid still. I will send an updated photo of Claudia on Monday when Neli has returned to Oradea from her home village.

I also ask you to pray for Alina Cioara, our social worker for Education Inspiration, Agape Home, and Good Beginnings Preschool. Her grandmother passed away last week and she was very close to her. Many of you have met Alina when you came to Romania so you know what a heart she has for the work she does. If you would like to write her, her email address is a_heavenlyplace@yahoo.com and here is a photo of her so you can put a name with a face.

We ask you to join with us in celebrating Neli Pirtea’s successful completion of her degree in Social Work and her licensing exam! Neli is our social worker for New Life Foster Care, Nurture Network, and Arms of Mercy. She finally finished with flying colors on Monday and is very happy to be done. When we talked on the phone, she told me the professors asked her questions about the field work that we do that keeps parents from abandoning their children. We were amazed at how little they know because no one ever actually goes to do direct work with the families. Neli said she explained that most of the families we work with chose not to get married because the mothers then get more money from the state for being a single parent. We were amazed that they did not know this! Neli has a technical degree in social work that she got after high school but the government refused to accept any of her work from then so she had to start all over a few years ago. If you would like to congratulate her on working full-time and going to school full-time successfully, her email address is p_neli@yahoo.com
Here is a photo of Neli taken a few days ago with a new baby that she has identified for us to take into our Nurture Network project.

While Alina was driving that day, they were trying to enter a village where one of our Education Inspiration children lives but could not because the cows were going home and not a bit concerned with our car in the middle of the road. (When I was a teenager, I saw a car that had been destroyed because it hit a cow in the middle of the road. The cow ALWAYS wins with a car!) Because they both have a sense of humor, they snapped this photo because they did not want our sponsors to miss out on the fun details of life they have to experience from time to time. So, here it is, a photo to put with the phrase “til the cows come home!” Enjoy!

Basking In The Son,

Yesterday was June 1st, National Children’s Day in Romania and the date that I moved to Romania ten years ago. It seemed odd being in the USA rather than in Romania for this day but it gave me lots of time to reflect on all that The Lord has done through our ministry in ten years and to give Him the glory for how He can use anyone to accomplish His purposes. It is hard to believe He developed my “six month plan” into a ministry with seven projects and completely run by Romanian nationals. Only The Lord could do so much with so little. He proves to us all the time He is still the same God who multiples the generosity of “fishes and loaves.” Never doubt this, no matter your situation.

Alina, one of our ministry social workers, wrote me today to share photos from Friday that they took when our Good Beginning Preschool students celebrated Children’s Day. Eight of our students attended the picnic and party our staff organized and they clearly had a great time. One of the sponsors of Good Beginnings sent gifts for all the children and they were very excited about receiving something new as you can see from the photo.

Here is another photo of our teacher, Lavi, with one of our students that she made a halo for out of fresh flowers. So sweet!

Prior to Friday, these precious children had never celebrated June 1st because they are simply too impoverished. We praise God for how He has provided for these children through the generosity of sponsors. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw how much they had grown and gained weight since we left at the end of January.

Also, we are excited to share with you that one of our sponsors in Vienna donated a used but very high quality laptop to our Good Beginnings Preschool this past weekend. Plus, one of our sponsors here in the USA also donated the funds for us to buy a laptop and educational software for the children so very soon we will have a better equipped preschool than any of the other ones in our area!

Our foster care children will celebrate with Neli sometime this week by all going to McDonalds together for a meal. Many of our foster children know each other from being in our orphanage together way back so they enjoy having a positive link to their past. I hope to have photos of that day to send as well.

Our Education Inspiration students had a big picnic and outdoor party on Saturday and Alina told me they had a very good time. Of course our boys are always excited about eating and I understand there was plenty of that!

The Lord bless your week!

We have all been busy in the ministry traveling and updating sponsors over the last few weeks. Our ministry social workers in Romania, Neli and Alina, traveled to Vienna, Austria for four days to update two of our sponsor groups there and to speak to a school about getting involved with our work in Romania. They had a great time staying with our wonderful friends, Neil and Liz Jarvis, who hosted them and played tour guide. I just found out from Neli the other day that it was the first time she had ever left Romania! You can imagine how excited she was to see such a beautiful city like Vienna! I am told by everyone what a great job they did. Here is a photo of Alina and Neli with one of the women at one of our sponsor groups where they did a presentation.

Daniel and I left for Vermont last Thursday to visit our sponsors there, The Kendalls, host an annual Christmas train for our ministry to raise money for our Arms of Mercy project. We were totally amazed that their family owns a real stream engine train. Here is a photo from this past December when they gave rides to children to raise money for our ministry.

After we left the doctor yesterday, Daniel went to get the car and to get something that I had forgotten to give the doctor. On my way back down to the car, I got stuck in the elevator with three administrative workers from the hospital. In the past, I have been very claustrophobic although my time in Romania and being forced to use their minuscule elevators certainly helped with my previous problem. When I realized yesterday that they had to call help to get us out, I started my panicky breathing and the other three women started to think I might go into labor and began joking and calming me down. It helped some but I found out yesterday that anger trumps claustrophobia because when the “emergency services” button of the elevator hung up on us twice, I got mad. Then, they sent a public safety officer (who, by the way, knows nothing about elevators) over to beat on the door of the elevator to ask us if we were in there. I promise I am not lying. My anger totally alleviated by breathing difficulties and after being in there about fifteen minutes, I was ready to hurt someone and extremely relieved to be out. (I called Daniel from the mobile phone of one of the women with me because mine was in my purse in the car with him!) Nothing like a little drama when you’re pregnant!!!

Of course I could not allow Memorial Day to pass by this year without remembering my dear Poppy Frank, Luther Frank Comer, Jr., who died last October. Many of you received the emails and the tribute I wrote to him in our newsletter for being a Veteran of World War II, Prisoner of War, Missing in Action. For those of you who did not, I am pasting it below along with this photo. God bless the USA and the families of all of those service men and women that have given their lives and time serving.

We received food parcels from the government social services and we supplemented with food parcels that we purchased so the families would have enough. This is the food that Neli sent me of what we purchased for each family. Thank you to all of you who donated to make this happen!

Neli also sent me an outside photo of the house of the family that I told you last week we hope to help build a new house for this summer.

It is so very pitiful.

Please pray for The Lord to provide the funds and the manpower to get this family into a new home by the fall. They are doing an excellent job of caring for their children and we hope our intervention will assist.

Here is a photo of Florin helping distribute the bags of groceries to them. Florin is one of our boys living at Agape Home and I LOVE the fact that our social workers got the boys involved with giving back to the community!

Here is another photo of Neli distributing the food parcels to another needy family with their two beautiful children.

Below is part of Georgy’s update to me. We are very blessed to have employees with such great written English skills!

From Georgy, Administrator for our ministry

Ciao Michelle,

I talked with Alina about the preschool today and she told me that Lavinia would like to buy some books for children and it would be great if we would have a budget for these stuff for example $20-$30 per month.

A fairy tale book cost about $4 not to give them just to keep to the preschool. Lavinia saw very cute fairy tale books and I think if would be possible to include in the budget an amount for that it would be very helpful for the kids.

Also, we are thinking if is possible to buy a dvd player, this week Vio took the tv from Agape House to the preschool and Lavinia borrowed the dvd player from her mother. We are thinking it’s not so expensive here to buy one and to use for the preschool and for the boys from Agape too. Alina looked for a price and a regular dvd player is about $55 and a Philips is around $80.

I was to today with Neli and Vio to ASCO (social services) to receive the groceries parcels for Alina’s and Neli’s families (I asked for the foster children, for the boys from Agape, the girls from Ed. Insp., for the kids from the Good Beginnings and for all their families-not including the foster families, they are considered employees, so in total 71 parcels). I made a picture of it. (Note: This is the back of our van loaded down with packages!)

I think Neli told you that she received from the sugar company 100 Kg of sugar for her families. We are waiting for a response from the other companies, too. (Note:We also received a lot of pasta!)

I almost forgot to tell Vio bought the chickens, I send you a picture, I was today to Agape too, the boys were working in the little flower garden together with Rodi and Gabi was cooking in the kitchen. Next time I will take a picture of them too. Coco was happy, like it is every time when we go there.

From all of us at Children In The Son, may you bask in The Son this weekend!

Thank you so much for the outpouring of emails, phone calls, and cards that we have received with many of you sharing in our joy of the miracle God has done by allowing me to get pregnant with twins. We were humbled to learn how many people had been praying for us to have children for years, especially when we learned that many of our prayer warriors were children themselves. Again, we deeply thank you for your prayers. I am 17 weeks now and doing extremely well with the pregnancy.

Daniel and I were blessed to be able to travel back to Maryland last week and visit Good Samaritan Presbyterian Church and Grace Brethren School. As usual, the folks at both places treated us like family and it would good to see so many faces that celebrated our pregnancy news with us. The youth team that the school sent over last year threw us a surprise baby shower and we were definitely surprised! They were so sweet and had purchased many precious baby gifts for us. It was such a delight to see teenagers so enthusiastic about the miracle God had done in our lives. Here is a photo of us with all the kids from the group that came over to Romania to work with us last October.

We have lots of news coming from Romania that I want to share with you related to several different projects. Our employees are doing an amazing job of managing all of the projects well and keeping us abreast of road blocks and praises that arise. I decided to paste Alina’s entire email about the Good Beginnings Preschool that she wrote for their sponsors at the bottom and I really did not edit her English too much because it makes it more authentic that way. I hope you will appreciate her heart for this project as Daniel and I do. She also wrote me today to say that she had met with the teachers of the public primary school where our older students will start attending in the fall. She had to make a file on each child so they could be registered for school since none of the parents are literate. She met the two teachers that will be working with our children but expressed a concern that these teachers would have to be encouraged to believe that Roma children can succeed in school. Her prayer request was that they have a strong collaboration with the teachers for the benefit of these precious, bright children. Six of our current ten students will start school in the fall and then we will take another six from the community into our preschool. The preschool teacher, Lavinia, will spend this summer making sure the children are properly prepared for primary school. We are trying to buy a computer and learning software so we can be even more advanced than the public school system.

Neli’s news relates to her project, Nurture Network, where we sponsor families to keep their infant children at home rather than abandoning them at the local hospital due to lack of resources at home. Neli has continued to supply baby formula, vitamins, groceries, bottles, clothing, etc. for these families and it is working. She told me the families were so excited when she brought them the photos she had taken of them with their children. For most of them, it was the only photos they had. We are considering helping one of the young families with their desperate living conditions.

As you can see from the photo, their ceiling is literally falling in on them as they all sleep in the same bed at night.

The roofing material is made of cardboard and other random bits of trash. We hope that a group going over in July and another in September will be able to help this family construct a new, larger home. Right now, they live in a room approximately 6 feet by 4 feet, barely a closet for most people in the USA.

Neli also sent some great news this week that really amazed us. Since Romania will celebrate Easter on April 27^th this year, she put in requests with many local companies for items we could donate to our needy families. I was thrilled to learn that her efforts paid off when the local sugar manufacturer notified her they would be donating 100 kilos of sugar to our ministry to distribute! This is a tremendous praise item and we thank The Lord for making this provision. So, in addition to the funds that came in from supporters for Easter food parcels, we have sugar to give to families as well. We thank The Lord for His faithful provision to our ministry!

Our boys at Agape Home are growing incredibly (which should not be a huge shock given how much they eat!) and all doing very well in school. We are SO proud of what these young men have accomplished and we are 100% behind them. Here is a photo of all five boys with our beloved dog, Coco, who we pine away for each day.

For those of you that our dog lovers, she may not look like much but she is a German wired-hair pointer and possible the smartest dog we have ever owned. Hopefully, one day, we can bring her back to the USA with us. Until then, she continues to be spoiled by everyone at Agape Home.

Now that our car is repaired, the employees are having trouble selling it because Romanian’s say they are afraid to buy automatic transmission since so few people own them. Please pray that someone buy this car from us very soon so we can finally buy the 4 x 4 truck we have needed for years!

Okay, I have more news but this is already quite long so I’ll save news for next week as well.

May The Lord bless each of you as you pray and partner financially with us.

Basking In The Son,

Michelle

From Alina Ciora

1. Operation Lice: As you probably already know he faced a serious issue at the preschool at the middle of March. Our teacher at the preschool discovered that all of our kids had lice. That was a big challenge for all of us here. We discussed a lot and decided to use this incident as a way of helping the parents to take the full responsibility for their child hygiene and health. What we did was to buy them some lice shampoo and explain them in the smallest details how to use it for all the members of their family. Because most of the parents were working and they needed time to clean all of their kids we decided to have a day off at the preschool to give them enough time. We’ve explained the parents that after the day off the kids will come to the preschool and would be carefully checked to see if they still have lice or eggs. They need to be clean in order to continue coming. All the parents agreed to this at that point…We all waited anxiously to see the results. We were hoping and praying (and I know you also prayed for this situation) that things would workout OK.The next day we checked them all at the preschool. Most of the parents had done a good job. The kids did not had any lice. We found a few eggs but these were dead.

   Two of the families did not used the shampoo because did not had the time to do it, as they later explained to us. Hearing about this we immediately took their kids at home so that they would clean them as soon as possible. In one case the parents were at work the hall day before and their daughters were asleep when they returned. But 20 minutes after we got to them they had already washed the girls and clean them after that.

   The other case has one of the boys. His mother had to stay in the hospital with a smaller child and couldn’t wash his hair and clean him. She was at home when we returned with her child from the preschool and by the next day she had cut his hair, washed him with the special shampoo and clean the eggs.

   It was God’s help and his victory in this situation. Thank you very much for your prayers. The problem is solved for the moment but it can reappear any time. This is way our teacher at the preschool started to check each of the kids more often.

2. A thank you that makes it worthwhile…I want to share with an event that is really special to all of us. One of the mom’s came a couple of weeks ago to see our preschool. She was in the area and she decided to stop by. She had never seen the facility where we have the preschool because her oldest daughter was the one that came when ever we had a meeting with the parents. She was really surprised to see everything and wanted to be sure that we know how much she appreciated what we do for her 2 daughters that are at the preschool. “Nobody cared about our children before”, she said, “and I thank God for sending you to help our children becoming more than we are.”

   She had seen huge differences in her daughters since November when we started the preschool. She could not believe how much these girls had learned. Really proud of her daughters and thankful to us in the same time she started telling what had happened one of the days before. One of her sons that is now in the 2nd grade found a newspaper somewhere and he was trying to read it… but unfortunately he doesn’t even recognize the letters. All of a sudden, Rahela, his sister, one the girls attending the preschool took the paper and explained her brother that the letter he was trying to recognize and couldn’t was “capital A”. Her mom could not believe what she had just heard. After 2 years in school nobody cared enough for her son to teach him a few letters and in a few months her younger daughter learned to recognize them.

This was encouraging to us but in the same time made our hearts cry for all the Roma kids in school that don’t have a chance to study and learn the basics. Keep these children and their future in your prayers and may God bless you for being a part of our ministry.

Alina