Dear friends,
Well at last, winter is almost at an end, we are sure most of us are looking forward to some warmer, drier weather, they are certainly feeling the same in Romania. Changes: Lots of changes are happening for GNfR at the moment in the sense of Claudiu & Ada’s help. The company Claudiu works for have now insisted that he has to work in Germany, hence he doesn’t get back to Barlad too often. Also, Ada now has a job in Bucharest so that too, has taken her away from her home town. They do get back ‘occasionally,’ but it isn’t enough to support the families that GNfR support but, we know it’s all in God’s plan and we now have more involvement with the Delia Foundation and the Vibrant Kids Centre in Barlad! You may remember Laura, the founder of The Delia Foundation found and contacted Kath online almost 2 years ago explaining about their work in Barlad and wanted a connection and so the story goes on. Laura from Phoenix in Arizona, Lauren from New York and David from Essex are all involved and they just ‘happened’ to be in Barlad when we were there in October 2018. It soon became very clear that we all had the same heart for the children and families in the Barlad area and wanted to help to make a difference in their lives. The Vibrant Kids Centre is for children who are either in foster care or from an orphanage and have autism or some degree of mental or physical disability. They go to the centre at various times, Monday to Friday each week, where they get whatever help they need by trained paid staff, for example, physiotherapy, teaching, healthy food etc. This help is not available to them from the state because of their disability, it’s a wonderful place and the children all love going there and definite improvement has been seen in their behaviour and abilities already. The Delia Foundation runs the centre but also helps poor families when a need is made known. This is amazing because since Claudiu & Ada haven’t been able to be there so much, when Laura and David have visited Barlad, they have taken help from us to our families. Kath has also been able to make contact with some of the families directly so the help from GNfR continues. The Rosca Family: The winter has been a difficult one for this family with Dad not being well, including being admitted to hospital. Oana, their daughter, contacted Kath to ask for help when her Dad was admitted to hospital saying the family had no money to pay for his insurance to stay there. Kath made some enquiries with Costel, a friend in Barlad to ask about costs/was it not free etc and he explained that poor people and pensioners used to be exempt, but not any more. The only exception is if you’re admitted to A & E, then it’s free….unless, for example, you chop off a limb with a chain saw then it’s not free because it was your fault, you have been careless, unbelievable! Fortunately we were able to help with Dad’s hospital bill and medication and he is now at home recovering although he is quite fragile. The good news is that with the help of Oana, GNfR has been able to install a stand pipe on their land therefore eliminating the need for walking over ½ a mile to the local well for every drop of water. We have also been able to purchase a small, low wattage television that runs off the solar panel we installed a few months ago so they are very happy indeed, especially the boys, Tiberiu (14) and Sebastian (11), who often had to go to the well for the water. Having a television is a real treat for them also and they are very happy that we continue to pay for their bus fares to and from school which is over 3 miles each way. Dana, Andreea and Beatrice: In our last newsletter, we mentioned that Dana was living in fear of her relative who owned the house where she and the children lived. He had just been released from prison for murdering someone when we visited her so it was worrying and she genuinely looked very anxious. Fortunately, she has been able to move to a new place which we haven’t seen yet but GNfR was able to provide a new stove for heating the house for her. She continues to struggle but is doing ok. Dana is sister to Oana, Sebastian and Tiberiu Rosca. Mirela and her 5 children: We have continued to help Mirela and a few months ago, we were able to give her new flooring in her home as her living area was just an earth floor. This has made a huge difference to the family and they are delighted to have a nice looking, clean living room. We have also continued to give help with food and school books etc. We have just found out that Oana Zanet that we also support is working as a volunteer teaching English to children at an after school Club and Crina, Mirela’s oldest child, is being taught by Oana, it’s a small world! The Priest in the town has been very good with them too and has also sorted out a warm meal for the children at the club every day which is great news. Oana and Mihai Munteanu and family are doing ok. Dad works really hard with his market garden business and although during the winter months business isn’t quite so good, they have managed ok. Oana has just let Kath know she is having another baby in June and the family are all very excited. Oana Zanet has had a lot of struggles over the winter months. She suffers from bi-polar and other mental health issues and although she tries very hard, she still has times when life seems too much. She too has been in hospital and again, GNfR has been able to help by paying for her stay in hospital, medication and tests. She is currently going through tests on her spine because she has been suffering with bad migraines/sinus problems/feeling exhausted etc and they seem to think an issue with her spine could be the problem. We await her results but continue to help and encourage her as much as we can. Barlad d Andrei Dinca is a young trainee doctor that we have been supporting through his studies. He too has medical issues and has just been in touch to say he has to have his coccyx removed and has to see a neurologist about pain and numbness in his legs, he is in a great deal of pain but his biggest worry is that he is well enough to complete his course which finishes next year, please pray he will get treated very soon. He is currently in Italy for part of his studies as this will help him to improve his knowledge of different techniques and use of different more up to date equipment. He should return to Romania in autumn to complete his studies. As yet, we don’t know if he will need any financial support for his treatment or operation but he is keeping in touch regularly. Minibus: We had a conversation with Claudiu about the minibus in view of the fact that Claudiu isn’t in Barlad too often now. Claudiu explained that he didn’t think it was worth keeping the minibus as it was standing outside his home most of the time. We chatted and prayed about the way forward with this because ideally, we didn’t want to sell it. We decided to ask The Delia Foundation if they could use it and they were delighted! We have donated the vehicle to them and this means it will be used to transport the children to and from the centre daily, take them on outings and hopefully take them on a camp at some point and it will also be used to visit the families we all support. When Laura and David were in Barlad in February, they got the keys etc and although there are a few administrative issues to sort out, hopefully the minibus will be a blessing to them all. Camp: Sadly it’s not looking like camp will go ahead this year which we know will be a huge disappointment to the children. However, we are hoping to be able to give the children some treats, hopefully outings and maybe even a short camp with the Delia Foundation….at the minute its unclear. We are grateful to everyone who has supported camp over the years and if any of you feel you would like to contribute to the children having some treats, we would be very grateful! Boxes: We have got some boxes ready to be sent to the Vibrant Kids Centre and our families for Easter. We are sending clothes and chocolate for Easter and know they will all be very happy to receive these gifts just as they were at Christmas. Kath, Suzanne Guy and her husband Mark and Shirley Clarke, are all doing a sponsored 3 line zip wire down the mountain side in North Wales on April 18th, if anyone would like to sponsor any of them, please see them personally or do get in touch. All the money raised will go to support the families and children we’ve mentioned. The plan was to jump out of a plane but Kath’s doctor told her because of her Hashimoto’s disease, this wasn’t advisable. She did do a 1 line zip wire challenge a few years ago to raise funds for the minibus and her screams could be heard all down the valley so keep your ears open this time!! David, Kath and Mandy will go to Romania in early August. The first part of the visit will be a short holiday to hopefully meet friends and celebrate David and Kath going to Romania for 30 years. They will then go to Barlad to visit the families, the centre and meet the children who are on the waiting list to attend the centre. There are many children who want access to this support so we hope to be able to help financially to enable them to have the help they desperately need. David Conway will be in Barlad at that time too and possibly Laura, we are very excited about these new openings and know the Lord’s Hand continues to be on this work. THANK YOU! We can’t thank you enough for all your love, support and encouragement. It isn’t always easy, particularly at times when there are numerous needs and we feel a bit overwhelmed, but the number of times we receive an encouraging message, phone call or an envelope drops through the door with an encouraging note and donation is so uplifting! We have been very humbled recently by everyone’s love for our Golden Wedding Anniversary on Valentine’s Day. We received generous donations for the work of GNfR and for us personally for our visit to Romania in August, thank you, you are all amazing, without you, we really couldn’t do this work. We are going to miss the involvement of Claudiu and Ada but hope we can stay in touch, they have been a huge blessing. Much love to you all and thank you again! Have a great summer, maybe see you at the coffee morning on June 20th if not before! Love & thanks, David, Kath & Mandy