Children's Shoes: Update

Christian Community Action has come through for us by diverting approximately 200 pairs of children’s shoes from its thrift store operations. The amount is beyond our capacity to pick-up at one time, so we are preparing a few shoes at a time to ship to Lucian. A Sunday school class at Grace Presbyterian Church is making the shoes like new and individual class members are packaging readied shoes to mail to Romania.

Christian Community Action was founded in the 1970s by a small group of Christians studying the Bible in search of the meaning of love. They were compelled by what they had learned and committed to become a visible channel of God’s love. It was this resolve that led to the organization of a continuing community effort focused on living out the mandate of Jesus Christ to care for "the least of these."

It has since grown to a large operation that cares for over 15,000 individuals annually. Last year, CCA distributed over a million dollars of food; provided medical services to more than a 1,000 and served 50,000 free lunches for kids during the summer. To help meet agency expenses, CCA operates three thrift stores where people can make donations of gently used clothing and household appliance. Businesses can also donate excess inventory. Items are prepared for sale at one of the agency’s three Re-Stores and sold to bargain hunters.

The stores now account for 54% of CCA’s organizational income and allows them to provide consistent financial aid to families in more than 46 communities. Their stores have created more than 110 jobs and generate gross sales of $5.5 million per year for the ministry.

Donations of clothes and appliances can be made at 200 South Mill Street, Lewisville, Texas. Monetary donations can be made at:

www.ccahelps.org/GiveStart.html.

Wanted: Furniture

The new clinic may be ready in 2007. We got a tour of it when we were there in September. It is a three story building next to Holy Trinity church. It will be able to house the entire Braila ServingHIM operation. This will be a complete clinic, consisting of medical, dental and allied health care such as physical therapy. ServingHIM is now contacting medical and dental equipment vendors for donations to supply the clinic with dental chairs and other equipment when it opens in late Spring or early Summer.

The top floor will be a residence hall for visiting teams. In addition to bedrooms, the residence hall will have a family room and places to study, reflect and fellowship. Mike Redeker, ServingHIM’s Executive Director, is looking for furniture donations. Please leave comments if you know where we can round up furniture for 12 one-room apartments and common living areas. Each bedroom should have two single beds, two nightstands and a dresser. For the common areas, eight sofas, coffee tables and desks are needed.

Sleeping, eating and working in a brand new building has its appeal and it will certainly be easier on our hosts. Church members volunteer time and automobiles to ferry us between the hotel, church and clinic. They met us at the Hotel Traian each morning to take us to the clinic and returned each evening to take us to various restaurants for dinner. Everyone transporting us was glad to provide the rides but it meant that our hosts had to be on call for ten days, several times each day for this duty. This had to be quite an imposition on their time and lives and it will be better to visit with them under less time pressure.

However, I'm sorry for future teams and the loss this will bring. There was a certain local color that will be lost to those not staying at the Hotel Traian. It is in the center of Braila, and the traffic outside the hotel, both vehicular and pedestrian, is constant. The hotel is across the street from a park and every member of every team has the same photograph from the window of their rooms looking onto the park. A nearby bistro was open most of the day and night, and while the pounding disco beats were not always welcomed by sleepy team members, it is a memory we all share, usually with a smile and a wink. These are special memories that we would not want to give up.

Wanted: Children's Shoes

Lucian is a missionary who works in villages surrounding Braila. He asked for assistance from American churches in his ministry.
As winter begins to set in, Lucian is looking for 100 pairs of children's shoes for distribution in Valcele where his church is located. Valcele is a village on the eastern slope of the Carpathians.

We are exploring a line on used shoes right now as we also look for donors of new shoes. We are also researching the best ways to get material to Lucian's village. Leave comments or email us if you have suggestions.

Back Home

Romania made quite an impression on our souls. Two weeks after we returned home, Stephanie asked me if I still dream about Romania. Indeed, we both think about the friends we had to leave and we are still dreaming about the mission. It was that powerful and we have not fully unpacked the experience as yet. I hope to be able to better articulate the spiritual experience as I upload pictures from the trip. Maybe seeing events again will trigger a memory and an understanding of the nature of God felt at the time. It is impossible to describe the impact the trip had on our spiritual lives, much less to be able to measure it.

While we will continue to support ServingHIM missions, we are also looking into other ways to help our friends.

Farewell to Dear Friends

It is hard to believe that the working part of this trip has come to an end! We came to share the Gospel, extend Christ's love to those in need and be servants to God's people, but in the end, we are the ones who have been blessed! God Is Great!

So Busy

I'm sorry for the slow pace of the posts but we have been swamped. We are seeing about 70 people a day. The dentists are doing some amazing work. Tom is the dental team leader and each morning, he makes assignments for the healthcare team. The rest of us don't see him much during the working day. He rarely takes breaks and in the evening, he's just plain tired.

Dick has been working in the clean room most days. Here, the dental equipment is made ready for the next procedure. Dick has to follow a protocol and yet turn around the equipment quickly due to the high numbers. Mike spent one day doing this so Dick could have a break. Sometimes, he is in the courtyard where patients wait. That is where I have been most of the week. There, we tell Christ's story, offer comfort for what is to most a potentially frightening experience, and make ourselves available as a conduit of God's love and peace. Dick is wonderful with the children and he takes pictures of all of us and prints them there. Our patients are amazed and gratified that they have a keepsake of their visit in the courtyard with their new friends.

Stephanie moves between the pharmacy and the courtyard. In the pharmacy, she and Sheila dispense the antibiotics and pain relievers that are prescribed by the dentists. They also give instructions on how and when to take the medicines and provide nursing information about medical conditions, nutrition and general health. This also is the last time the patient has a chance to experience the love of God as they care for them, pray with them and invite them to the Holy Trinity Church for a special service on Friday evening. In the courtyard, she tells people about the Good News. Being at the beginning and the end of a patient's time with us lends some continuity to their trip from the waiting area through medical history, triage, and operations.

We will close the clinic and pack up the equipment this evening. Our hosts are providing a buffet and a sing-along in the courtyard, and we look forward to this time of fellowship. Tomorrow, we will visit the new medical/dental clinic under construction next door to the church. It should be in operation for the dental team that visits next spring. We will also visit the House of Hope, established by Pastor Joe's wife. It is a place where boys and girls who need a home can be nurtured and loved in a Christian environment. Friday evening, we will attend a praise service to say goodbye to our friends and offer testimonials of our experiences of the week.

Yarn Ministry Alert

Grace Yarn Ministry: Stephanie and Sheila are working in the pharmacy and as a last evangelical point of contact, they have been passing out the blankets, caps and scarves. Your work has been a hit over here. Everyone has complimented your craftsmanship and greatly treasure the knitting. Everyone has either cried or presented hugs and kisses. Stephanie thinks that the Ministry should consider producing at least twice as many scarves for next year.

First Day at the Clinic

The dentists are seeing about 30-40 people before the lunch break. The evangelism team is working with members of the local church in the courtyard outside of the clinic. We will try to post pictures while we are here.

Setting-up

We attended a worship service Sunday morning and the team was introduced to the congregation of The Holy Trinity Church. With only about 25 voices, the choir was magnificent. We recognized many of the tunes and sang along in English. Translators sat among us and quietly interpreted the words of Pastor Joe and Pastor Cristi. They are mostly youth members of the church and will be with us at the Dioconia Clinic for the rest of the week. After lunch, we headed to the clinic to set up the different units: triage, hygiene, surgery and pharmacy. The 20 trunks that our team packed with dental equipment, distilled water, evangelizing tools and gifts from the yarn ministry at Grace Presbyterian Church, Arlington, as well as our luggage, made it to Braila safely.

Travel Day

We met at the terminal as our team assembled from different parts of the country. Everyone arrived without difficulty and we were ready to test the limits of Lufthansa’s ticket counter personnel with our unusual baggage.

Each airline passenger is allowed two checked bags of 50 pounds each. The week before, we packed trunks with 50 pounds of dental supplies and equipment and brought them to the airport as one of our two bags. For the rest of the trip with a stop in Frankfurt before arriving in Bucharest, each team member had to keep up with his or her assigned trunk.

Lufthansa fed us dinner and showed a couple of movies (Akeela and the Bee, Just My Luck, and Over the Hedge) after we were airborne and later turned down the lights in a failed attempt to make us think it was late at night and we should all go to sleep. A few hours later, the lights were brought up and they served breakfast. We left at 3:00 PM and we were landing in Frankfurt at 7:00 AM after a ten hour flight. After a lay-over, we boarded a flight to Bucharest.

We must have been a sight to behold as we left the Bucharest terminal to meet our friends from Braila. Here were 20 Americans wearing identical shirts in single file pushing baggage carts with a footlocker on each. We were met by a van and a bus from Holy Trinity. The van carried the dental supplies, and the team rode in the bus.

We drove about two hours to Bazau where we had lunch at McDonalds. Yes, McDonalds is about the same everywhere, including the drive-through, except beer is included on the menu here. A wedding was taking place while we ate outside.We watched as the wedding party progressed from a building on one side of the square to the other side, where the church was located.

We reboarded the bus for the remaining two hour trip to Braila. This segment was through farmlands of a great plain stretching from the Carpathian Mountains to the Danube. Every few miles the sameness of cultivated land was broken by a village. It was a stark yet beautiful sight as the sun was setting. Through every village we saw the same scene of farmers leading cows and other livestock along the side of the road back to stables. We were surprised to see villagers getting around in horse-drawn wagons and drawing water from wells.

After more than twenty-four hours of continuous travel, we made it to Braila around 8:00 P.M. Saturday.