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.