Christmas was wonderful. No snow, but lots of friends. The Saturday before Christmas we visited the Traistarus. Sunday included a beautiful Christmas Eve service. Christmas Day we had 9 guests in our cramped apartment -- Ruxanda (the director of our foundation) and her husband, our Romanian friends who now live in Minnesota who were back to visit their families, and her mother and brother, and two older single Romanian ladies. And turkey. And pumpkin pie. Everyone talked and visited a long time around the table, particularly since, in our dining/living room, there was no other place to sit except around the table!
The construction crew took 2 weeks off over Christmas and New Years, and so things slowed down here for us a little, except for needing to check the site regularly. Now the crew is back, finishing the drywall and painting upstairs, hanging doors and installing the dropped ceiling downstairs. Yesterday the floor tiles were delivered. We're still waiting for the basement windows. Earlier this month Milt put up some poly sheeting to protect the basement at least a little. We're also still waiting for the gas line to be completed and the electrical connection to city power to be started. The subcontractor says he has finally received the city approval. When these are connected, we can finally heat the building.
The winter has been unbelievably mild, which has been a real boon for the clinic project, both for the workers and for the building itself. It's been like spring outside for several days! It snowed a little last week and got below freezing for a few days, maybe even for a whole day straight. We thought it was so cold! What's happened to our tough Minnesota blood?! When it's colder we have 3 small butane heaters to keep the building at least a little warmer until the heating system is finally connected.
At the start of December we were out of funds again and had several upcoming expenses including salaries and, of course, more construction expenses. We had been waiting for months for the government to reimburse the foundation for the VAT (value added tax) that we had paid during the second and third quarters. We sent out an urgent e-mail asking for prayer. 3 days later we received a call from the Romanian government official that the check was in the mail, and indeed it came 3 days after that! A couple other Americans working here stated they have never heard of anybody ever actually getting their VAT back, and wondered what was our secret. The VAT was 468,000,000 lei (about $18,000)!
We also received several donations in December of all different sizes. Global Health Ministries, a Lutheran ministry based in Fridley, MN that helps medical projects around the world had promised last summer to add us to their list of causes. But we had not expected to receive any actual funds soon, and so we were overjoyed when we received an email just after Christmas telling us that they were donating $16,000+ to our project! The donations plus the recovered VAT allows us to continue finishing the building interior and to start addressing some of the other things that need to be done before the clinic can actually open, such as the phone system. We still need more funds for other items such as the office furniture and computers, front steps, wheelchair ramp, parking, fences, etc., but at least now we feel like we're getting close!
So what else is going on? We're still seeing patients in our apartment and at the orphanage. At the ICC orphanage all of the kids are improving! Steliana, who is 4 1/2 now, is finally walking and smiling! She still doesn't talk, and we'd like your prayers for her. Several of the children have been adopted recently, and although everyone misses them, we are all happy they finally have loving families!
We're also helping our English language church rewrite it's constitution and are facilitating a Bible study on Romans. Another priority is preparing for our 4 month home assignment starting in March. We'll be traveling a lot, speaking in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington State, California, and probably Pennsylvania. There is so much that needs to be done, or at least arranged, here before we leave so that Ruxanda, the director of our foundation, won't be overwhelmed with having to do everything by herself.
We really appreciate your prayers and your support. Without you, we wouldn't be here!