Dear Friends, Supporters and Prayer Partners,

Prayer works! This week we witnessed 2 miracles, both regarding the ambulance! Last month we told you the saga about the lack of a customs declaration and the need for the letter from the Swedish Mercedes office to be notarized. The last day of December we finally received the notarized letter from the Swedish Mercedes. We got it translated and notarized finally after the New Year holiday here and took it to the Romanian authority (R.A.R.) where they said that they actually needed a letter which stated the pollution levels of each chemical. So Milt and Dragos made the appointment to take the ambulance to R.A.R. for the pollution tests which cost 10,700,000 lei ($335). They also spent an entire day of running around to different offices and standing in lots of lines to get temporary (30 day) license plates. Ruxi and Dragos also wrote a request to the Ministry of Transport asking that the pollution requirements be waived for the ambulance because it would be used for charitable care. The secretary at the Ministry of Transport told them there was a 1-5% chance of approval, and that they would hear something within 30 days!

Last November, we were told by a customs agent that a detailed letter from the Swedish mission could replace the customs declaration that hadn't been made at the time of entry. But when Dragos and Milt went back to customs, another official told them that this letter wouldn't suffice and that there is now a 25-75,000,000 lei ($800-2,400!) penalty for not having a customs declaration done at the border at the time of entry. The law changed in December, but in November nobody had said anything about a fine--then it would have only been 500,000 lei or so. So Dragos made an appointment with a customs agent who works with the chief of customs for Bucharest for last Friday.

Last Wednesday, just 2 weeks after the request for exemption from the pollution requirements was submitted, we received a registered letter from the Ministry of Transport stating that the request was approved!! And on Friday, when Milt and Dragos went to the customs office hoping for a smaller fine, they were instead given just a "warning"--no fine at all!! The lady at the customs office said she had never heard of anyone not having to pay any fine whatsoever!! We really appreciate your prayers for us!!

Our other really good news was in December. We finally got our Romanian citizenship! We were scheduled to leave for the U.S. on 12/13, but on 12/10 we got letters telling us to come to take our citizenship oath on 12/17. So we spent a day changing our tickets, including frequent flyer tickets which were amazingly still available!

Our trip to the U.S. for Christmas was good. It was only 12 days long, but very worthwhile. We got to spend time with Linda's family in Minnesota and with Milt's daughter and son-in-law, Linnea and Andrei, in New York City (Brooklyn). We stocked up on more medical equipment, mainly things donated by Global Health Ministries. We walked around the World Trade Center site, but didn't get close enough to really see anything. It was really good for us to be home, even such a short period.

Things are moving forward, slowly, on getting the approvals for the clinic. In December we were informed that we needed letters of donation, signed, stamped and notarized, for the sterilizers and all the other donated equipment in the clinic, before we could do the "omologare" process (getting initially just the sterilizers checked and approved). So in Minnesota we got a letter from Open Door Medical Ministries listing all the medical equipment that we have gathered from various donors over the last 8 years. The foundation also needed a similar letter for the dental equipment donated from Holland. Last week the documents were finally all translated, notarized and submitted. Once the sterilizers are approved we can hopefully get the Sanepid approval promptly. Only then can we apply for the last approval--from the Ministry of "Work Protection."

A couple weeks ago Milt's first patient on Monday was a 5 year old boy from a Christian family who was diagnosed a year ago with leukemia. He was treated at the cancer hospital but now his cancer had returned. The doctor started him on treatment again, but the State doesn't pay for one medicine which costs $65 every 2 weeks, even though that medicine should give him a 90-95% chance of complete cure. (The average Romanian monthly salary is $100 now.) The family has no funds for the medicine, even to save their son's life. So we gave them the money for the first dose and also told the family that we would tell our supporters about their son, Ionut. This is a great thing about our World Mission Prayer League Work Fund--it is so flexible that we can use the funds for our clinic or for special needs such as this.

We are really looking forward to tomorrow. 12 days ago our car died, after several months of problems with our starter. Tomorrow we pick up our new car, a Ford Focus, that we ordered in October. We hope that it is not considered a "masina de lux" or luxury car by the many rings of car thieves here. It will be a luxury car for us, though, because it will start every time we want it to!! We can't sell the Toyota, unless we pay a $2000+ customs tax, and it is not worth that much money! So perhaps we can sell it for parts.

We really thank you for partnering with us in our ministry here in Romania. Without your prayers and support, we wouldn't be able to be here, and we really appreciate you for that!

mailing address in Ro: CP 23-8, Bucuresti, Romania website: www.odmm.org