"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Phil 1:3-6
We sure do appreciate you! It is your prayers for us that smooth our way and enable us to keep on working for the Kingdom of God here in Bucharest.
This letter is a bit late because of everything that has been going on here. We're still recovering from colds that we picked up when we were in Hungary as the staff doctors at the Eastern European Campus Crusade for Christ conference last week. We saw close to 100 of the 700 adults and kids because of illnesses in just the 6 days of the conference! We got back Wednesday afternoon and have been recovering since!
But we had a wonderful Christmas with Bolt and Liz Moore in Budapest! We had time to relax and rest and focus on the Lord and what He did for us when He came to earth as a baby, as well as having fellowship with Bolt and Liz and their children. The Sunday after Christmas we loaded up the car with skim milk (3 months supply) and some other groceries and headed back to Romania, stopping in Cluj at Christian Aid Ministries to spend the night with Cornel and Elena Marza, and then driving to Bucharest on Monday, with the car also loaded with several boxes of medicine that Christian Aid Ministries gave us.
We've been blessed by a woman in the U.S., Dr. Mona Mikalsen, who is gathering an impressive amount of medical equipment from various sources to use in our clinic. The shipment should arrive in early April.
We paid the first installment to the clinic architect, and just today found out the approximate cost of the American building system portion of the building--the structure itself. Much less than what we had thought or hoped for! We have been trying to do what it says in 1 Peter 5:7,
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."
And yet it has been hard, being here in Romania, to think about where the funds will come from to build this building, when we need to have a certain amount by sometime in March, and at least half the total by sometime in May. In Linda's Bible study on 1 Peter this last fall, she learned that the Greek word for "cast" means to "fling with abandon", or something similar. So often we "cast" our cares on the Lord, and then grab them back so we can worry about them some more. So we're working on trusting God to provide the funds, and to take the worry about the fundraising off our shoulders--perhaps we should just be "trusting", and not "working on trusting".
A few little things have happened in this last month and a half. Linda got her first dog bite. Only a little one, which was a blessing considering that 8 dogs had surrounded her near the front door of our apartment building, all of whom were growling at her. So we finally did the rabies vaccine that we had been putting off--5 shots for Linda and 3 for Milt (preventatively). The day after we got back from the CCC conference in Hungary, Linda went to do some standing in line at our sector (part of the city) financial office (it was very crowded) and got her purse pick-pocketed--it's amazing how thieves can open a purse and take things out without you noticing it! And you can count on the fact that if you're in a crowd of 100 people here in Bucharest, there probably are at least 5-10 thieves, maybe more. They stole the cellular phone that we had bought so people could reach us more easily for medical problems, as well as about $35 in Romanian money and her International Drivers License. So after that, we spent an hour or so making a police report and then shopping for another cellular phone. Finally, the next day we got it hooked up and we were even able to keep the same phone number--very convenient! This phone is much cheaper than the first one--we hope it works!
But then there are the rewarding things that we do that make it all worthwhile. The Adventist orphanage where we provide medical care has moved to a town about 40 miles outside of the city. We saw a group of 16-18 new kids that they had gotten around Christmastime from a state orphanage for children 0-3 years old. We did exams on all the new kids, including one with definite strep with a scarlatina rash, and almost all the new kids were malnourished. Linda examined the kids from 3 months to a year old, and the most any of them weighed was 14 pounds (a good weight for a 4 month old, but not for a 10-12 month old child). It was so good to be able to help them, and to know that at this orphanage they would have the chance of catching up in their development, to not end up permanently damaged by the neglect they had experienced at the state run orphanage. Also, the same day that Linda was pick-pocketed, we saw a Christian family that a young American missionary brought to us. Their only child, a 12 year old daughter, had recently had surgery on a quite large hemangioma. The parents had not been told anything about the problem or what it might mean long term, and they thought that their daughter was going to die from this. They had thought it might be a cancer problem when the pain of the tumor was so bad that she had a hard time walking. And even though the Romanian doctors gave her appropriate treatment, they didn't explain anything, and so their fears were still there. We spent a lot of time with them. It warmed our hearts to be able to give them the good news that their daughter would not only live, but be able to have a normal life!
We want to thank you again for praying for us as we work for the Lord here in Bucharest. You sustain us with your prayers!