The clinic is going up!!! The foundation and basement walls are finished, and the concrete floor of the main floor (basement ceiling) was poured yesterday. The construction crew from Braila will begin the light steel construction of the main and second floors on Monday. The first two containers arrived intact, the first with the steel framing on July 5, and the second with the metal side and roof panels as well as the exterior doors and windows July 22. A church in Pennsylvania is planning on sending a team to do the drywall and taping in October. The third container with the insulation and interior doors needs to be here before they can start their part of the project. Even though the clinic still needs thousands of dollars before it can be finished and furnished and ready for patients to be seen, Open Door Medical Ministries received enough donations this past month for us to order the third container. It will leave the West Coast about August 15 and arrive here in early October, just in time for the team from Pennsylvania.
This summer has been even hotter than most here. One day it got up to 108! One doesn't want to go outside. The construction site is pretty much taken up by the building, the container, the materials, sheds, and piles of dirt, and there hasn't been any significant rain, so there's not any yard work or clearing of the land for us to do there, for which we are very thankful!
Karen Merkel, Pacific Southwest Regional Coordinator for World Mission Prayer League, and her friend, Sue Hutchins, visited us on their way to Amsterdam 2000, a major Billy Graham conference on world evangelism. We really enjoyed their company and encouragement. They took lots of pictures (something we're not very good at) including patients, the building project, orphanages, and some ministries to street children. We also did some site seeing. On our way back from Peles Palace, the beautiful summer palace built by Romania's first king, King Carol I, in the late 1800's, we stopped to take some pictures of a field of sunflowers. This tiny little kitten came up, out of nowhere, and said with her eyes, "Adopt me." We did. We named her "Sunflower." She's a lot of fun, very entertaining, energetic, inquisitive and cute--as opposed to most kittens, :>).
During our last visit to the Adventist orphanage, we saw Steliana. She had been in the hospital for months, for a chronic, still not fully diagnosed abdominal/digestive problem. She is 4 years old now, and has started to walk independently, but even more amazing, for her, she can smile! She has a beautiful smile. Ever since she first came to the orphanage she has had a strange lack of eye contact and would hold her arms in front of her face whenever anyone would come near her, as though she were trying to protect herself. And Ionut, the darling, pudgy cheeked little boy with asthma has been off his cortisone for several weeks now, and his mother and her new husband are making inquiries as to taking him home! Praise the Lord!
It appears that several bureaucratic issues that we have been working on (waiting on) for months will soon (relatively soon--this is Romania) be finally resolved. The previous mayor who was defeated in the June elections had not signed any construction permits, we were told, since February (except for his friends and supporters bearing "gifts")! The new mayor fired most of the department heads a month ago, including the chief architect, who has to approve and sign all "Autorizatie de Constructie" building permits. As soon as the new mayor appoints a new chief architect, he then has to review all the building permit requests that the previous mayor didn't sign, including ours! So, the final approval should come soon. As stated above, this is Romania. "Soon" is relative here.
Our lawyer stated that our names should be published in the Monitorul Oficial (like the Congressional Record) as new citizens in September (we had our interviews in March). Hopefully the Ministry of Health will then grant us licenses to officially practice medicine. We especially want this as soon as possible because there will be national elections in November, and it is very possible that the new government will be less reform minded and more corrupt than the present one.
Many Americans are gone for the summer, so our patient schedule seems a little easier, even though Linda is working 3 half days a week and covering call again at the Embassy until the new nurse practitioner arrives in late August.
We are so thankful for how the Lord continues to provide for all of our needs, including the clinic project, and our own physical, emotional and spiritual needs. As each of us shares of our own bounty, as we reach out to others through caring friendships, and as we pray for one another, each of us can become the means by which He blesses and provides for others. We thank you again for your support, your encouragement and your prayers.