Greetings once again from Bucharest, Romania! And thank you again for your faithful prayer support! This month has been busy, rewarding, and exciting. We're glad God has called us here, and we're very thankful that many of you include us in your prayers!
First, the biggest news! We have put money down on a piece of land on which to build a clinic! It is a long narrow piece of land, on a street called Str. Prelungirea Ghencea. It is in the area where we live, Drumul Taberei, but about 1.2 miles south. It's within 1/2 mile of the west edge of town, and still only 4.1 miles of the center of town. With the average density of Bucharest being about 40,000 people per square mile, within a mile radius of the clinic should be at least 120,000 people! Bucharest is quite compact, as you can see. Also, there are 3 different public transport systems (10 different lines) within 1/3 mile of the future clinic--buses, trolleybuses (buses attached to an overhead electric line), and trams (like streetcars).
The realtor we are working with almost didn't show us this piece of land, because the opening onto the street is only about 33 feet wide. But about 66 feet back, it widens to 70 feet, so we will use the front portion for parking. It is a long and narrow piece of land, going back about 400 feet. Every time we look at the land we are more excited and pleased with it! Yesterday we went to look at it and met an elderly woman who was using a portion of it for a garden--she had some grapes, flowers, squash, etc., that she had grown. She was happy that a clinic would be built there, since she knew that she and the other people who had used the land for crops (for free) wouldn't have access to it forever, and she preferred a clinic be built than another business. There is only one very small general practice clinic in the area, she told us. She insisted on giving us some flowers and grapes!
Also, Linda's brother-in-law, Cliff Olson, found out last Friday that the nonprofit organization that the World Mission Prayer League Council had asked us to set up at their June meeting has been approved by the IRS! Usually that takes much longer, we've been told by other missionaries here. Its name is "Open Door Medical Ministries" and it's only function is to support our "Open Door Medical Foundation" here in Bucharest, who's primary function is our Family Practice Teaching Clinic project. World Mission Prayer League felt that the stateside administrative support would be more than they could take on, in addition to their current missionary support activities, and this is why they asked us to form a separate nonprofit organization. Chuck Lindquist, executive director of World Mission Prayer League, is on the Board of Directors, as well as several other friends of ours. Cliff is the president. On Saturday they had a Board meeting, and approved our purchase of the land! So we're excited!
Last night we spoke with Warren Creighton, who has a ministry in Romania building prefab churches and other buildings, and we started the process of designing a prefab clinic building that would be brought over from the U.S. This would shorten by at least 6 months the whole building process. It takes up to 6 months to get the approvals before building can begin, and within 3 months after that, it should be done!
Another first, that happened just this Tuesday, was that Milt gave his first lecture in Romanian. He had worked on it long and hard and practiced it a lot. The lecture was called, "A Day in the Life of a Family Physician". It dealt a lot with how to be an ethical caring doctor who continues to study and learn and teach others. Afterward, the head of the residency program told us that we should be advisors for the Ministry of Health!! We agree, but even with the new "reform" government, the Ministry of Health still has no interest in developing its general practitioners. So far. Maybe this will change!
We were very pleasantly surprised this last month when our area of town had its annual "revizie", the annual cleaning of the central hot water system. The usual situation is to lose hot water for about 4 weeks. But we only lost it for 10 days this year!! What a pleasant surprise!
Last week, we made rounds for the first time at the Adventist- sponsored orphanage here in Bucharest. We worked with the Romanian doctor who has been the medical director in the past there. Even though we have many differences of opinion medically, we believe she's a good, honest and caring doctor, and we like her! It went well. We'll make joint rounds on a monthly basis, and see the children as needed otherwise.
Today, Milt and Gabi, our assistant, are sorting medications that we've been given by various people, so that we can bring them to different doctors. We need to do this soon, because some are already expired, and although we know in the U.S. that expired medications are good for at least another year, it is not looked upon kindly by the authorities for doctors here to even give away expired medications, even though many people cannot afford to buy the meds their doctors recommend.
Today our car is in the shop for some body work. Almost a month ago an older man, who had his car stopped in the middle of the intersection waiting for cars who had the right of way to pass by (including our car) so he could turn left, pulled out right into the left rear fender of our car just as we were driving by! The accident speed must have been about 3 miles/hour, but because we knew that it would still be expensive to repair, we insisted on making the police report, which he didn't want to do. The law requires this to be done, however, and unfortunately, he lost his license for a time. For us, the accident meant spending about 3-4 half days running around, filing forms, finding the insurance adjustor, etc., and now we're carless for 2 days while it is being repaired. So for us it's just a time-consuming nuisance, but the Lord has prepared us during our stay here by giving us the ability to be flexible!
So, there is a lot happening just now, and we're very pleased. The Lord gave us patience and persistence, and now He is rewarding us by giving us so much to do that our heads are spinning! We wish to thank you again for your support and your prayers--they mean a lot to us!