Home for the Holidays
It was an amazing feeling to step off of the plane in America knowing that I would be able to spend my first Christmas in seven years at home with family! The six-year adoption battle was over, Izabella would be spending her first Christmas with family, and would get to meet new cousins that had been born while I was gone, watch Izabella soak in and be in awe of everything she saw, visit and catch up with my church family, and relax in the living room with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law. There just is no better feeling in the world than to be with family, and it is one that I cherish deeply! It was absolutely perfect getting to run around to grandparents’ homes, celebrate with different family members, and go to all six of Northside’s Christmas services and watch my baby girl sing with her Boo Boo (grandpa). I have two homes and live in two worlds, but there’s nothing like being with family.
It was wonderful seeing all of you this trip home! Thank you for the dinners, encouragement, prayers, and hugs! I am blessed with an amazing family and church family! Izabella enjoyed every minute!
Highlights From an Amazing Year…
We were able this year to add two new children (a brother and sister) to the Isaiah Center; David and Naomi. David has just turned 4 and Naomi has just turned 7. They are special children who come from a beautiful family who were simply in need of help. David and Naomi come from a Christian family (which we hope will influence our other families) with a passionate father who loves to speak of his love for Christ. However, their father struggles to make ends meet David, Naomi, and Monica after their mother was left paralyzed a couple months after giving birth to David. They have 7 children and the father searches for work each day just so he can purchase diapers for his wife and food for his children. We are happy to have David and Naomi join our family and we are excited about giving their family a brighter future as well through better medical care and more work opportunities.
Another new addition to our family this year is Monica, our new teacher who works with our children. In the morning, Monica works with the younger children who do not attend school and in the afternoon she has the whole gang together (all 11 children).
Monica bathes the children when they come to the center, helps to feed them at mealtime, does their Bible lesson time, worship songs, crafts, naptime, and more. She is an answer to prayer!
A wonderful addition to our family!
We now have a fuller staff, which is making things run so much smoother at the center. Mihai takes care of our work projects in the Gypsy village and at the center, Svetlana who tutors the children after school, Monica their teacher, Rodica who makes delicious meals for us all, Mariana who does a great job cleaning, and Dave (our volunteer from England) who does outreach ministry and helps with the families. This has all been made possible because of monthly supporters, which have allowed us to add to our staff.
We are still in need of one more hire to be with the children, as Monica needs a helper. Please be praying for new supporters, so we can add to our family. The needs are so many in the village, and families beg us to take the children they cannot care for, but we must sponsor all of the kids we have first. Thank you for being a part of their futures!!
Highlights of the Year: Projects
Due to faithful and generous giving we have been able to accomplish a number of great things at the Isaiah Center and in the Gypsy village. These projects are also creating more job opportunities for the Roma (Gypsies) to have.
This year, many one-time donors have blessed us and large gifts that have made it possible for us to accomplish several projects that needed tending to both at the Isaiah Center and in the Gypsy village amongst our families. Some of the main projects we were able to take care of in the Gypsy village was redoing several of our families’ mud huts that were caving in and posed a threat to our children and their siblings. So, we began with Maria and Calina’s grandparents (their guardians) and redid their crumbling walls, put on a brand new roof (as they had huge holes in their old roof), put in a sink with a water pipe, and cemented a portion of their entrance to help with all the mud. The family was thrilled and it has really helped with their rat and roach infestation.
The next house was Mariana’s house, which is a one-room mud hut with 7 people living in it. Their roof too was leaking and crumbling and the children were very sick. We rebuilt their walls and put a new roof on.
The third house we were able to get to this year was Alex’s house. Alex is our special little guy with Down’s syndrome, and was abandoned at birth, but lives with his grandparents. Alex’s grandmother has 11 children she cares for (children and grandchildren) and the children were always ill. The family helped out with putting their new roof on and was so excited. With our families, we make sure that they give back and work for many of the projects that we do with them, so that they develop a good work ethic and break the cycle of relying simply on begging, as the government and society has conditioned them to do.
At the Isaiah Center we have been able to build a new tool room, rewire the entire center, create a storage unit in our large attic to help with donations, new furniture and cabinets in the center, install an alarm system throughout the whole center and the apartments, and many more projects that teams have helped us with this past year. We are so thankful to continue to make advancements on the building that God has blessed us with.
Another huge praise in the village is that we were able to buy a mud hut there with land right in the middle of the Gypsy village that we are allowing a family to stay in. We have our own land now in the village where we can continue to do our outreaches with teams, and with my church here in Romania, Salem Christian Center. All of these blessings have been possible due to your prayers, donations towards projects, and teams that have come to advance the work. It is improving the health and safety of our children.
Looking Ahead…Plans for 2011
As we are incredibly grateful for all that God has done this past year, we continue to pray, plan, and pursue what He might hold for us in the future. We are busting at the seams (which is a great problem to have), so we have replaced our office with another playroom for the children. Later this spring we are hoping to build an extension onto the center which will be an office, an employee bathroom, and an area for the children to eat (as we have outgrown the kitchen and the hallway). As the children are no longer babies, we are beginning construction on our bathroom this winter to split it into two; making one side for the boys and one side for the girls. Each side will have a shower, toilet, sink, and changing area.
We will also be separating their bedroom into two rooms this winter, so that all the boys will be on one side with their bunk beds and the girls on the other. The children have been through much abuse with their families and care givers, both physical and sexual, so we need to keep them separated as sometimes they have tried to act out on each other what has been done to them.
We also hope to buy a few more cheap plots of land in the Gypsy village (next to the one plot we have already purchased), so that we may enclose it all together and have a better controlled environment for when doing our outreaches with the children in this village of 3,000.
We want to continue to cement the inside and outside of our families huts, so that they do not live in mud and dirt.
Because we are constantly creating jobs for our families (they cannot find much work as Gypsies) we are hoping to expand our vegetable garden this year and double it, so that they have more area to care for and we have more vegetables to share with our families. We will also plant more fruit trees.
We are in need of hiring one more teacher this year, which will really help Monica (our current teacher) and the kids to have more structure and order. They have made such progress in so many areas…God is really healing their little hearts!
We will probably not add any more children this year (unless there is a serious case that arrises) due to lack of space. We are planning and praying in regards to our next building phase and when God might want that to happen to expand and grow our family.
This past year I have begun meeting with the mothers or grandmothers of our children, and really seeking out opportunities to share, visit, pray, and encourage them as they live very strenuous lives and suffer much abuse and prejudice as well (as their children and grandchildren do). They have really opened up to me and are excited mostly to just be heard. This year I will now be developing this time into more of a Bible study and devotional time with these incredible ladies.
A Lodge For Our Teams…
These past couple of years, we have been blessed with an average of 10-15 teams and/or small groups of visitors each year. While this is such a blessing for the expansion of FMN Ministry and the goals we strive to accomplish, we also run into the problem of efficient housing. We have been housing our teams in Oradea (the next big city), which is 45 minutes away from Tinca (where we are located) and that adds on the cost of transportation and cuts our days short with the teams. So, we have been researching the market and looking at many plots of land and houses for sale that might work to become a lodge for our teams and have found one just this year that meets all of our needs and leaves room for us to grow and caters to our diverse needs as a growing ministry.
The house we have found is off on it’s own down by a river with mountains in the background, which allows us to tailor to each teams needs, ideas, and wishes while staying. We can be free to have outdoor worship sessions together, invite families from the village to barbeques, and host outreach soccer tournaments with the youth in the village. When teams come, they often have many emotional evenings processing all that they saw throughout that day; the hurting, the forgotten, the abused, the hopeless, and the bitter. It’s hard to see first hand the conditions that these beautiful children live in and to see what they have survived and struggle through each day.
By purchasing this house, it allows us a place to comfortably house the teams, allow them to process, meet together to cry, pray, and discuss what God is stirring in their hearts, and go on prayer walks throughout the property, host cook outs for those they are ministering to, or sit peacefully outside with God. The large plot of land allows us to create another garden providing more work for our families, more produce for our families and children, and land to build on in the future.
The house itself is 100 years old (younger than the Isaiah Center), but the owners have redone most of it (new windows, walls, roof, etc) and it appears to be in good shape. We will need to eventually pull water from town to have city water, but receives water from a well at the moment. The house has 7 large bedrooms ready to go that would be perfect for housing teams. We would need to add more bathrooms, but that can also be projects that teams take on as they come and serve.
The house has a large living room, which would be ideal for our team meetings, devotion times, and group hang out with the teams. The kitchen is large enough that the teams can use it to make meals or we can provide meals for them.
Other organizations here in Romania have really challenged us to think about the business side of things as we continue to grow. We need to have our own resources for all of the teams that God is blessing us with. By having our own lodge this will allow us to become more self-sufficient and not rely solely on donations. After the house is paid off, we can then begin to use the income it brings on project expansions and hopefully building a larger center in the future. We still pray to grow the Isaiah Center family to 30, 50, 100, and allow God to lead.
Please be praying for wisdom regarding this property. Many of the board members have seen it and agree that this is the ideal location for our next phase. We are praying that God would provide the means for us to purchase this amazing house and land. We have saved the money from the annual benefit to help and go towards this house, donations that people have designated for the lodge, and general use money that we have saved.
If you are interested in more information regarding the lodge and how you can help, please contact us.
Click here to contact Rachel Ross
Click here to contact Sue Linn Ross
If you would like to download a PDF version of the FMN Newsletter click here.
