Moving to America

Statistics say that every day around 106 people leave Moldova to look for work abroad or to start a new life in another country. This morning at 4:00 o'clock we said good bye to the Jenica, Spiridon's sister. She will start a new life in New York and we pray that God will bless her!

Christmas program with the children.

Christmas has passed! Although in Moldova of course we celebrate another time Christmas at 7 and 8 January. On Sunday (after Spiridon and I first faced some troubles like a car that did not start and needed to be pushed...) we arrived at 10 o'clock at the church. The kids shouted of happiness cause they had been waiting  since 8 o' clock for me to bring the clothes etc and to do a last practice...Quickly we dressed the kids and we were all ready at 10:20! We went in the church and all together it was a lovely program with 6 poems, 2 songs and a Christmas play. Praise God! The parents were happy, the kids were happy and I am thinking, Jesus was probably also smiling a bit!

Mary and the angel

The angels

Josef, looking for a place to sleep

The Shepherds

Singing a Christmas song

Snow in Moldova...

While traveling today through Moldova I enjoyed to see the first real snow of this year! The trees got white and the fields are covered with a nice blanket of white snow.
Together with some OM-ers I visited 2 Day Centers and presented a Christmas program. I am playing Mother Mary in the play and so today twice I gave birth and all went well!;-)
The kids enjoyed the programs a lot and of course the present at the end was received with a lot of joy!

Tomorrow we have another journey planned and so we can take more snow pictures from the car.
But I will try to make some nice pictures of the Christmas program too so you will be able to enjoy this too!

Christmas is coming!/ Bijna kerst!

Merry Christmas! A week has passed since we visiting the cross and I have been thinking what to put on the blog. What would be interesting to read for you? Well, I was just working the last week in the office and Spiridon was studying at the university so nothing very special happened but let me tell you about this morning in my sunday school class cause this was a nice lesson for me! We are preparing a christmasprogram with the children and just for you to imagine how this goes, let me descripe it.

Bible verse.
As soon as we entered the room, the 20 kids all staredt to tell me the bible verse they were supposed to learn. So after I calmed them down, in a more organised way, they told me the verse and everything was under control. Praise God! The verse was: we walk by faith and not by sight...2 Cor 5:7

Christmas song with a small fight.
We moved on to the christmassongs...we had 5 options but 4 of them nobody knew. So at the end we picked 2...while practising the 2 songs, 2 boys started a fight. Imagine: while 18 kids sing as loud as they can about the peace that Jesus brought on earth, 2 kids are punching and pushing each other! After I talked to the boys, and the promised to not punch each other again, the peace on earth was back!

Christmas Poems in speedy tempo and about Santa Claus!
We finsihed the songs and than we moved on with the poems! Oef, this is one of the hardest thinsg for me cause I do not like poems so much and besides that the poems in MD are normaly very loooongg and I keep loosing the point. A boy of 7 years old was the first to say the poem he knew and guess what? Didnt get the point at all!! Oeps! Told him to speak MUCH slower...he promised to work on it! So we will see next week!
Than another boy stood up and said a poem about Santa Claus who fills up our pocket with sweetness! Mhhh....what to say about this kind of poem? The boy that said the poem is not from a Christian family and so I didnt want to turn him down but during a Christian Christmas program a poem about candy in our pockets??? ;-) At the end we decided "democraticly" that 4 kids would say a poem!

THE christmasplay!
This was the highlight of the christmas practice of course! The main question: who would be Josef and who would be Mary? When I mentioned the word, christmasplay, there was no order anymore and every child was pulling my shirt and asking a question: What clothes should I wear? Can I be an angel? I have a baby Jesus at home, I dont know how to do my hair, I want to be Mary! Me too, me too...etc.....My ears couldnt handle all this enthousiasm!!! It was a very energetic moment! And all the kids were standing around me, pulling me and looking with hope in their eyes towards me ,like I knew ALL the answers! (And I guess, in their eyes I do know ALL the answers to their questions!) Well, we got the roles sorted out, we ran twice through the play and it will all be fine!

The end.

Driving back home, I was thinking about what had happened and how the kids were pulling me to get my attention and how they put their trust in me that I would know the answers....The question came to me: how often do I pull Gods sweater to get His attention and drop all my questions with HIM? And just look at HIM with hope and trust in my eyes hat HE knows ALL the answers...

Visiting the Cross

Last Saturday evening we went with all the teenagers from Micleuseni and Nisporeni to see a 35 meter high cross. Some months ago the Orthodox church in Nisporeni (Spiridons hometown) gathered money and build a cross on the top of a hill. During the night it is full of light and you can see the cross from far away.While looking at the cross, we prayed with the teenagers that this would not just be a place for people to come and look but that this cross really will make people think about Jesus and his sacrifice made on the cross for us.

Update on Dana

Hello,
I just got back from a visit to the south of Moldova. In my inbox I found the following message from our friend Eugen:


22:41 - just arrived home. Forty minutes ago when I left the hospital after a busy day, I realized that I have a flat tyre...what a nice bonus of the day. But it was interesting even for me, when I started to change it, my heart was praising God for Who He Is.
Dana's blood analyses are not any better, she remains in a critical situation and we pray that God would touch her body. Her Leucocytes (WBC) are 0.15, when minimum they should be 3.98. Her Thrombocytes (PLT) even worse and her nose is still bleeding.
Please pray for her, that tomorrow the WBC and PLT would increase and for her to go out of this critical situation. Pray that God would strength us and will help to win this battle.
Thank you very much for your support!

Eugen

P.S. We believe in the power of prayer. Please, if you can engage others in this prayer, do it for the sake of my dear wife. Thank you!

Please keep praying with us for Dana's healing!

Please keep praying for our friend Dana

On Monday we received the following message from our friends Eugen and Dana:

Dear friends, we would like to update you a bit on Dana’s situation and ask again for you prayers, as we really need them.

  After another round of chemo that ended a week ago, we came back to Chisinau. This time Dana didn’t feel bad during the chemo and we praise God for this. This last week she felt really well and we enjoyed being back in our new rent apartment.

  But unfortunately it didn’t last long and yesterday she started to have some fever, it went higher and higher and today we had urgently to hospitalize her here in Chisinau. The blood analyses are extremely low. In the next days she will receive antibiotics and blood transfusion. I want that she would get better as soon as possible and come home, that’s because I really miss her presence and smile (Eugen).

Please pray for:

* The following days as she will receive a lot of transfusions.

* God to protect her for any other infections that she may take from the hospital.

* A faster recovery and this way to be released from the hospital.   

Thank you very much for your prayers!

A real bed! Eindelijk een bed!

It has been quite a while (about 4 months) but finally we got a REAL bed! What a joy;-)

Before we slept on a matrass on the floor and this was getting a bit cold...but since last week we sleep a bit higher than the floor and this is amazing (and also much warmer)!

No mom and now also without dad...

While I was working this week in the office, a very sad but real story passed by. It is about a boy called Nicolae. He received some new winterclothes last week. Nicolae is 6 years old and lives in a village called Chipesca. Nicolae's mom died last year in an accident and his father is an alcoholic. His father does not take care of Nicolae and his brother. The money father receives from the social services to take care of his children, he does not bring it home, but uses it to buy more alcohol. When some OM-ers visited this family, it was really cold but they found the boys playing outside in thin summer clothes. Nicolae never smiled and even when he got dressed with new clothes, he did not show any sign of happiness. Nicolae probably does not know what happiness and love is. The house the boys live in is not heated and the windows do not have glass in it and also the door cant be closed so the door stays open the whole time. A very sad situation without any hope for the future. Just a few days later, we received the news that the father died and Nicolae and his brother are now orphans. Please pray with us that God will take care of these boys and that they will get a place to stay where there will be warmth and love.

Nieuwe schoenen / New shoes!

Corina (5 years old) is excited when we pick her up from the kindergarten. We have told her that we will go by car to her house and that we have a gift for her. I am not sure what she is more excited about- the car drive or the gift!

When we arrive at her house, she calls her mom Andriana outside and then it is time for the present: a new pair of warm winter shoes! She tries them on and likes them a lot. She has a big smile on her face and her mum is also happy and thankful! The old shoes were getting too small but Corina’s parents couldn’t afford to buy a new pair. Corina’s father Nicolai doesn’t have a job; he occasionally finds work for a day or two cutting wood, digging the garden, harvesting the fields, taking care of the cows, and so on. For a full day of work he only earns around 50 or 60 lei (4 euro)… this is barely enough to provide food for his family. Corina’s mum stays at home and takes care of the house and of Corina and her little baby brother, who is only one month old. 

Life is difficult for the young couple. They would like to take good care of their children but both of the parents aren’t from the village where they live now, they don’t know anybody, and they don’t have a stable income. This family really could use some help. A lady in the local church pays for Corina to go to the kindergarden because her parents do not have the money.

Corina and her mom thank us with a big smile and in their eyes there is happiness. This winter Corina can go to the kindergarten with new warm winter shoes!

Locked up in her own house

Last week I went to visit the Day Center and Elderly Care project in the village Crasnaseni and together with one of the sisters from the chucrh we went to visit Vera. Visiting Vera, who is 85 years old, is not so simple. She doesn’t see very well and in the past people have often come to her house and stolen things from her, so now she keeps the house locked from the inside and nobody can come in. She doesn’t trust anybody anymore. Only after you have knocked on the window and shouted who you are and why you have come to visit, she might get out of bed and open the door.

As we come to visit this old lady, we are lucky to bring Angela with us, the sister from the local church who daily brings food to six elderly in the village. Four more elderly come to the local church and eat the meal there but these six aren’t able to come to the church anymore so they get the food delivered to their homes.

After Vera has recognized the voice of Angela, she unlocks the house and we enter. The first three things we notice are the smell, the cold and the fact that it is dark in the house. Already for years the electricity has been cut off and so Vera doesn’t have light. Her heating system also broke down and because Vera can’t make a fire in her house anymore, she lives in the cold every day. The absence of any source of heat in her house also means she doesn’t have the possibility to heat any water, so washing clothes or taking a bath is not possible either. Life is very hard and lonely for Vera.

When we ask her what she is doing during the day, Vera tells us that for the last few days she has just been lying in bed, trying to keep warm. She has nowhere else to go. Her children are grown up and have left her by herself. Her son lives in the same village but never comes to see her and as she can’t walk so far anymore, it is not possible for her to go and visit him. Angela tells us that the son is not healthy mentally and therefore can’t take care of his mother. The daughters are working abroad and haven’t been in Moldova for years.

Vera shares that she doesn’t know how to survive, now that winter is coming, but that she prays to God and to Mother Mary to help her. When we say goodbye, Angela promises to bring some bottles with hot water later in the afternoon, so Vera can more easily stay warm in her bed. Of course she will bring some warm food, too. As we leave the house, Vera immediately puts the lock back on the door and returns to bed. I was touched to see how this lady lives and I realized how blessed I am. I pray that God will send somebody who help this lady.

Welkom! / Welcome!

We willen jullie graag op de hoogte houden van wat er zoal gebeurd in Moldavie. Geregeld zullen we proberen om vers nieuws op ons blog te zetten. Veel leesplezier!


We would like to keep you up to date about what is going on in Moldova. So we will try to post reguraly some fresh news on this blog. Enjoy reading!