Warm winter clothes for Sergei

Last weekend we visited Spiridon's home village and bought for 10 children winter clothes. One of the children was Sergei. He is 8 years old and just started school in September. He lives with his grandparents and when we went to invite him to come with us, his grandmother said that she couldn't come but that she was happy for us to take Sergei with us to the market. Sergei's mother died 6 months ago and after the death of his mom, his stepfather disappeared (his mother got divorced with his first father). Nobody heard from him or knows where he is. So since the death of his mother, his grandparents try to take care of Sergei but with a small pension it is often a struggle to provide in the different needs of the family.
So on Saturday morning Sergei got in the car and we took him to the market to buy warm winter clothes. Already the 6 km ride in the car was a big adventure and his shinning eyes said more than a 100 words, on how he enjoyed the trip. When we arrived at the market we asked him what kind of clothes he needed and yes, he came up with a whole list: shoes, jacket, hat, trousers, socks and sweater, etc. First we went to a part of the market where the second-hand clothes are sold. Often much better quality and cheaper. We were lucky (or probably better to say blessed...) cause we found from the beginning a nice warm jacket and a hat. After he tried on the jacket and the hat, he didn't want to take them off again so he kept the jacket and hat on. Than we went to look for some trousers and Sergei got quite enthusiastic. Every pile of trousers he saw, he would start pulling out trousers and without really looking at them, he would declare that these were fitting him perfectly! Gently we guided him towards two pair of trousers and after he tried them on, we bought both of them. Also we found a nice sweater and 2 pair of thick socks!

Now only some shoes were missing! In order to find some good fitting and whole-winter-lasting shoes for Sergei we went to the part of the market where they sell new stuff and there a lady was selling nice shoes with fur inside but she asked a bit more than they money we had left but guess what? She made a discount when she found out what we were doing. And so at the end Sergei got two bags full of good winter clothes! And as a bonus he got another ride in the car all the way home! What a day! When he came home he struggled a bit on how to open his gate cause in each hand, he had a bag full of clothes!

Praise God that Sergei could feel and see God's love for him in such a practical way! Let us keep praying for all the 10 families that were blessed, that they will understand that God is interested in them, He did not forget them and He wants to bring new hope in their lives!

The result is there!!

Today Spiridon got his Romanian passport so we can now start to travel much easier to NL and other countries in Europe...Starting next month with Germany! Thank you for praying with us. May God bless you!

Visiting different projects

This week two dutch guest from the organisation Mensenkinderen came to visit us and together with them we traveled to different projects, mainly in the North of Moldova. A couple of busy days but very blessed days. On monday we visited a Challenge-Into-Mission team who were just doing an evangelistic children program in a village nearby Chisinau.

On Tuesday we traveled to the North and visited an Elderly Care project, a Day Centre for children from social vulnerable families and a at the end of the afternoon we visited a family who started a microbusiness in growing tomatoes.

On wednesday we traveled again to the North and visited one of the local ministry teams of OM, handed out some winter clothes for children from poor families and as you can see on the picture, Maxim was happy with his new red jacket, new hat and also new winter trousers.





After that we went to visit a rehabilitation centre for people who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, smoking etc. A very impressive project that is struggling to survive with just a little money.

Today was the last day and our guest left back to Holland. Praise God for the good time and for the many projects through which the people of Moldova get blessed and see and feel God's Love!

Weekend in Micleuseni.

On Saturday afternoon we traveled to Micleuseni. When we arrived we started with a practice for the worship time with the teenagers in the church.

After that it was time for fun...Although many Christians in MD still don't agree with playing cards as Christians, we played in the church cards and had a lot of fun!

On Sunday morning we went to church and together with the teenagers and the church, we sung the songs we practiced before and praised God for His faithfulness and care for us. In the afternoon it was the harvest festival and as you can see many beautiful and delicious fruits and vegetables were brought to church. After the service everybody enjoyed a plate of food and many people again realized that we are blessed here in Moldova. Maybe we do not have everything or plenty of what we would like to have, but still.... we have enough and God blesses Moldova!

De automarkt

Vanmorgen de automarkt bezocht. Altijd weer een uitdaging....100-den auto's en welke kies je dan en natuurlijk is er nog een belangrijkere  vraag: wie gaat jouw auto kopen??? We zullen zien...Voorlopig rijden we nog even met deze auto maar misschien in de nabije toekomst hebben we wat anders??