We arrived safely in Cluj on Saturday at about 8:00 pm local time. Our trip was long but it was smooth and we encountered no problems.

There is a lot of fear and concern in most European countries right now around the swine flu bug and in Bucharest they were not allowing people from Canada into the airport. We were afraid this might have implications for our visit to one orphanage in particular however they are allowing us to visit.

On Monday and Tuesday we will be at the Gradanita Special Needs school in the morning and at Prichindel orphanage in the afternoons.

The weather has been sunny and hot since we arrived.

Please continue to pray for us as we travel around the city.

Mike

Its Thursday and we just arrived back at our Training Home in Cluj. For the last 3 days we were based in a town of 10,000 called Beclean. We stay at the orphanage where many of our volunteers come from. From there we are able to travel easily to other locations where we have regular service opportunities. So, on Tuesday we went to the Ilisua Orphange where we provided a Christmas dinner for the 80 children who are there. This is a very poor place and so it was exciting to provide a nutritional special Christmas dinner, medicine and vitamins, new winter boots, “a bag of basics from Muskoka Woods”, a zip lock bag of school supplies/gifts, and a special chocolate Santa… Our special guest was Santa Claus himself (Tim Huff) who was the star attraction wherever we went! We also provided money for some firewood at Ilisua…. In addition, we took about 10 orphans from the Beclean orphanage to help out with the orphans at Ilisua

Wednesday, we went to a small rural school in a village called “Figa”. Here we provided many of the same things but also talked about Christmas in Canada to the children in 2 classrooms… here we were surprised to see the brand new computers that the government had provided… yet the school doesn’t have indoor plumbing! The children were very surprised,and thankful here… it was also interesting to see some of them picked up by grandparents on a horsedrawn wagon at lunch time!

In the afternoon we had a similar Christmas program at the Beclean orpahanage where we stayed… Here we know most of the children very well. This is where many of our ‘orphan volunteers come from.

Finally, this morning we went and sang Christmas carols to about 50 elderly patients in the psychiatric ward of the hospital… as well as the children and youth ward in the same psychiatric hospital… This was truly a moving time as we gave out fruit and presented Santa Claus to them all…. This is a very sad place where there is deep despair… It was a privilege to bring smiles and joy to these very special and important children of God…

Tonight we will have Christmas at the Training Home and then prepare to depart for Canada tomorrow morning…. Thank you once again for your support and interest!

Peace,
Bob, for the team

Greetings from Romania!
The team has been very busy since arriving Saturday night. We got up Sunday morning and began to sort donations and put together our gift packages. We also went out to buy 85 pairs of children’s boots to be given to the orphans at Ilisua on Tuesday. Then we went to an elderly care center where we visited with some very lonely “shut ins”… This morning (Monday), we went to a special needs school and did some program with about 50 children. We also gave out some gifts which were donated by friends and Muskoka Woods. The pictures are from this school. In the afternoon we went to the Prichindel Orphanage where we did more of the same with the orphans there. At all 3 places, Santa Claus was the big hit! It was so wonderful to see the absolute delight on the faces everyone, young and old, including the workers as well!!! Tuesday we are off on the train to Ilisua, Beclean, and Figa, where we will try to bless over 200 more orphans and underprivileged children. I will try to post another blog on Thursday night before we come home…. Thank-you for thinking of us….

Bob