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