Dear friends and supporters,
Greetings from Moldova! We wish you a spring as green, sunny and pleasant as the one we are enjoying here.
Our past two letters have been about our transition out of Word Made Flesh and back to the US. Thank you for your emails, encouragement and questions. Please feel free to continue contacting us about it. We are happy to answer any questions you have.
So, what has been happening in the past two months?
In March two Moldovan young men (early-mid twenties) began internships with us at La VIA and are moving into their third month with the hopes of being hired. We have enjoyed their energy, thoughtful contributions and amazing ability to move heavy cabinets! Pray for their integration as we move forward with them.
This week we moved half of our rooms to the third floor of the building where we run our after-school program, hence the heavy cabinet carrying needs. Although this adjustment was unexpected, it will actually allow us to remain in this building on a semi-permanent basis. We have been praying for sustainability regarding our space, and this seems to be the answer for the time being.
As a staff we are currently meeting once a month for trainings on fundraising based on a booklet published by the Henri Nouwen Society called A Spirituality of Fundraising. We are gleaning a lot of helpful information as we grow in this capacity and learn to view it as a calling and service to the Kingdom of God.
This past month we sold all of the handmade Easter/spring cards and sewn bags made by the kids who come to our program at a sale we hosted at a local high school. This school organized a shoe drive for us, and their students ended up donating approximately 40 pairs of shoes for the children in our program, thus fulfilling a very practical need. We were greatly encouraged by this strong and growing local partnership.
Once a month we are continuing our book study on How to Talk so Kids Can Learn by Adele Faber and will be finishing it in May. We highly recommend this book for parents, teachers and anyone who works with kids. Please read a thoughtful, short summary of one of the chapters by our co-worker Violeta on our website www.wordmadeflesh.org/Moldova.
We are currently in the throes of planning our one-week over-night camp for the kids who have been consistently present in our program over the past school year. We will leave May 30th for a campsite about an hour south of Chisinau and will return June 6th. The theme of the camp that will be woven into the activities is “Tu poţi şi noi putem!” which translates as “You can, and we can too!” The idea behind it is to encourage the children as unique, talented individuals who are also contributing members of a group and to emphasize how powerful we are when we all work together. We will also be reading and studying the parables of Jesus and encouraging creativity by working on an art project with discarded plastic. We will be joined by three people from LEO Clubs Denmark (Lions Club offshoot) that will be planning organized games as well as funding the entire week. We loved partnering with them last year and look forward to being able to do so again!
Thanks for reading, praying and supporting us; we couldn’t be here without you. We look forward to hearing from you all soon!
All our best,
Rachel & John