Dear Friends and Family,
In Moldova there are two holidays celebrated at the beginning of March: the first day of spring (March 1) and International Women’s Day (March 8). In honor of these days, we spent the last day of February at a local high school selling spring-themed greeting cards made by the adolescents in our program. This is the second time we have sold cards at this school, and this time we were welcomed warmly with a yummy wheat porridge breakfast and sweet black tea, a breakfast likely often enjoyed by the students of the school. We were also treated to a tour of the school by one of the assistant directors, who pointed out that the students, teachers and directors were decorating and preparing themselves and the school for a large celebration of spring the following day. We loved walking through this beautiful, large school that, open for 149 years, is the oldest educational institution in Moldova. The school has a rich history and boasts many well-known graduates, including famous musicians and the current mayor of Chișinău. We were honored that the school director later invited us into his office and communicated his desire for a continued collaboration with us.
A few other beautiful moments from that sunny day that remain with me (Rachel):
- Sweet conversations in English with native Romanian speakers excited to practice their skill.
- Interesting conversations in Romanian with native Romanian speakers.
- Compliments from teachers and educators at the ability of our team to speak so well in Romanian, despite its not being our native language.
- Cash donations made by entire classes of children to our program.
- The way the teenage girls in our program presented their own hand-made cards proudly to the students of the host school.
- The complements received by the girls in our program from school staff.
- The free and unexpected breakfast and lunch we received from the school.
- Sharing with students and teachers about our newspaper after engaging conversation and knowing that they would take it home and read it with interest; this doesn’t always happen!
In other news, we completed our tactical plan for the next 12 months with David Chronic, the Word Made Flesh Regional Coordinator for Europe and Africa. He came from his home in Romania to Moldova in early March to work with us on evaluating the past year and preparing and planning for what we will focus on as a team over the next 12 months. We chose our new main focus to be “mastery,” and after defining what mastering each of our areas of responsibility will look like, we set goals for the coming year. We hope that they will encourage us towards greater professionalism and a realization of outcomes that will increase our productivity and sharpen our focus.
With love,
Rachel & John
P.S. We are still looking for fundraising opportunities for the months of June, July and maybe the first part of August. As we mentioned last month, our goal this summer is to connect people, businesses, institutions and churches directly to the work of La VIA. If you know of a group that would be interested in learning more about our work, please email me (john.koon@wordmadeflesh.org) as soon as possible. Or, if you would be interested in hosting a one-time fundraising event, please let me know that as well. We are open to traveling to different cities in the US.