Georgi – Thanksgiving and Praise
Another year is almost finished, even if it’s so hard to believe. We enter today into the last month of the year and I challenge you to enter the gates of this new month with thanksgiving and praise for all that God has done for us.
December is the month when we celebrate the birth of our Saviour. It is the month of giving gifts, but we should not forget the gift we receive and the gifts that we offer to others. Let them be something that is costing us, and I don’t mean just money, but time, love, care and attention, depending on what is needed the most.
Let us come back to November. It is the last month of autumn and we received a lot of enquiries for a place in our Centres, Salonta was running to full capacity all month and we were sorry we couldn’t help any more people there, but we transferred the requests to Oradea and Tileagd.
At our Centre in Oradea, for part of the month we had a few spaces free but were for men and unfortunately we had no request at the time coming to fill the place. Now we have, and we expect the last gentleman to come and we will be at full capacity there too.
In Tileagd we helped until now 35 beneficiaries in our first 5 months. Recently we had a few deaths and some not adapting to the centre so at the moment we have 21 residents. Ioana and Dr Diana are visiting people in their homes to evaluate their situations and see if we can receive them in our Centre. Another 6 people have been evaluated in their homes or in hospital, of which at least 4 are expected to come in the Centre at the beginning of December. Please keep us in your prayers.
I was telling you a few months ago about a special programme that we started in JFL (Salonta), of families taking lunch with their loved ones in our Centre.
This past month we had the second “edition” and everyone was feeling so very happy. Families were enjoying being with their parents, grandparents, sisters or brothers. We would like to have this opportunity more often, even monthly, but these lunches have a cost attached to them. We would like to invite you to be part of it by helping us. The cost for one lunch is round £150($195). We pray that we will be able to organise these lunches more often, but we know that God will find a way to make this possible.
This month, our psychologist Anca had a special request from the parents of the Down Syndrome children, to extend our programme from 2 hours to 4 so we did that. The children have so much fun and they start to be more open and begin to build friendships among each other and with us. We pray for the future, to have this programme more often so we can put a few more smiles on these children’s faces.
In the Oradea centre, we had the commission that inspects us verifying that we keep the standards up to the required levels. Once again they were impressed with the cleanliness of the place, the good food the residents receive but most of all about the staff and their attitude towards our beneficiaries. We are so blessed to have good staff and we are praying to be able to continue the good work we do.
In the Tileagd Centre we are also blessed to have good and dedicated staff. I was very encouraged this month because of a family that works in elderly care in another country, brought their mother in our centre in Tileagd, planning to keep her just until they find carers for home.
When they saw the conditions and the carers attitude, they decided to keep their mother in our Centre, but the mother came with her mind set to go home after a week and even after they tried to convince her to stay, she didn’t want to. But they felt sorry for not believing that in Romania there are such excellent elderly care services. As you could see from the pictures, many activities are organised in the centres and we all prepare for Christmas. The residents are working hard to prepare the centres for the Christmas Season, making it as beautiful as possible.
December is a special month! Our prayer and desire is to make it special for all our residents. We want them to feel the love and the warmth of a ‘real’ home. We prepared some special events for them and we hope this will bring joy in their hearts. Also we will have some mission trip guests visiting us during this period and I am sure those of you that will come and visit will make them feel very special also.
May God bless you, your families and loved ones as we enter this special time of the year. Remember to enter this month with thanksgiving and praise for the One that came to show us the way we need to follow. Give gifts and enjoy, but don’t forget the greatest gift that was given to us all.
With great appreciation for all you do,
Georgi
Georgi Lazau
Deputy Director of Smiles Romania
georgi.lazau@thesmilesfoundation.org
Prayer points:
– To thank God for four years of service in Salonta, three in Oradea and 5 successful months in Tileagd;
– For the years to come, to not give up when it’s hard but to continue doing good for God’s glory, even when the circumstances are getting tough.
– For God to prepare the new residents who will come into the Tileagd Centre and be able to experience the love of God through the care we provide;
– For the new residents to adapt in all the centres;
– For God’s protection upon all of Smiles staff and beneficiaries;
– For the finance that is necessary to be able to pay the staff and all the associated costs;
– For staff to be kind to those in need;
– For health and well-being for residents and staff as we enter the cold winter months;
– For all Smiles staff to be a testimony of God’s love so others will get to know Him.
