Special Report



Leeds, England registered UK Charity No.1087961
Kingsport, USA charitable non-profit # 86-0957704
Oradea, Romania registered Charity No.14839712

 
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Gepiu Community Centre
Project Director – Georgi Opreanu

Usually when I write reports I look back in time and try to define the period that I’m reporting in a word. On this occasion, many words came to mind such as: generosity, blessing, prayers, faith…but one that kept coming to me was: challenge.

By God’s grace and your generosity, Gepiu Community Centre finishes another academic year and every end brings a new beginning, we pray it will be a good one!!!

As I was saying in my last report, we decided to accept more children this past academic year, so we went from 25 to 39 children! This brought with it - new challenges. One was where to put them at the dinner table, so for the first time we had to arrange for two ‘sittings’ for food. The only problem now is ‘Who goes first’ as the children are always hungry when they arrive from School.

The challenge was how to feed all the children? Should we give them less food or not provide them a hot meal, maybe sandwiches. But we took another step of faith and decided to continue our full feeding program and trust God to provide the money for the extra food. And He did, and we are so blessed by Him. I know that is not easy to give in these difficult times, but God is moving people’s hearts in a way that is beyond my understanding.

Another challenge was the classrooms were not big enough to seat all the children, so we had to use other rooms. But fortunately we had the facilities and now we see every spare space being used to help and support these wonderful children.

Like last year, the children were asking to go to Camp during their summer holiday from school, but we couldn’t promise one. We wanted to do the camp as we know it is a very important experience in a child’s life and we know many that made a commitment to God during or after being at camp. Because we couldn’t give them a straight answer due to budget, the older kids told the younger ones the secret of success. Don’t ask for it, pray for it. So they did, every single day and then one day they received the answer. God put on somebody’s heart to do a fund raising event and raise more than was needed, so more children will be able to benefit from the camp. Their faith was rewarded and they didn’t forget to pray for those that bless them with another camp.

We were blessed to be able continue our other programs. The luncheons for the elderly in the Gepiu community are always a special event and new elderly folk regularly come to have worship and fellowship with us, along with great food. Some of them are not committed Christians and we pray that God will move their hearts and work through us to share His love and grace.

We are very happy to report that 20 teenagers had the opportunity to finish another school year in Oradea’s high schools because of the transport that we provide for them. This service that we provide is a very expensive one as the diesel is not cheap in Romania. We manage to do this only because of the generosity of many of you who support the Gepiu Project on a monthly basis and we want to thank you for this. It is a tight budget we operate every month to achieve all we do and we pray for more to take that extra step of faith to support Gepiu monthly with a gift, helping us to plan and budget from your guaranteed monthly support.

In May we had to face another challenge at the Gepiu Centre. Violeta, our cook since 2006, had to leave us because of personal reasons. We had to find somebody to replace her as there were another two months before the end of the school year. So a lot of uncertainty…. will we find the best person for this job, that is not just a job, is more of a Calling. Lots of prayers were made and no answers received until one day when 3 ladies were called for interview, but just one came – the right one! We are blessed to have Christina with us as our new cook. She likes to cook, but more than that she loves the children and feels that God called her to serve and love the children that are in our program. In the days that followed after she joined Smiles, I realised how God can change a challenge into a blessing.

I want to thank all of you that, even in the hard times, took a step of faith and gave generously to Smiles so people in Romania can be blessed and face the challenges with hope and a smile on their face.

We pray for you and for your dear ones and ask you to please continue to pray for us! For all the needs, for the staff and most of all for the children – that through all the Gepiu project provides, they will know the Love and the Grace of our Lord Jesus.

Thank You

Georgi

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    Page last updated on 26/06/2013 01:20:11 PM
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