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