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Adi Matis – Smiles
Romania Assistant Director
August 2014 |
Salard
Community Reloaded
During this past month
we had a special celebration for the Salard Community Project. As you
may know, throughout this summer, Smiles is celebrating 10 years since
opening our Mission Centre, and each project has the chance to throw a
little party!
Not only for the
Mission Teams, but our beneficiaries can enjoy a special treat too!
We started with a little
bit of work though.
Early
in the week, a team of very brave ladies and gentlemen were taking the
task of refreshing the converted containers we have in Salard, by
applying a new coat of paint on them. Well, we managed to finish
completely one of the eight containers, started a second one, and we
will actually continue hopefully next week with some more. It is not
as easy as you might think, as not only is there a lot of cleaning
needed before painting, but also because the rust destroyed some of
the metal work, making the work a little bit slower.
We were
very happy and very surprised to get a great deal of help from ...
the children! The little ones in Salard were so excited to see how
the fresh, beautiful blue colour covers the old rusted and dirty
container, that they immediately joined the painting team. I wish I
knew that in advance, as we only had four brushes!
There was a line
forming at one point, as we had so many willing to try their skills –
one of the tricky ones took one brush and hid it behind one of the
other containers, just to be able to paint there without being
bothered! So funny! But I’ve also learnt that surprisingly, the
children are the first ones to get involved, to help, to participate
and to give a hand – such a refreshing observation and hope for the
future!
On
Wednesday evening, at the party in the Mission Centre, I presented
some details about our programme and invited the audience (and here
I extend the invitation to you reading this report) to continue
supporting the Salard Project – we need support in order to be
able to answer the increasing number of requests for assistance.
Beyond the food bags we prepare regularly for about 35-40 families, we
need to cover quite a few medical needs too, treatment for heart
conditions, for cancer, for TB, to name but a few. Then, there are a
lot of children that will need (and want)
to go to school from September, either locally in
Salard or in Oradea. Then, we really want to start the hygiene unit
construction, for which we not only
need approvals from difficult authorities, but we will need financial
support too... All in all, there is a great need and we will be
very happy and blessed if you could "Pray, Promote and Participate"!
This was the
encouragement I gave at the Mission Trip Celebration:
Pray for our needs,
Promote the work Smiles does and
Participate with your support.
That will all be greatly appreciated!
Thursday
was the great celebration in Salard. Two days earlier we had told
them to be ready around 11 o’clock, as there will be a special
programme for children. Sure enough, when we arrived in Salard
Thursday morning, together with the mission trip guests, we had
about 50 kids and just as many adults waiting for us, with great
anticipation and very little patience!
The groups were divided and we started singing and playing with
the children. Some of our team cleaned the place and soon the "mici"
(the Romanian barbeque) started to spread a beautiful flagrance
around.
Even though the BBQ
was intended only for children, it was very difficult to convince the
adults to stay back. They eventually did, but only when I handed them
each a bag of detergent – I did go well prepared in there!!
I’d
like to say thank you to all of you who support the project and Smiles
in general! Also, a special thank you for
those who helped the week in Salard and I hope
they are happy to see how things are moving forward, despite the many
complications. We are very trustful that one day, maybe after many
years at least some of the children today will actually have
a better life.
And it is really
possible, because God will make it happen!
God bless you all! Let
me know your thoughts and your plans, I will always reply to your
emails!
Adi
Assistant Director, Smiles Romania.
To e-mail Adi:
adrian.matis@thesmilesfoundation.org
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Previous reports
from Adi:
July 2014 - Sessions for the Mind
June 2014 - Unknown
May 2014 - Celebrate with us
April 2014 - Beliefs
March 2014 - From being taken care of to taking
care...
February 2014 - My
dream... to become a pig caretaker |
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