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Adi Matis – Smiles
Romania Assistant Director
December 2014 |
Preparing for
the Celebration!
Yes, it is indeed
amazing and unbelievable, but another year has almost gone by! Here we
are again, preparing for Christmas and soon we’ll get into the fever
of giving and hopefully receiving gifts and wishes for the Holidays…
The time of celebration is soon to be upon us and we all feel the
sweet anticipation. We are all planning visits and time to spend with
family and friends. We all are getting ready to do some good for those
around us.
During November, here
at the offices in Cihei, we thought we could have a slower time
between October and December Mission Trips. Time to consider and work
on the reports needed, which almost all the time get delayed when we
have guests in Romania, time for planning and thinking and preparing
for next year in all the projects, time to do more administrative
tasks. Well, we did those and hopefully we are closer now than before
to completing all that was needed, but on top of these things, we were
also preparing and starting the campaign for raising support for the
Smiles projects, right here in Romania.
Many
of you will know about our desire and effort to get our own people
here in Romania, involved with supporting what Smiles does for
Romanians. One way of doing that is by challenging them to donate food
for the families we have in our projects. We started this campaign for
Christmas in 2011 and the response from the people was very
encouraging. Of course, it is just a fraction of all the support we
need, but nevertheless, a good sign, so we continued doing it each of
the past three years. People of Oradea could donate food in the
special places we prepared, being encouraged in doing this by our
volunteers, who would speak with them and hand them a flyer and tell
them more about Smiles.
So, we have this ‘Christmas
Campaign’ again. We started on 18th November, a little
bit earlier this year, so we can get the full season of Christmas,
when people are usually more open and willing to give something for
others. As usual, our partner in this is TreiG, a local chain
of supermarkets, who were always very supportive towards us. We
have a good number of volunteers from a local
church, they are so fresh and full of energy – they are mainly
teenagers after all – and the positiveness and optimism they share
will produce a good response from the donors. The first quantities
were already collected, sorted and ready to be taken to those who
couldn’t afford to buy food themselves for what their family needs.
Soon we’ll start also
the campaign for raising support for homeless people of Oradea.
You may remember the great time spent serving people hot tea and in
return they can make a small donation – all this goes straight in
supporting the Homeless Project.
I just wanted to share
all this with you, because I find it to be very encouraging and gives
me a great sense of what the coming season is about. I remember from
the last years, it is amazing to see people that do not seem to have
too much of their own are still so glad to be able to donate
something, maybe just a packet of biscuits, maybe some flower or some
oil, but they are giving with great joy!
I see the light in the
volunteers eyes, when they talk about those that are poor and needy
and how happy they are when someone decides to donate… I was impressed
by one girl that managed to talk and to motivate people to donate and
in four hours, only by herself, she filled two large trolley carts
with food – and she was so proud and happy to show this to me!
We are so enthusiastic
these days about Christmas coming! All around us the tension and
anticipation is building and soon we’ll hear songs on the radio, we’ll
see the commercials on TV, all to make us all buy more and more and to
get excited, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
But we actually could
do something to bring us the "right" joy! We could give, we could
support, we could donate something to someone! I myself get very
motivated seeing the young volunteers, seeing the people who stop and
put something in our trolley, seeing the joy and smiles on their
faces.
Isn’t this that it’s
all about in the end? Christ came into the world to give. The Word
tells us it is much better to give than to receive. Christmas is the
perfect time for giving selflessly and to inspire those around us to
do the same. I encourage you to think about people around you this
season. The preparation for a real celebration must start with "what
can I do for someone else?" No one will truly be happy unless they
did something for somebody. So let’s start our Christmas now, by
following our Lord’s example!
Please go to our
website: Christmas
Corner
Or telephone the Smiles Office: UK –
0113.276.5060 / USA – 423.239.9525
Thank you all for the
support you’ve given so far this year to the Smiles Foundation. Our
projects couldn’t run without your kindness and desire to do good for
others and to help someone. That’s why I know you will wholly agree
with me in everything I have written above!
God bless you and
enjoy the Christmas season.
Adi Matis
Project Manager
Assistant Director Smiles Romania
adrian.matis@thesmilesfoundation.org
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Previous reports
from Adi:
November 2014 - A
man's true story... an inspiration to us all
October 2014 - Golden
September
September 2014 - A
Summer of Experiences
August 2014 - Salard
Community Reloaded
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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