One the health front...I have been feeling stronger everyday for about two weeks. The fatigue seemed to have hit me much harder during this round of 3 treatments in November. But, the hard fatigue that would dog me all day long has been reduced to to mainly feeling worn out only at night. It is much easier to deal with.
On the personal front...The fatigue is gone just in time for jet-lag to set in as Nancy and I travel to Moldova for my 6th mission trip to the orphanages of Moldova! We will be traveling with 14 others with Justice and Mercy International. I'm very excited about being with Nancy as she experiences the wonderful kids that we get to meet during the week. I will post to this blog whenever I have Internet access.
I'm including a blog post that I did two years ago from Moldova to give you an idea why I go to Moldova:
How does a country that I never heard of until Rolling Hills went on it’s first international mission trip in 2003, grab the heart of a church and not let go? The answer is pretty easy to figure out when you look at the pictures and comments that we post during our visits.
Today, in my first interview with a 14 year girl, I asked her to describe her best day. Immediately, tears started to flow out of her eyes and she said, “there are no best days, when you are an orphan.” I looked at Boris, my interpreter, and said that it was going to be a long day. The stories of these children’s lives continue to show a hurting group of kids that have done nothing wrong. Yet, they have to live in a world where the actions of their parents or others have brought consequences on them that they can not understand and certainly don’t deserve. Their overriding wish is to get their family back together and to be like normal children in a normal family. We provided a lot of gifts this week, but none of them were the gift that they are praying for.
I came back to Moldova with a list of things that I wanted to accomplish…interview children that need American sponsors, see in person what is happening at the Grace House, talk to Sasha and Lucia about taking in some boys for a Hope House, spend time with my Moldovan son, Igor and lastly, give out Christmas presents to children that don’t normally get a gift. I accomplished all the things on my list this year. But, what I wasn’t expecting was how God has shown me, with increased intensity, the importance of what Justice and Mercy International is doing in this country. How do we at JMI get this message out to the people who can help?
If you are reading this blog and are not sponsoring a child, please pray about starting. If not us, who will take care of these children. Their parents have are either dead or can’t afford to keep them. The orphanage that they live in gives them food, shelter and an education, but it doesn’t give them all the love they desire or need. If you sponsor someone, tell a friend about the blessing it is to you and your Moldovan child and see if they will join in with us. If you’ve never been to Moldova, pray about making one trip to see for yourself how we are brightening up these children’s lives for at least a couple of days a year in their world where there are no “best days!” You will get to put smiles on the children’s faces that don’t have many reasons to smile and you will look at the blessings in your life in a whole new way.
