Long summer, short autumn, getting ready for winter!

After spending two long months in the Netherlands as a family, we have happily started up all our work again. Due to my father's diagnosis (pancreatic head cancer), we arrived a bit earlier and stayed longer. In the Netherlands, everything seemed manageable, but now back in Romania, we received truly bad news. We are grateful for the time with Grandpa and Grandma, family, friends, and our brothers and sisters from the Parousia congregation in Wijchen. But we are also grateful to be back in our own place. And to enjoy talking to our friends and visitors again at Casa Calea.

We immediately started handing out all the glasses that had been fitted by the team that had performed the eye examinations before the holidays. Well, how grateful people were, and how they felt “seen”!

Summer in Romania lasted until Sunday, October 11 (30°C). But how intense it was when the next day brought wind, rain, and temperatures around 15 degrees. We have a nice house and stay dry, but our friends on the street are not prepared for such an abrupt change. When you live on the street, you don't have storage for winter clothing, or suddenly a duvet/sleeping bag at your disposal for nights of 6/7 degrees. Fortunately, we had received a shipment from the Netherlands via GaiN with 50 good sleeping bags and still had some in stock. So, on October 19, we opened extra hours to hand out sleeping bags. When I drove up just before 8:00 AM, there were already nearly 20 visitors, and we didn't open until 8:30 AM. But what gratitude and happiness on our friends' faces. Something warm for the night. We were able to hand out 67 sleeping bags. And we still have some in stock, because people will certainly come asking for more.

Now that it is getting colder, we are seeing more visitors to our program. From cooking for 50-60 people in the summer, we are now back to around 80-90 people (including our few volunteers). We are grateful for our regular cooking team. But we are especially grateful to notice that people enjoy coming to us and are truly open to the message of God's love and grace that we are allowed to bring. We regularly hear that they feel seen and appreciated as human beings. And that is all God asks of us: looking out for one another, being there for each other. A listening ear, praying and singing together!

We have also started holding evaluation meetings with our regular volunteers. This is to see if they feel comfortable in their roles within the team, but also to see if we can do more in other areas. I would like to introduce our brother Claudiu.

He was married, lost a child, which caused the marriage to fall apart. Then Covid broke out, he lost his job, and ended up living on the streets. On top of all this, he developed kidney stones, and because he has no financial means, he cannot receive treatment. To cope with the pain, he drinks even more. But this brother has a love for God, for the work we get to do together, and especially for praising God with his guitar and singing. We have started a program with him to get him off the streets, but that begins with having the paperwork. So he is busy getting an ID card, requesting his diplomas, and hopefully entering the job market that way. And we see him change and grow because we get to walk alongside him.

Things are going well as a family. Florin is in his final year of school and wants to go into automotive technology. We have a few further education options in mind, and he also works for free (to learn) at a garage on Fridays after school. Larisa is also starting to go through puberty and is therefore very preoccupied with who she is, where she comes from, and why her mother didn't want her. We have beautiful and sometimes sad conversations.

In the summer, we decided to change congregations in Romania after all. The congregation we were attending was a nice Baptist church, but we couldn't quite find our place there. Together, we decided to go to the international church in Bucharest. It is English-speaking, though. We are really starting to find our place there now. Because of the many different cultures, people are a bit more considerate of one another. The different ways of doing and thinking. Larisa came home the first time and said: “Wow Mom, there are children even darker than me and everyone is equal.” Florin goes to youth every Wednesday himself and has already invited a friend. The couple is a lovely pair who have adopted two daughters themselves, and it is nice to exchange experiences, especially with Naty (the pastor's wife).

We are grateful. Now enjoying autumn, games, and puzzles.

Kind regards, Doret, Florin and Larisa