Board member's perspective: Planting seeds

Every few weeks in this space, one of RCE's directors or board members will share about the ministry. This week's post is by Martha Mollard, a board member who visited Romania with her daughter around this time six years ago.

It was spring time six years ago when I received an email from my friend Deb Perry asking me to read the blog of a friend of hers. Marti was in Romania working as a physical therapist with the children RCE was helping. My daughter Jessie and I read about Marti’s experiences in Romania and talked about how neat it would be to go there one day.  A seed was planted.

About a month later, we received an email from Jim Perry about an upcoming parent-teen trip to Romania.  Being quite the introvert, I had never been interested in going on a mission trip, but since my daughter really wanted to go, I thought, “why not?” 

We traveled to Romania with seven parents and eight teenagers from our church, McLean Presbyterian.  It was an amazing week of learning about RCE. We met the Amy’s House boys, took the Darius House kids to the park, helped a family begin construction on their new home, and visited families that have adopted children through RCE or received assistance from the poverty prevention program. I had no idea the ministry was so far reaching! 

I witnessed lives that had been changed by the work of RCE: those who had been rescued into the Darius House, those who had been placed into families, and the many families who have been supported by the ministry. My heart was touched seeing God's grace at work through RCE and feeling that He was at work in me as I participated in the work in Romania.  My life had been changed too. 

God planted the seed with Marti’s blog and nourished it through the ministry of RCE.

I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.  It’s not important who does the planting or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.

1 Corinthians 3:6-7

Save the date: Emilian is coming back!

Emilian was 10 years old when you met him at the 2009 Walk-a-Thon. He made friends with everyone he met. Something about his big smile, giggle, and sweet spirit. But Emilian desperately wanted a family of his own and people who met him began to pray with him for that special blessing. God answered his prayers (and yours) and now Emilian is coming back for the spring events with his brother, Paul!

Emilian and Paul will be joined by Cristi Dagau. Cristi was eight years old when he was placed in a family through RCE and today he is the Administrator and part time teacher at Sunshine School. Cristi has a lovely wife and baby daughter, their family is a picture of restoration into the second generation.

Emilian is a young man now. He made a profession of faith and joined the church last year. He will finish high school soon and, by God’s grace, Emilian has all the hopes and expectations of any bright, eager, 18-year-old with a loving family to guide him.
 
Come and join these fine young men and help RCE raise funds for many other needy young people at the Darius Houses, Sunshine School and Amy’s House!

Save the Date! April 29th
5K RUN at Landon School, MD, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.
OR
Walk-a-Thon along the C & O Trail in VA, 12:30 to 4:00 p.m.
 
Click the orange banner at the top of the page to register or download flyers (sponsor sign-ups are on the back of the flyer).

Thank you for your prayers for RCE as we continue to seek God’s wisdom and direction in our negotiations with the County of Arad.

What a day of love can do

Reflections from Hannah S., a high school student who took a trip to Arad, Romania last summer:

Traveling to Romania was an unforgettable experience. While I was there, RCE had just rescued a six-year-old boy who had been abandoned on the streets. Every morning before we went off to visit families or work in Sunshine School, we would meet and pray. On the little boy’s first day, they introduced him to us at this morning meeting. He was traumatized and too scared to talk. At the end of the day, we took the kids out to pizza. While we sat around tables eating, the little boy was talking, laughing, and smiling from ear-to-ear. This shows what one day of love can do for someone who has never been loved, and RCE is really good at that.

Special Prayer Request for Romania and RCE

A newly elected Government in Romania recently passed a law ‘decriminalizing corruption’. Yes, you read that right. Decriminalizing corruption! Bribes under $44,000 will now be ‘legal’. People are taking to the streets (including Arad) in the largest demonstrations since the fall of communism to protest this amazing reversal of recent anti-corruption efforts.  After days of protests the government is now rethinking the decree.

Over the past year Romania’s anti-corruption measures have led to the arrest of high officials throughout the country, but it has also had some unintended consequences, including a proliferation of illogical, nonsensical regulations that make contracts like the one we have with the County of Arad almost unworkable.

A quick history: in 2007 RCE entered into a contract with the city of Arad to care for the abandoned children then living in 3 failing government owned orphanages next to our campus. The conditions were scandalous; the city wanted help. Since that time we have worked together, RCE provides great care for the kids and they provide the majority of the funding for what we call our Darius Houses (they still own those 3 buildings). This relationship has not been without challenges but over the years forty-five abandoned, abused and disabled, kids have been placed in Christian families for life! Thirty more needy children live there now.

A new three -year Contract is currently under review but, given what appear to be untenable new regulations, that Contract is at-risk.  RCE will continue to care for every one of the kids currently living in our Darius Houses – we have a life-plan for each one. But loss of the three houses could limit the number of children we could serve in the future and have a serious impact on in-country funding.

Please be in prayer for the country of Romania. Corruption is a major hindrance to its growth. And please pray for men and women in the County office that they will seek the good of the children and for a new Contract under livable terms. And please pray for wisdom for RCE that we might go forward in faith and continue to be a witness to the community in which we serve.

-Mary Ann Bell, Executive Director

Photo credit: Sergiu Salcau

Director's perspective: It would have been enough...

Every few weeks in this space, one of RCE's directors or board members will share the heart and philosophy behind the ministry. This week's post is by Mary Ann Bell, a co-founder of RCE who serves as Executive Director.

‘It would have been enough…’ goes the ancient Passover song, Dayenu. If God had only given us the Law, it would have been enough. If God had only brought us out of Egypt, it would have been enough. Or given us the Promised Land. But instead, as the poem goes, God has given us all that and so much more.

RCE is entering its 25th year. The Passover poem comes to mind as I ponder what God has accomplished in our midst in those years.

It would have been enough, I thought, watching Manu go about his daily life with purpose and joy -- it would have been enough to see just this life rescued. Manu endured all manner of domestic violence that left him mute, followed by time in a state orphanage, but today he has a joyful and purpose-filled life.

It would have been enough to see this young man, so severely disabled, now thriving in his own apartment in RCE’s community. He invites friends over. And he cooks them dinner! He enjoys his job at the RCE Thrift Store and Farm & Garden. It would have been enough.

Cici, whose finger was taken off with a machete by her drunken father, is now part of RCE’s Job Program learning marketable skills she will use one day at a job in the community. Georgiana graduates from high school this year. And Vasile, adopted age seven, is now married and expecting his first child. The cycle is broken. It would have been enough.

And yet there are so many restored lives. There is Darius. And Albert and Emilian. YoYo and Bobi, and more boys named Dani than I can keep straight. There is Florin, Florinel, and Florian. Madalina, and Ema. It would have been enough.

By God’s grace, in the past two and a half decades, RCE has placed more than 100 children into loving Romanian families. We marvel to witness the compassion, generosity and great grace of our God displayed in just one restored life, but what joy to behold it in the many!