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May Update

Dear Friends,

You have all heard about the foolish man. He built his house on the sand. When the rains poured down and the floods came up, the house fell – and great was its fall (Matt. 7:27)! But what if we modified the story a bit?

First of all, ours is not known as a foolish man. In fact, he has a good reputation, power and wealth. This wealthy man built the faulty house but did not live in it. He lived in the house built on a rock, and he called the poorly constructed house “social housing” and rented it out to the desperately poor. Faced with the massive expense of feeding their children every day and paying for electricity and heat, the disadvantaged renters gave the builder what they had, which was always less than the monthly rent. So, the debt for rent ran up. Then the rains poured down. The waters infiltrated the brick walls, washing away its poor construction. The walls fell. The house was uninhabitable. The poor family moved their possessions out to the streets. Instead of moving the homeless family into other social housing, the wealthy man said that because of their debt, they do not qualify for social housing. Who, in this story, is the foolish person? 

This was more or less the experience of one of the families with whom we are in relationship. The long, hard rains brought down their walls, and they – elderly and children – were evacuated by police wearing black masks. Their furniture and other belongings sit on the street side,  covered in cellophane. The city council told them that because of their debt, they don’t qualify for other social housing.

This is one of the injustices that we are currently facing. Another is a situation of abuse. One of the girls involved in our Community Center activities has not been protected by her guardians, leaving her vulnerable to the abuse by other relatives. This is extremely difficult as we try to understand the problem, help to provide a safe environment, and try to involve the appropriate authorities.

Please pray for the injustices that we witness and engage. We need wisdom, courage and tact.

Although we are going through these trials, we have also experienced some great joys in the last month. We hosted a group made up of friends from Scotland and the Netherlands – relationships that we hope will grow and from which we’ll continue to learn. Our whole community also went on our annual week-long retreat, where we were able to set aside a lot of time for prayer, solitude and reflection and for games and time together. We were glad to have a long-term volunteer and two Servant Team members with us for the retreat. As they departed to the US after the retreat, we welcomed a summer intern and then a small 3-week Discovery Team from George Fox university, which will serve with us in Moldova and then in Romania.

Over the past few months, I’ve also helped facilitate annual evaluations and planning for another Christian non-profit organization in Galati and a soft-ware company run by a good friend of mine. Although this takes a lot of energy and work, I’m delighted to see the betterment of these organizations.

In the coming weeks, we hope to finish our Earth Ship greenhouse and set-up the aquaponics garden. We are also starting to prepare for our summer camp. Although we had our biggest number of kids at camp last year, we hope to bring even more kids this year! That means we are starting now to raise money for this special week away from the normality of life – all the bad and all the good – and experience a week of fun and safety and see a different vision for life. Camp costs $250 per child, so please help us by getting the word out. It really is an investment in a better future for these kids.

We also will be in the US at the end of the summer. As I did last autumn, I am going to try and initiate new partnerships for our community in Romania. If you want to help organize a meeting, presentation or event, please let me know.

Thank you for sustaining us with your encouragement and prayer!

yours in Christ,

david and lenutsa