Staying Warm

The winters are very hard for the Roma people. It is harder for them to find money on cold winter days, and many times they have nothing to spend on firewood. New Life Roma Church does their best to help those families facing this problem. 

This winter was especially difficult because of the excessive snow and very low temperatures. The help provided was lifesaving: many families would have frozen if it wasn't for the firewood. The harsh winter even lead to the loss of one woman who froze to death in one of the villages. She was asleep in the cold room without any heating and this tragedy happened. The pastor does not remember such things happen before; "it seems that we are living in different times now." Poverty in camps is huge, and people cannot pay as much attention to others as they used to, since it is very hard for them to provide for their own families.

Please pray for the Roma and that God would take care of them even in the details, like having firewood during this harsh winter.

Hats from our hands to your heads

A group of ladies from a church in Roxboro asked last summer what they could do for the children in Ukraine. "Can you sew?" was the response. The ladies were sent a pattern and sample of fleece hats. A week later they had a bunch ready to go and so we took them with us in August. The pastor said not to give them out because the kids would lose them before winter, so we stashed them away in the storage room at New Life and hoped someday we'd get a chance to hand them out. Oh, what a glorious day Monday was when every single child in a small village received a hat during the clinic. Sometimes it's the simplest things that can make a huge impact. Ladies in their 70s and 80s sitting around sewing hats for little ones they'll never meet, wondering what they'd look like wearing their creations. And now they'll know. It doesn't get much better than that.