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Dear Family and Friends,
On June 1, 1998, I rolled across the Hungarian/Romanian border to embark up what I thought was a six month mission trip. Ironically, June 1st is International Children’s Day in Romania and many other countries in Europe. Having completed my Masters in Social Work only one month prior, my adventurous spirit was racing inside me. So much so that I had made no arrangements for a place to live nor did I even know any of the language because there had been no time with working full-time and going to graduate school. What I did know is that God would work at the details of my stay because I trusted Him. What I did not know at the time is that He would ask me to stay ten years.
Everything began with a little Roma girl who had fallen into an open fire and had third degree burns from mid-calf to her waist and could not walk. She had such terrible contractures that the doctors at the time told me she would never walk. But God had other plans. I took her to the United States after an American doctor, the late Dr. Tom Williams, arranged for her to have 11 surgeries and 10 months of physical therapy. Because of God’s provision through Dr. Williams, Crizantina returned to Romania in 1999 which meant I did, too. This time, the commitment was to stay until The Lord called me back to the United States. But that took a little while.
The next major thing I felt The Lord do was ask me to start a private, Christian orphanage. I will always look back on this time of my life as one of the absolute best times ever. The joy was indescribable as we took abandoned infants out of state-run institutions into our facility with such compassionate, Christian people working there. Many of those children were adopted by Romanians and we have the joy of getting to hear about them as they continue on with their adult lives now.
We had to roll with the political punches the European Union threw at us just a few years after opening the orphanage. We were forced to close down and put all of the remaining children in foster care. Thankfully, we were able to find mostly precious Christian families to care for our precious children. Sadly, there was one situation where we had to place a child within a state-run institution because of all the severe issues he had as a result of being abandoned. Leaving him that day left a scar on my heart.
My last “baby” in foster care will be getting married next month. I still can’t wrap my head about that!
Many of you will remember that Agape Home was originally opened to be a maternity home but, after one mother abandoned her children at our facility, we realized the local government was going to force us to keep the children and there was no caregiver for them. This situation became so complicated that we decided to close the home for pregnant women. We are thankful for the lives that were born and not aborted as a result of our home.
When we prayed about addressing the spiritual root to the social problem of children being abandoned, we discovered that the extreme poverty and illiteracy was causing the Roma girls to have two or three children before 18 years of age and many times they were all abandoned causing the hospitals to overflow with abandoned babies. We asked The Lord to give us one family willing to send their daughter to high school. It did not take long for Him to answer and He brought Crina into our path! But Crina had MUCH MORE in her than just high school….she completed college to become a teacher and then got her certification in teaching the Romani language! Now we have just graduated a second Roma woman from college and a third will soon follow! To God be the glory, great things He has done!
Daniel is the one who had the idea to focus on more than just the Roma girls because he knew we needed godly Roma men raising families. After much discussion with the Roma families, it was decided we would board their boys at Agape Home so they would be closer to the city and have an easier commute to go to high school. We have had dozens of young men from many ethnic backgrounds and it has been a blessing to watch them succeed over the years. During our trip to Romania last month, we were able to visit three of the first boys and our hearts were so full when we saw how incredibly successful they all are and how well cared for and valued their children are.
When we realized how difficult school was for many Roma students because they had illiterate parents, decided to begin an after school to help ensure educational success. It worked. Our after schools in both Santandrei and Gepis have also been a tremendous success with many Roma students going on to high school and waiting to have children. If there are Roma babies being abandoned from either of those two villages now, I do not know about it. And that was the entire vision The Lord gave us; pour into children through our programs so they would see the value of their own children later.
I wish I could tell you that my idea about working together with other Christians in ministry was filled with compassion and understanding while we sat around singing “kumbaya” but I would noy be telling you the truth. And what I know for sure is that I was as much to blame many times as my stubborn counterparts. Some mistakes taught me very hard yet valuable lessons in the process and I learned to listen to what The Lord was saying and not to worry about anything other than staying focused on my calling. There were attempts to completely sabotage the ministry. A few of them came very close with terrible lies and accusations. Some came through our ministry and, not only did they not help our efforts, they actually harmed it by being involved. And some only came to start their own ministries and quickly move on. But I learned something very early on about Children In The Son; it was not “my” ministry; it was God’s ministry. That meant He could end it whenever He chose or expand it whenever He chose. Honestly, it is nothing short of miraculous that a ministry the size of ours still operates after 25 years.
So I am excited to share with you that The Lord recently chose to expand our ministry to two new villages and develop a partnership with a city about an hour from Oradea. We are currently working on the building of one of the villages where we will be partnering with a church and we will be partnering with another church in the other village within a month or so. The other ministry in the city about an hour from Oradea is a soup kitchen that feeds the homeless people that grew up in a state-run orphanage but did not have the life skills to survive on their own. We are so thankful for the pastor there that was raised in an orphanage himself and is now ministering to so many with the work of his own hands.
I told Daniel on the way home from our last trip that I wondered if The Lord was about to call me home. Daniel questioned why I thought that and it was because my heart was so full by the people that took the time to thank me for answering God’s calling to come to Romania and explain what it had meant to them and their lives. It happened over and over again that I started wondering if I had fulfilled my time here on this earth! Truly, there was no greater gift that someone could give me than to tell me that they walk with The Lord because I answered God’s call to Romania. Many people work a lifetime and don’t get to see the fruits of the labor so I fully understand how blessed I am that I do get to experience fruit.
And none of this would have been possible without the Romanian nationals that are fully devoted followers of Christ. It is hard for any foreign missionary to do ministry without trustworthy nationals to help and I know the Romanians we have working with us in full-time ministry now are living out their calling to be used by The Lord to touch the lives of many in their country. My sincere gratitude to each of you for being the hands and feet of Jesus to those you serve.
Maybe The Lord will give me another 25 years of full-time ministry or maybe He will end the ministry. Whatever He decides, I know I can trust Him as much today as I did 25 years ago when I crossed that border and let Him know I would serve Him until He calls me home.
Basking In The Son,
Michelle
Photo below is soon after I opened the orphanage. If you have any photos of me in Romania, I would love to have them!
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