MUSTARD SEED PRAYER UPDATE APRIL 20^th 2008

Dear Prayer Supporters

            GIVE THANKS  *   Both Phil and I have just come back from Romania. We would say this last trip has to be one of our best trips ever – so many encouragements, along with often heart-rending confirmation that there is still deep and desperate need among the poorest of the poor, but for some of those Mustard Seed is making a real difference for good – we cannot help all in need but we can make a sustained difference to some.

GIVE THANKS   *  We are so grateful for your prayer support and believe that it makes a huge difference. Once again we saw that in the problems that did occur it was as though God had gone before to make the way as smooth as possible – an example has to be how the injector on the minibus’ engine collapsed on our way to Romania. Thankfully we do carry a spare injector among the spares Phil takes each time. We quickly found the next parking place, which was a small and not too  busy area, and in the warm bright sunshine Phil was able to get us back on the road within an hour – the day before we had had rain and it had been quite cold.

            GIVE THANKS   *   We were accompanied by Bill and Katie Norman driving a donated car. The Romanian charity were thrilled with the car and have taken advice about the process of registering it in Romania. Bill and Katie are long-standing prayer supporters and this was their first trip to Romania. Katie commented that the 4 days they spent in Romania made so much fall into place and make sense of what they had faithfully prayed about.

            GIVE THANKS AND PRAY  *  There are many conformations of how much the help from Jersey makes a difference. But we were shocked especially at the plight of a number of pensioners, including some of our sponsored pensioners.  

            PLEASE PRAY– please pray for PANAJOTH this woman is one of our sponsored pensioners and wheelchair bound. She is totally alone (her only relative being in USA) and dependent on what we give her and her pension. When we visited she was lying in a cold dark room, clearly in a lot of pain, with only her neighbour to help her. The neighbour was deeply concerned about her also. (When I saw her in December she was pain-free and moving in her wheelchair)  It is for people like her that we want to get our home of pensioners built as soon as possible. Nelu has already requested a place for her in it  – PLEASE PRAY WE CAN RAISE THE REMAINING £10,000 we need to complete building it this summer.

            In a distant village we were thrilled and challenged by what VIOREL and his wife are doing. Last year they took 2 homeless pensioners into their own home and they lived with them in their family. Viorel knew there were countless others in equally great need and he finds it hard even impossible to refuse knowing the alternative is life and death on the streets for the homeless elderly. Using his own house and his brother’s house next door (the brother lives in Austria) and 3 caravans in the garden since last year they have taken in 15 homeless old people for whom the alternative would be life and then death on the streets. [It is interesting that while they do not have the required facilities to be registered officially as a home for the elderly by the government, the state hospital has begun sending the homeless to them to avoid the alternative of living on the streets]. Pray for Viorel and his wife and family – thank God for what they are doing and ask for God’s strength for them. If ever we saw Christ-like love and compassion in action it was there.

NEWS FOR PRAYER FOLLOWING ON FROM THE LAST PRAYER UPDATE:

FLORI  :- kidney transplant.

            ANA the pensioner needing cataract surgery has had a successful operation and is over-joyed.

            KATHY LANGSTON is managing to resolve the problems regarding adopting her two foster children and was very positive all would work out, she was most encouraged by the prayer support.

HEALING in Jersey:

LUCILLE the prayer supporter is still in hospital but progressing well..

BERYL (wife of a prayer supporter and sponsor)  – our prayers are asked for Beryl for healing of a badly broken arm.

The Bible encourages us to ask God for WISDOM – in Jersey PHIL and I (ROSE) also the trustees (DAVID, HILARY & MARY) would ask for your prayers for wisdom. In Romania  please pray for wisdom for all the social workers doing such vital work, especially ALEX, RODY, NELU, ADI, NICU, KATHY and many others.

VISIT of Nelu and Cristina April 28^th – May 5^th – please remember them in prayer as they travel and pray that they will challenge and encourage all those who come into contact with them, but also that they will have a happy time here in Jersey.

Please continue to bless us with your prayers.

Rose Helie

PS  If you are interested in reading more about our time in Romania, you may like to read the daily diary I wrote while away on the website.

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