4 Thursday Jan 16th
Good morning. Now of course today is Thursday. Four weeks ago today I was in Romania with Mustard Seed Jersey. The
Thursday of my trip was a memorable day.
We started by going to the Cash and carry store and filling 2 trolleys
with items needed to pack up 15 food parcels. They certainly weren’t the sort
of contents that we were put in a Christmas hamper over here - they were the
basics flour, pasta, sugar, oil etc We paid using some of the money that
had been donated by people in Jersey
Afterwards we packed up the 15 food parcels. Then we spent the rest of
the day giving out those food parcels to people in need.
If we were in any doubt that there is still real need among the poorest
of the poor in Romania those visits proved to us that there is still great
need. I mentioned one family yesterday.
I felt our last visit was the most challenging. By then it was starting
to get dark and quite difficult to get down steep uneven steps to the little
basement area where this family lived. There seemed to be at least four
children playing football outside - I noticed one of the boys was barefoot.
Inside it seemed there was only one room the family could afford to heat. Lying
on a mattress on the floor with the father. The social worker explained that he
had cancer but the family had no money to pay for any further treatment.
Without doubt our food parcel would be a huge benefit to that family but
we left troubled at the suffering we’d seen.
A prayer: Lord give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, courage to change those things I can and wisdom to know the difference.
Amen