January 2009 Update

What a joy it was to be home for the holidays! I was able to spend a month with my parents in Texas and had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends! I also got to spend a few weeks in Boise, but time was short and I didn’t get to see everyone I wanted to. Overall, it was a great visit and I was able to enjoy a much needed rest.

I had a long, but uneventful trip back to Bistrita and was welcomed by warm people, but a cold house! We had switched from our expensive gas radiator heating system to a wood burning stove just before I left for the States. So although it will save almost $1,000 per month in heating costs, it isn’t big enough to heat the entire house. We finally have the temperature inside up to 62 degrees now, but it took us a while to get there. Fortunately, the outside temperatures have been warming and that helps. It also helps that all of us are home again from our holiday travels and have someone tending to the fire on an ongoing basis. Along with all of us being home again, we discovered that we had some unexpected visitors staying with us…mice! We practically had mice condos in the pantry there were so many! To date, we have disposed of 17 mice. Hopefully we don’t have others yet to be discovered. One night we set 6 traps and in the morning, had 6 dead mice! I guess it’s a good thing the house is so cold or we might have had a larger rodent problem!
I have started back with the outreach programs again....basically picked up where I left off. It has been great fun loving on the kids again. They were really excited to see me and overall seem to be much calmer these days, which is wonderful. I think our new workers have settled into a better routine with the kids now and it is much less stressful for all of us. We’ve had a lot of sickness (colds and such) hitting the kids pretty hard this month, but overall the kids are doing well.

The New Year has brought some changes at the orphanage. In the past, I’ve focused my attention on the children in the "baby room"...where our smaller and younger children live. Our oldest is 7 years, but mentally still an infant. It has been and continues to be challenging, but the children are making great progress and some have even been placed into foster care. Consequently, the director has asked that Ildiko (the lady from our church who works with me there) and I begin working with the big kids too. They are much more difficult because they are larger, stronger, and can be violent. The number of older children living at the orphanage has increased over the past year because children from nearby villages have been transferred there for better care. There are 21 children aged 9-20 who could use more attention. During the week most of them are able to attend a local school specializing in children with special needs, however, there are 11 who are unable to attend due to the severity of their condition. These are the children we have been asked to focus on. The past two weeks we have spent several hours with these children and it was very difficult as neither of us have any special training or experience in this area. . The difference between the environment in the baby room and in the big kids’ rooms is huge. There is little interaction between the workers and the children and only a few toys even in the rooms (out of reach of the children). It seems they just watch the children to make sure they do not hurt themselves or each other, but do nothing to interact with them in a loving, nurturing, or educational way. I have also been told that there are still workers who do not like our presence in the orphanage because they do not like change and are upset that they have to tend to the children now instead of watching TV or reading magazines as they have done in the past. Please pray for continual change and openness in the hearts of the workers. Change can happen and I’ve already witnessed it to some degree. In just a few short days I have seen amazing changes in the children and the overall environment with the big kids. Yesterday we introduced music by bringing a CD filled with Romanian children songs and the reaction was priceless. The children expressed themselves in ways I had never witnessed before…smiling, laughing, clapping, even screaming with joy when the music started. One girl began rocking back and forth with a huge smile on her face and the more she liked the song, the faster she rocked. Even the workers were laughing and dancing around the room. We all laughed together with the children and had a marvelous time. It is my heart’s desire to see joy in these children’s lives and for them to experience genuine love and affection. Please pray that we will continue to introduce ways and methods of reaching both the children and the workers.


Another exciting thing that happened this month in the orphanage is Christmas!! Several years ago a team from Spain came for a couple of weeks and helped in the orphanage. The children made such a huge impact on them that they have sent
Christmas gifts for each of the children in the baby room for the past two years. I was able to bring those gifts to the children again this year and we so enjoyed sharing in their joy as they opened their gifts. Many of the workers as well as managers and staff joined in the celebration of joy. Each child received a new outfit and shoes as well as a toy specially picked out for them. The outfits were adorable and very fashionable and all of us ladies oohed and awed over them. The children who could, immediately put on their new shoes and proudly showed them off. Nicoleta even tried dressing herself…although we had to laugh when she put her new panties on her head! The toys are still being enjoyed and shared among all of them! It is my hope that long after they’ve outgrown the clothing and the toys are broken that we will all remember the love of our friends from Spain.

Prayer Requests:
• One of the boxes I shipped to myself is missing. Please pray that it will arrive soon!
• Health…I’ve had a nasty sinus infection and cough
• Continuing to learn the Romanian language
• Wisdom in working with the older children and new workers in the orphanage
With much love,
Natalie Bridges
natalie926@hotmail.com


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