Dec 11th 2012 11/12/2012
The weather is very cold - not above freezing all day. The roads were challenging in the villages but the main roads were clear.
Early this morning the drivers left for St Malo. They had a bit of a wait at the border. DRUM BUN - which is literally Good Road or Safe Driving.
Today was the Beaulieu group's last day and so after 2 more school distributions and a visit to Agape they set off for Budapest.
The visit to Agape was encouraging as what that foundation do to build for the future of young people brought up in the state orphanage system through an education programme and also example and life skills. We heard and saw how the sustained investment in lives of young people works and makes a huge potential difference for good.
Several of the young women with them have "graduated" and no longer live on the premises but in apartments nearby and are self supporting through various jobs they have. Two are unemployed - because a factory has no orders so the workforce are given extra time off and of course no salaries. Neither are sure they factory will re-open as orders are down. It is difficult for these young women. But overall the picture of the work Agape do is encouraging.
(I should add that there are a number of other foundations in this area who offer excellent provision for young people brought up in the state orphanages. We happened to visit Agape. In the afternoon I personally visited another called El Sadai, who have approached Mustard Seed to request assistance with clothes and bedding for their young people.)
Did I tell you I had a request for shoeboxes from the opposite end of Romania ? From Galati area. Just a small number. They had got to hear about Mustard Seed through the Internet so wrote to me via the website. Unless they can pay for the cost of transport or postage we will not be able to consider helping them with the 12 shoeboxes they are asking for. Alex says he has had requests for hundreds, even thousands more shoeboxes than we can pack.
In Jersey someone gave Bob the driver a lovely new teddy bear with a note attached: PLEASE FIND A GOOD HOME FOR THIS BEAR. Bob in turn passed the bear on to me. I plan to donate him/it to the Vineyard kindergarten, the youngest class is called Teddy Bears and the bear will be their mascot and they plan to call it BOB.