Friday April 11th
We all agreed that today has been a
challenging though very good and rewarding day. We spent the day with Nelu and
Cristina from FI or Fundatia Increderea visiting the sponsored pensioners and
sponsored families and the “Factory Families”. FI work with 24 of the
pensioners sponsored from
Now in the evening as I write this
diary, the day seems quite a blur – so much need, feeling quite humbled at the
depth of gratitude we have received, so many pensioners moved to tears by the
boxes packed by their sponsors as well as the tins of meat (often an
unaffordable luxury) and toiletries donated by Whitbreads.
One of the features of the day was the
joy so many people got out of rummaging through Phil's bag of sharp items
(confiscated at the airport) and finding useful things, like the first little
old lady living alone who said she had never had a pair of scissors and
over-joyed to be given a couple of pairs. The second pensioners were a married
couple living with eight family members in a very crowded house, including a
son who is mentally handicapped in some way. She was over-joyed and wept on
finding the sponsor had packed her an umbrella. At the next pensioner – a sick
mother with a number of children struggling to manage with no wage-earner but
just her disability pension and her children's small allowances – we were able
to give the daughters some new blouses from Whitbreads, while the boys were
delighted with swiss army knives from Phil's bag.
At the next pensioner's we had a real
treat – a saint of an elderly toothless old lady has been caring for her
bed-ridden husband for 14 years. She had just cooked what we would call
doughnuts, very similar to our
Then on to the Factory Families – 8
families living in a disused factory warehouse because they had nowhere else to
live. Here we heard the sad news that one pensioner – Peter – has died of
pneumonia just a few days ago. Nelu introduced us to a new sad looking little
lady who is homeless and now living there who urgently needs a sponsor.
And so the day continued – for me it was
so lovely to see the recognition and welcome in their eyes after meeting me in
December or on previous visits. The saddest visit had to be a lady with no legs
living in a one roomed shack in a courtyard near the centre of the city. In
December I was moved by how our food
parcel arrived at such an opportune time as she had 5 more days to go till her
pension was due and no food or money. But today she was clearly ill and in
pain, lying in a darkened room. The neighbour was helping her, another
neighbour was disgusted at the lack of help from the authorities for this woman
and said he had phoned the authorities but they had done nothing. She literally
has nobody to help her – her only relative a daughter is in