Hope is something all need yet it is one of the hardest things to bring to others if you don’t have it yourself. Hope can inspire us to move out of our circumstances. This month we have been in Romania working at Caminul Felix. This an organization that started in a post communist Romania with the purpose of giving hope and a future to the orphans in Romania. According to our contact and another missionary that we happened to encounter in a supermarket here the orphanages were in a terrible state. Many of them were mal nourished lying in filth, etc. The missionary we encountered also told us of horror that seemed to terrible to imagine such as the transfusion of blood from orphans to give to communist leaders, harvesting of organs, etc.
One article describes orphanages in a post communist Romania as such:
“The [orphanages] varied from poor to abysmal,” says Dana Johnson, an American doctor who first visited Romania in 1993. “People were very morose. There wasn’t much joy in their lives and the institutions reflected that.” In the baby houses, Johnson observed that children’s physical needs were attended to and there was food to eat, “but there was neither the time nor the knowledge to truly promote normal development in kids.” Unlike growing up in a family, the children didn’t have lots of interactions with adults holding them, talking to them, singing or playing with them, and that lack of stimulation affects brain development.”(“American RadioWorks – Rewiring the Brain”)
Yet there was a hope at the end of the tunnel. Many articles describe the rush to adopt Romanian orphans in hopes that loving homes could undo years of neglect. Yet there were some that found a solution that would allow many children to grow up in their native Romania yet still be loved and go on to live normal lives. As told by our contact Mircia the goal was to end the cycle of orphanage to orphanage, orphanage to foster home and maybe back again, going with out loving parents and cut loose once they turned 18.
So the concept of Caminul Felix homes was started in the 1990’s , in which young Christian couples would apply to be parents for life but not in a traditional sense rather than just adopting one or two children the would become parents to large groups of children. Each home would have about 16 children yet these parents would not be alone they would have support from the organization both financial and in kind services, as well as being provided with a home built to meet their needs and in a community of like families.
The organization though funded mostly through donations does try to be self-sustainable and has set up a farm and other small ventures to help with cost.
It is a place where one can find God working deeply in this community. It was really good to be apart of their construction projects, which would allow them to have continual care of many of the children as they venture into adulthood rather than cutting them loose like other organization may do or even as the state does in Romania. But its been a blessing so much of the time I struggled with how I could fit in and love the children or what was my role but in the end God allowed me to see beyond my limitations and realized that I was again an extension of his love continuing the care. And like Nepal there can never be enough time but knowing that time is limited it does teach one to be more responsible with it and more intentional faster.
Here are some articles that go into more detail about the state of orphanages during the reign of communism in Romania http://www.examiner.com/adoptive-families-in-san-francisco/dying-to-be-adopted-romanian-orphanages-exposed
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/romania/b1.html
You find out more about Caminul Felix here: http://www.caminulfelix.ro/index.php?hl=en
https://picasaweb.google.com/102185609041595379042/Apr182011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMSV7YveuOW4tgE&feat=directlink
