Beryls Veiw

Romania April 2008

How quickly 6 months can go, here we are back from our first trip to Romania for 2008.
The journey there was pretty rough, snow, hail, sleet, heavy rain, beautiful sunshine (momentarily) you name it we went through it. We arrived at our hotel again within minutes of all the other journeys in spite of the weather, (who wants to travel in those conditions?)
We had a good nights sleep and as always had our prayer time before we left to start our second day. Well I do not know what happened but I prayed and it came out all wrong, what I said intimated that I would be going to Heaven that day. Sometimes words just do not come out right do they? Well this just added to the mixed feelings I had had about this first trip, the enemy latched onto them as we set off. The weather was worse this second day and all the thoughts I thought I had dealt with came rushing back, but our God is so faithful. Here was I, concerned that in this really bad weather we were going to have an accident, I suddenly said to David ‘where is all the traffic’? and just as suddenly there was God just making it so clear that we were ok, He is in control and I had this immense feeling of being hugged so tightly that it could only be the love of God holding me. What an experience it was.
We had another trauma coming home David was very unwell, he looked a bit off colour when we left at 6:50 on Monday morning but we thought he was just a bit tired but by Tuesday morning for the last part of our journey home he was very unwell. We can say without a shadow of doubt that it is only by the Grace of God that we got home safely. Even as I write this some 3 days after getting home he is still spending most of the day sleeping.

In between we were just so blessed with this trip. The first week David spent most of his time trying to fix the boiler, there was a leak somewhere because the pressure just kept dropping. Having put two new gaskets on the boiler it still kept loosing pressure. So we had no real heat only a fan heater and it was bitterly cold. Finally David and Cyril did find where the leak was, it was right by Cyril’s bed, so having found it we arranged for it to be repaired and went off to Petrosani for our first screening session. The drama did not stop, Cyril had arrived with a bad back which in spite of trying everything to help him it just got worse and we found ourselves at the hospital for a couple of hours. So as not to crowd the emergency rooms David & I waited in the car, Cyril went in with Cornelia and Dan (he translates for us) eventually we went in to see what was going on. This young doctor had given Cyril a strong pain killing injection and was telling him what he was to do to help himself. David and I looked at the doctor then each other and realised we had met him somewhere before but could not think where. When we spoke to him it was obvious he also recognized us. We then remembered we had met at the Caritas Centre 3 years ago but had not seen each other since, he knew Nora, who runs the Caritas centre, so explained to her what he had done and she told Cyril and us. God is wonderful He puts just the right people in the right place at the right time.

In Petrosani the screening went so well. We had suggested that they use an appointment system this year. They did and they had sent me the information before we left so I was able to get it all on the computer before we arrived there and it all went so smoothly no one getting pressured or anxious. The training went really well too, the young people were soon doing the job themselves, under supervision of course. They did so well that they are going to do their own screening now. When we go in June they will be assessed and, if they are ok, we will have achieved our objective and made ourselves redundant. That will give us another problem though because they are so well organized now we are likely to have to find another optometrist to go out with us in September. We saw over a hundred people over the day and a half we were there. Giving out 78 pairs of glasses.




We returned to Siria and had three more screening sessions to do. In Siria on the Saturday morning they too ran an appointment system and could not believe how smoothly it all went, the couple we trained here were very good too but are not quite ready to do their own yet. After June they may well be.

Last year we went to Ioan Church in Cladova you may remember me telling you about that, the facilities left a lot to be desired. This time we went to the second of Ioan’s 3 Church’s (Ioan is one of the pastors sponsored by BBC) this one in Cuvin, a village about half an hour from Siria. I went wondering what to expect here, to my great surprise and delight this little Church has built a small extension on the back, the room is obviously a Sunday School room with a small kitchenette in one corner. Out the back they had built two lovely flush toilets.
We saw 82 people that day and 66 received glasses. Cornel a deacon was trained to screen here and wants to do more, he picked the work up really quickly and is very keen to learn more so that he can work with the folk from Siria and Galsa and do their own sessions between our visits. As I said earlier when they all start doing this for themselves we then have to find more optometrists.
We went to Galsa the day after Cuvin which was really tiring. We had planned days between but they could not accommodate us so that was how it had to be. We saw 77 people in Galsa.
This trip we gave away over 300 pairs of glasses, seeing the faces of these folk as they can see again after so long still brings tears to our eyes and just makes all the hardships we go through worth every bit of it, never again will I take for granted water from my tap and the great pressure we receive it. The pressure was just about ok for showering but to fill the kettle just took ages, I used to put the kettle in the sink turn the tap on and go do something and come back when it was full.
Oh Romania dear Romania I love it.
Something really encouraging happened as we were doing our food shop in Arad. We suddenly heard English voices so wanting them to know we understood them David asked me if I wanted any popcorn, (I do not like popcorn) and we walked on. When we got in the next aisle we bumped into them again and started talking. This young lady, Kathrine, and her husband are running a street children centre right in the middle of Arad, they have been out there 7 years and speak fluent Romanian. We went to see then at the centre and she told us her testimony about how it all came into being it is just incredible. The vision she had and how God provided it is just amazing. I would love to tell you all about it but I was so enthralled by what she was telling us I cannot remember all the details so rather than tell only half the story just believe me it is truly AMAZING. This house they have is right in the middle of Arad with it’s own courtyard just as she had seen in her vision but when

trying to find it was told there was no such place….but there was! We had a long talk with Kathrine and will be seeing her again in June and hopefully working with her to help these street children. God just keeps opening up new doors for us, Kathrine is an ophthalmic nurse!!!! We are all very excited about what the future holds now in Arad.