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This months Horizons Foundation newsletter is coming to you from Odessa, Ukraine. During July, Charlotte and Al have traveled to Chidget, Romania to visit the orphanage for disabled children. Both mentally and physically disabled children live there. Things have dramatically improved for these children during the last few years. In the 1980's, placing a child in this orphanage was a death sentence, as the Chow-chess-cue (Cara, if necessary write Mileaha Forder an email and ask her how to spell the former leader of Romania's name - I've spelled it out phonetically) government considered all of these children to be worthless, throwaway children. During the period from 1989 thru 1991, the 3 years leading up to the overthrow of the Chow-chess-cue government, over 150 children died at this single orphanage due to starvation. During late 1996 or early 1997, our partners in Romania, a group called My Brothers Keeper, heard about an orphanage called Chidget. This orphanage was considered shameful during the Cow-chess-cue years and even though the village of Batar is less than 10 miles from Chidget, no one living in Batar had ever heard of Chidget. Representatives from My Brothers Keeper were simply attending a church service a few miles away from Batar and asked if the folks there knew of any orphanages around. Only one person living in this village less than 5 miles away had heard about Chidget, but didn't know where it was located. Rev. Will Holtry, the founder of My Brothers Keeper began driving the countryside looking for Chidget. One afternoon, he saw a long hedgerow of trees and he knew the then Romanian style of hiding something you didn't want others to see was to put a hedgerow of trees outside of a tall concrete fence to keep prying eyes away. As he drove closer he came to a gated, guarded entrance. He asked if this was an orphanage for disabled children. When given an affirmative answer, he asked to go see the Director. He was allowed in and the new Director, a doctor, received him graciously. From that date forward, various food supplies have been given to the orphanage on a regular basis. If you want to make a difference in the health of over 120 disabled children, $350 per month will supply much needed meat and vegetables to these children. Of course, they could use a van load of food per month. That would cost about $900 for the food, $50 for the gas to delivery it there and $45 for wages for the My Brothers Keeper's employees to delivery the foods items there. Horizons Foundation has been supplying some meat and vegetables for these kids for over two years. Rev. Will Holtry has expressed how much more healthy the children were within one month of the first van load of foodstuffs arriving. He also reported how the orphanage Director broke down in tears of thanksgiving when the first van load of food arrived. They had been on a subsistence diet of potatoes and bread before this arrival. Amazing things have happened at this orphanage during these last 8 years. Some Germans found out about Chidget and came to their rescue in a big way. They received Romanian government approval to build three large homes on the grounds, each home appears to have about 2000 sq ft per floor and each home has two floors. These were turned into dormitories and allowed almost half the children to be moved from the single large three story home where all had lived before. Now, only about 60 kids live in the big home, where they stay in large bedrooms holding 8 to 12 children. The children are clean and well cared for, given physical therapy and this director/doctor who has been in charge since 1993 has initiated a program of taking his highest functioning children and has moved them into staffed half-way type houses in the city of Oredea. He now has two such homes in Oredea and there are at least 20 children living and working from these homes. Romania has a law for everything and one of their laws allows for a tax break for businesses hiring the handicapped. Every legal business now has an incentive to hire the handicapped, and every one of these children/young adults now has a job. Laws can change much quicker than attitudes. Just a couple of years ago, Rev. Holtry was leaving Chidget and offered a ride to a visiting Romanian psychologist. During the ride back to Oredea, the psychologist asked Rev. Holtry why he cared about these children at Chidget. The psychologist then went on to say that these children have no practical value and don't have any souls, so why bother. It was a great opportunity for Rev. Holtry as he tried to gently explain God's love for every person to this well educated psychologist; at the same time it was a very sad moment for Rev. Holtry as he realized that this attitude still permeated the educated population of Romania. Charlotte and Al have just visited Hope House in Odessa, Ukraine and have been very encouraged with seeing the 9 former street children living there. Approximately 9/10th of an acre has just been made available adjacent to Hope House for $3600 and Horizons Foundation has committed to fund this purchase during August. If you'd like to assist in this purchase, please let us know. Next month, we will provide a more detailed account of Hope House and the progress being made there. In His Service, Al and Charlotte Lockhart Al Lockhart Past Newsletters: 30 November 2003 31 December 2003 01 January 2004 01 February 2004 01 March 2004 01 April 2004 31 May 2004 30 June 2004 01 July 2004 01 August 2004 30 September 2004 31 October 2004 30 November 2004 31 December 2004 31 January 2005 28 February 2005 31 March 2005 02 May 2005 02 July 2005 31 August 2005 11 October 2005 18 December 2005 02 April 2006 30 June 2006 31 October 2006 |
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