Joe Bro

Hello all! It's Breanne. I'm not much of a blogger but I have decided it's my time to share. As Chelsea mentioned a bit in her latest post, today was our first day getting to visit The Isaiah Center. Please, if you aren't aware of what the Isaiah center is, you should visit the website and read more about it. www.fmnministries.org. A brief summary though, is that the Isaiah Center was opened by Forget Me Not Minstries, whose mission is to reach out to the abandoned and orphaned children living in the Roma Community. It was so inspiring today listening to Rachel, the founder of the organization, share her hopes and dreams for the future of the Isaiah house as well as the entire Gypsy community of Tinca. It is a huge dream, but is one I know that can be accomplished.

Currently the Isaiah house cares for 7 children. Abel and his brother Samuel, Florica and her sister Simona, their cousin Maria, Alex, and baby Calina. All 7 of these children are from the Roma Village. I would be more than happy to talk about each one of them in another post, but it is getting really late and we have a long day tomorrow, so for this post I must cut it short and then head off to bed. So for now, I'll just share a couple thoughts...

JOE BRO! What? Yes, I said it. Joe Bro. That is our prestigeous award for today! Each night, us leaders have decided that we will be giving out awards to the students for outstanding effort and acts of complete selflessness. Today, the "Joe Bro" awards (named after a DELICIOUS Romanian snack called 'the Joe Bro') were given to Aaron, Jacob, and Michael. Not only have these guys survived being the only boys being outnumered 3 to 10 by us ladies, but they were AMAZING today. The way they interacted with the children at the village left us all speechless. So hats off to you boys!! Have a Joe Bro.


And, moving on...

As the bus pulled into Tinca today I realized that I had absolutely no idea what to expect! I had been so excited to get there and to see all the children, but as I got up from my seat to exit the bus a sort of panic ran through me. "What am I doing here?!" I must say though, that immediately as I got off of the bus, all of my fears vanished. Kids instantly began running up to us with smiles on their faces, and hands reached out looking for someone, ANYONE, to just hold their hand and show them that they were loved. We were there for almost 2 hours, and not once was your hand empty or did you not feel a loving child's arms wrapped around your waist. Every time I looked into a child's eyes, my heart melted. There was one girl in particular who touched me today. She looked as though she was about 10 years old, and when she walked up to me she looked at me and smiled, and put her arm around my waist and just layed her head on my shoulder. I squeezed back to give her a hug, and just let her leave her head on my shoulders. I immediately began thinking of the love and attention this girl desired. How much love had she been shown in her life? How much abuse had this girl gone through personally that I have no idea about! Unfortunately, the stories of the abuse these young girls go through are horrific, and the hard truth is, that it would extremely rare to find one who has not been abused in some form or another. Then another thought occurred to me. When you see the babies, and toddlers, your heart breaks for them, seeing them filthy, neglected, abused, and defenseless. Especially when all you want to do is just squeeze those adorable pudgy cheeks and hold them and cradle them in your arms. But what about the older children? Do our hearts break as easily for them? Obviously we care abot them, but do we run to show them the same love we show the younger ones? I know this isn't every case, but usually it's the young children our eyes are drawn to that you want to cuddle and love. But this older girl had probably been through more than I can even imagine. At one time in her life, she was one of those young babies, and has grown up in a life of poverty, abuse, and neglect. Yet still she stands here, arms open wide, with a huge smile on her face, just wanting someone to love her. So I did. And her and I were inseperable for the last 40 minutes we were in the village, in a constant side hug that I didn't want to break when we had to say goodbye.

I know I will see her throughout the rest of this week, but then I will be leaving. I will head home and leave them behind. But I cannot get discouraged by this thought. Because this week I am going to give her, and as many other children as I can, the love that they deserve, and hope that they can see our Father's love through me. And I will do all I can to help Rachel with our projects we are doing at the Isaiah Center to make it the best center that it can be, and to do my part to help ensure that Rachel's God given dream for the center becomes a reality. Because even though I may be leaving for now, I WILL be coming back. And others will be coming as well. And Rachel and her team will be here working. And these children's lives and their families' lives, WILL be changed. Because God IS here.