Spitalul de Copii

I try to make it to the hospital every Tuesday no matter how busy my week may be. I love my kids. I don't know if I have mentioned this enough. 

There is Andrei, who is by far the biggest kid even if he is only 8 months. His smile can make the whole room light up. He is leaving for his new foster home this week. 

Then there is Stefan, who always seems to be sick with something which somehow also ends up with him spitting up all over me. But I still find him adorable. 

And the last picture is of Mihai Stefan? I am not hundred percent sure on the name, it seems to change from week to week. He has a lot of family names people like to call him by. But I am pretty sure he is the cutest baby I have ever seen and I have seen some pretty cute babies. And he always has a smile to give.

Every kid has a story to tell it even though might not be as tragic on the next kid's. One of the boy's who was at the baby hospital the first time I visited this summer was back again today. I wouldn't have recognized him. He is almost three. Ana started to tell me how his dad came to pick him up in the fall and how the police found him on the streets this past week. I couldn't get the thought out of my head, how this little boy was surviving on the streets and how a parent could forget there kid like that. It breaks my heart. And I can only pray that God takes care of every single one of these kids and gives them a better life. 

Tuesday's

Today's Tuesday so I get to see this little man.

Stefan and Brianna (Sarah's daughter)

Stefan has a special place in my heart even if he has gotten sick on me more then once. Right now we don't have many babies. Woody was put in a foster home, Ghe-ghe wants to move around so he got moved up to the toddlers room. Leaving me to take care Stefan and the twins. 

Rebecca and Samuel are the names of the twins, their mother is only 16. She told the nurses she would come pick them up in six months. She comes to visit them every week but the poor girl has no idea how to take care of babies and probably has no money to take care of either. Please keep this family in your prayers. This girl truly is a loving mother. 

Anchor of Hope

Anchor of Hope is the non-profit organization I volunteer with at the baby hospital and the little kid orphanage I go to. Anchor of Hope is run by Sarah Smith. Sarah has been working in Romania since 2006. Anchor of Hope (aka Ancora Sperantei) provides stimulation, play time, and love to the babies who have no one at the baby hospital. Anchor of Hope also ministers to the Romanian staff providing them with time off, rest, and assistance. At the orphanage we share the love of Christ with young girls who have been abused mentally, physically, and sexually. These girls are at high risk for sex-trafficking and prostitution. Anchor of Hope provides a program with these girls that teach them about Christ and life skills. 

Sarah has an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Masters in Child and Family Counseling. If you would like to make a donation and help Sarah and her organization click on this direct link and donate today. 

Our greatest need right now is diapers. Our kids need them! We have 59 kids in diapers which means we use around 5000 a month. Unfortunately we are coming to the end of our diaper stock. 

Sweetest Day!

Since I have gotten a few compliments on my new blog outline. I decided I need to step up my game in blogging. Just to let you all know I designed that blog heading while watching The Voice with my roommates. I guess you can say that's where I find my true inspiration?

Anyway so a friend posted the origin of Sweetest Day on facebook. And it really touched me probably cause it began in Cleveland (woot woot, go Ohio!) and second because it was started by a man who wanted to bring happiness to the orphans which makes my heart happy.

This past week has been good in so many ways. I have gotten to volunteer at the orphanage partnered with Anchor of Hope. Which has been lots of fun. The kids are starting to recognize me even though they are so young. It's makes me miss the Stoner boys sometimes but I remember God put me with these orphan kids right now for a reason.

I also got to see my babies this week. They had a few more newborns come in from a couple different hospital so we have a lot kids right now. Sadly I didn't get to see my orphans kids at the Pinocchio orphanage. Kim's Pastor and his wife are visiting us this week. And stories of the kids have seem to come out more and more. All the horrible things these kids have went through breaks my heart. And of course it makes me want to be able to adopt them all even more. But since I can't, I am excited to see them and share the little love I can. 

Today we went to a different gypsy village. I am not going to lie at first I was disappointed because I have grown close to the kids at our normal village that I didn't want to leave them. But this new village was also great to visit, the kids were awesome so well behaved and polite with me as I was struggling to understand. I am really happy for this opportunity to have another village to serve.

After I shared with you how my week went, I will go back to why I started writing this original post. Because of Sweetest Day! A lot of friends have been arguing about whether it's only an Ohio holiday or not. Sadly it is (or was?) and many Ohioans think of it as a second Valentine's Day. But that is not the reason it was started. It was started to bring happiness into the lives of the orphans, shut-ins, and others who were often forgotten.

So with the discussion of Sweetest Day on my mind. I decided to share it with my roommates and we have decided that this week we will celebrate the kids. We do this every week but since we missed this past week with everybody being sick ( I forgot to tell you everyone has been sick, some stomach bug going around.), we are going to try extra hard to put more happiness into the lives of our kids. To think most of these kids have faced more horrible things then I could ever imagine, I like to think that for 4 hours a week I can see them with smiles on their faces. 

Romanian.

This past week has been pretty busy between homeschooling the Postema kids, going to the orphanages, and getting all my visa paper work done. I am very happy to admit I was fully exposed to Romanian almost all week but I am not going to lie that it was also a bit frustrating at times to try to talk to the kids in Romanian all the time. It's a lot mentally trying to speak in a foreign language let alone in a crazy setting whether it's orphan kids screaming or arguments breaking out at the immigration office. But by the end of the week I felt like I was slowly getting the hang of things. 

After much searching through facebook, I finally found some pictures of the kids I work with. Yay! Up above is a picture of the orphan kids I work with through Anchor of Hope. And the picture down below is of the gypsy kids we work with. The gypsy kids are awesome always starting up conversations with me correcting my Romanian. 

After telling you a little about my week, I will post a new blog post this week about the gypsy kids and give you more of the details of some of the kids. 

Hope you all have a great week!