Hi there friends and family,
We hope you are doing well. We are doing good! The last few months we started to work on more ministries, step by step. We are now joining YWAM in going to Corbesti. This is a very remote village were gyspies live. It is not as big as a community as we've seen before, but also here is a lot of poverty. Since they are so far out of town and because it's such a small village, there is not a lot of local work for them. Most of the men are right now abroad to work for the summer, leaving the women and kids at home alone. Here as well, are many teenage moms, some as young as 13. We go and visit these moms and try to encourage them and when possible help them with clothes, food and baby supplies. We also teach the kids English and last week we were able to hand out shoes to all the kids, thanks to a team that came from the USA and supplied these shoes. Alejandro is going to focus more on reaching out to the older boys and young men, as they really need a male influence and coaching in their lives.
It's always challenging to work with gypsies, but not impossible, it requires perseverance. They have (in most cases) a deeply rooted culture, in which no education, begging, being pregnant at a young age, neglecting children, are normal things. This makes it hard for them to improve their lives and come out of poverty. But, a couple weeks ago YWAM was able to provide the families with an audio bible, this is such a blessing for these families. As many of them cannot read, they now can hear the Word of God. Which is so powerful and (probably) the only way for them to change their lives. The bible has such great values on how to treat your spouse, your children, your neighbors, how to take care of your money and possesions and so on. We pray that these audio bibles will encourage them to change their lives.
A couple weeks ago we were able to help an Ukranian family with three kids. They were staying here in Romania but wanted to go to Holland, so they would be able to work as well. We were able to help them find a place in Holland and now they are living there for the moment. Thanks to some generous people, they now all have bikes as well -a very essential way of transportation in Holland:)-.
Thanks to a lot of you out there, who gave very generously towards humanitarian aid for Ukraine. We were able to finance another trip our colleagues are making into Ukraine, to bring the most essential supplies.
In the meantime we hope to be able to start our woodworkshop project soon. We are now looking for a garage or shed, were we can start working. A more detailed update about this will follow soon (and how you can help to make this possible!)
We are also looking for a piece of land where we can develope future projects.
We always appreciate your prayers, here are some points to pray for:
- That we can find a place to start the woodworkshop.
- That we can find the right piece of land for our future projects.
- For our family; for our physical health, for strenght and energy.
- For the gypsies, that their lives will be transformed through the word of God.
If you like to support the work that we do, you can give a donation. We really appreciate this as we don't have all the support to cover our monthly expenses.
You can give to the bankaccount of our foundation:
NL92BUNQ2068656299
on name of Stichting By Faith We Walk (we now have ANBI!)
or through paypal: byfaithwewalk@hotmail.com
One last thing, please sign up for our newsletter, so you'll get an email when we post again. https://www.byfaithwewalk.org/blog --> on top of this page is where you can subscribe for this.
Blessings!
Alejandro, Rozanne and Naära
