Storms & Prayers

Storms come in all shapes and sizes... from quick little thunder showers to hurricanes. They are often the most difficult when they hit in waves. In the midst of the ministry that God has given us here in Romania to the least of these, the orphaned and abandoned children, we often find our selves fighting storms of all kinds.

Sometimes the storms are raging in the hearts and minds of the children in our care. These storms almost always surface in overtly rebellious behavior, lashing out at those who are trying to help them and love them. They also brew just below the surface due to their past, their survival techniques and often times their hormones.

Please pray for all of our kids who face these storms in different ways... some batten down the hatches and hide from others and the world inside themselves, others allow the storm to overtake them and lash out at those around them. Please pray specifically right now for Marian, Adi, Geza, Bella, Maria & Simona who are drenched and scared but afraid to come in out of the storm to the loving arms of the Father and those He has placed around them... to love them and help them to find their way.

We are also facing some physical and spiritual storms against getting camp Vetca up and running for the summer that is rapidly approaching. Last night it was a physical storm that took out our big meeting tents that had just been wired with lights and left them in a pile. This on top of "dust storms" caused by running from place to place trying to find all the things needed for the construction crew that is here in a country where everything is done in person and their is no such thing as a place where you can "find it all."

The storm coming against us is most of all spiritual. Satan wants nothing more than to wear us out and have us give in as we are on the brink of an amazing new opportunity to bring over 500 kids and teens out this summer for an new experience like they have never had in a brand new place... where they will have the opporunity to meet the Ancient of Days, The Almighty, The Father of the fatherless, The One who will never leave them or forsake them.

Please join us this week and the following few weeks before camp starts in calling out to The One who calms the storms and walks on water... The One who created the whole world in 6 days... The One who knew way before we did that our verse for the summer would be... "With man this is impossible, but with God ALL things are possible."

Please pray specifically for:

1. Good weather and good health for the construction team from May 31 - June 6.

2. Pray for a good solution to be found for the large meeting area (either a tent repair and way to keep it secure or a new option).

3. Pray for all the supplies that seem to be difficult to find to be located and available before camp starts.

4. Pray for Paul & Fiona Coles to have a time of rest before camp starts. Pray that God will give them what they need to be encouraged and empowered to lead with enthusiasm this summer after months of camp development.

5. Pray that all the resources will come in to make camp possible this summer for all the kids... even pray that if there is a team that would join us for one of the open weeks that God would open the doors to make that possible.

6. Pray for safe travel and servants hearts for our interns that will arrive next Thursday to serve with us all summer.

7. Pray that none of us as staff, interns, volunteers, team members, etc. would allow Satan a foothold this summer, but that we would face the raging storms with the power of Christ who lives within us!

Laying Wire & Hanging Lights...

Yes, our three friends here would love to be at the group homes playing and spending time with the kids they sponsor (and they will be sure to get a little time to do just that), but this week, this Gilmore Electric Crew has come to share not only their love with our kids, but their skills with our camp building crew!


There was no time wasted as this team got up and running. What we thought may be a day to survey the property and get a plan together for the week, quickly became a full fledged work day. These guys were hanging lights in our big meeting tent and laying electrical wire for our soon to be built (later this week) buildings for camp this summer... all before lunch.



More to come this week as the team grows... the kitchen and bathrooms are built... and we get closer and closer to seeing Camp Vetca come together! Please pray for all that God is going to do through this amazing gift of a camp this summer in the lives of over 500 kids and teens... and for good weather all this week for construction!

Happy Happy Birthdays...

Birthday celebrations are special times for our kids. Of course all children love their birthday, but many of our kids did not even know when their birthday was when they came into our care. We spent many a day reviewing the date until each child knew their birthday.


We now try to make this day special for each child. This may include a special party with the other children in their house, a special dinner out and movie with a friend or some other special celebration.


Before coming into our care and into their "new family"... most of these kids had very few happy childhood memories and most of those were clouded by the darkness of their circumstances and hurt. Now, as you can see... these children really do have Happy Happy Birthdays!

The Annual LOC Picnic...

Each year we have a Spring Picnic with our staff and kids. This year it was held at Casa Nadia. It is always a special time of celebrating what God has done in the past year and enjoying time together. The kids, teens, house moms, educators, follow up staff and office staff team up together for Livada trivia contests and enjoy the raffle for prizes.

This year held something special as the Romanian staff competed in a cooking contest of salads and desserts. The cheese salad above won the prize for best presentation... pretty creative!

Another highlight was watching a presentation of pictures from the past year. The kids and young adults have grown up so much! Please continue to pray for the house moms, counselors, educators and others who are investing in the 45 children and teens in the full time care of Livada on a daily basis.

A Fotbal Match in Cluj...

Monday night, there was a fotbal match in Cluj. For those "American speakers" of you out there... that would be a soccer game! It was the last night in town for our hardworking team from Florida and we all decided it would be a great idea to give them a chance to spend more time with the young adults from our mentor program and with the older boys from our group homes...



The kids and team had a great time cheering on CFR (the Cluj soccer club) to victory and doing something that most of them have never done before! It was such a special night to continue to build relationships and to wrap up the trip for the team...



Please continue to pray for these young adults from our Mentor Program and the older kids from our group homes as they battle through the transition from their rough childhood to being adults with a hope and a future.

A Livada Picnic at Vetca...

Today we all got a glimpse of Vetca as it will be this summer... full of kids!

We celebrated the progress at camp and gave our kids the first peek at camp on Sunday afternoon... We loaded everyone up and headed out for a day filled with soccer...



kickball...


prayer...


and a picnic!


Fun was had by all!

Camp preparations continue...

Work week number one at Livada's new camp... Camp Vetca... has come to a close, but not before this hardworking team turned our dream for a campfire/storytime area into a reality!

After the back area of camp was cleared out a bit, we realized that there was a great hill that led down to the small stream that runs behind camp. Our camp directors had the idea of making some kind of amphitheater seating in this area. Well, this crew was on it... we soon had benches that were built in and those we could move around camp as needed... they even put in stairs leading down to the area!




Pray that meaningful times of hearing and understanding God's word would take place on this place, that God would be praised and honored as children sing around the camp fire this summer, and that hearts would be changed as kids and teens come down to this place to spend time alone with God.

Hospital or Home...

For the babies who are abandoned in Romania, it is often both. Those babies and toddlers who are not placed in foster care when abandoned here are placed in the hospital. We have two of our Romanian staff who go to one of these hospitals several days a week to minister to these infants and toddlers.

Many times when teams come to visit here in Romania, there are several ladies who want to go to the hospital to hold and rock babies or give a toddler some love and play time with interaction. This week was special for these little ones as even the men of the team ventured out and loved on them. It may have seemed strange to the nurses to see these three men walking in together and agreeing to wear the little white coats provided, but the children responded to them and had just a bit of what they all lack... time with a gentle and caring man. What a blessing.




Please continue to pray for these abandoned little ones. Pray for Rodica & Cris who work with them weekly. Pray that they will find safe homes and parents who will love and take care of them. In addition, pray that if God wishes to do this through international adoption, that the eyes of those in power would be opened, that the laws would change and the doors would open for families that would love to take these children in.

The Underground

"The Underground" is a weekly outreach event for youth in the area. It is led by Paul & Fiona Coles along with the ministry staff of Livada. Each week between 50-60 teenagers and young adults gather in the basement of a local church to play games, hear about the Lord and be poured into by this staff that loves them and meets them where they are.



Each week there is a contest of some kind that is guys vs. girls. This week was a gross one, but they loved it! They goal was to get all the chocolate off of your side of the plastic first!



This week there was an extra special treat for these teens and young adults, most of which are orphans and come to school in town and live in dorms or are working and living in night shelters, they each received shampoo and body wash from the Christ Fellowship team as they left. It may not seem like something that American teens would appreciate, but for these kids it was a blessing!


Please pray for these young people to continue to come to this safe place where they find love, fun, acceptance and the truth. Pray that the truth of Christ would penetrate the tough armor that many of them wear from years of abandonment, abuse and shattered hearts.

Vetca Update... helping hands

This week we have a team here from Christ Fellowship Church in Florida. We are so blessed by their servant hearts, love for the kids and hard working hands. It was such a blessing to gather this morning before beginning work at Vetca and pray over the land, the summer, the kids and the lives God is going to change for years to come and dedicate it all to the Glory of God!


As you can see, we wasted no time putting everyone to work. The team joyfully painted the fence and began building bases for the tents... which will basically serve as wood floors for the tents and will keep everything off the ground! Great idea!




With more Vetca updates to come in the days and weeks ahead, we would like to thank this sweet team for giving their time to come and serve before the summer ministry starts!

Vetca Update... tents!

We have a fence now... all the way around the land at Camp Vetca! We also did a test run of putting up our first tent on Friday! We are glad we did. It took a bit of time to figure out how these wonderful 5 meter by 5 meter army tents are put up, but we were successful in the end!






One tent down... 16 more to go! Keep praying for camp preparations, the two work teams who will be here this month to help get camp ready, the interns and teams as they prepare to come serve the Lord alongside us this summer, and most of all for the hearts and lives of the children who will come to camp this summer to be changed by God's love!

Answered Prayer...

Praise the Lord... As a ministry in agreement with our Board, we had set today as the day to make a decision about what to do regarding the need for a special year of therapy for Daniel Simon. We have been praying about this need for several months and have shared it with many people. Just yesterday the situation and need was presented here on the Livada Blog.

If anyone questions whether or not God listens to our prayers and can do above and beyond what we ask... Know that He does! God has just in the past two days provided above and beyond what is needed to provide the special therapy home for Daniel for this year.

We have prayed that God would provide and that we would not be forced into a situation where we would have to turn him over to the state to protect the other children in our care. We knew that this would amount to throwing our little Daniel into the den of lions. Praise the Lord that our Daniel has been rescued... Miracles happen even today!

Thank you to all of you who have joined us in prayer for this little boy. Please continue to pray for his heart and mind to be healed. Pray for God to provide just the right people to care for and work with Daniel during this intense year of therapy. Pray for the preparations to go smoothly and for peace in Casa Nadia during the transition time. Thank you!

Labor Day in Romania

The first of May is Romania's Labor Day... Everyone was off work and out of school! Many different activities happened today, one of which was a picnic with Casa Rebeca. Now, a picnic here in Romania is not exactly what you may picture. Here, we go off road in our cars (which are not 4 wheel drive) until we find some woods. The kids then hop out and run into the woods for firewood!


As you can see Bella gathered a good bit! Secondly, our wonderful educator and "House Dad," Marius taught the boys how to build a fire.


The fire is important because this is not a sandwich and chips picnic... this is a grilled meech (like sausage), potatoes, onions, etc. picnic! Stefan, the youngest at Casa Rebeca stayed close by during the grilling process to make sure it was all going alright!


You will also see a lot of tree climbing, soccer playing, hill rolling, and other outdoor fun on one of these picnics! Krisztina is our very adventurous tree climber... We called her the little monkey all day!


One other thing you are quite likely to see here that you may not see on an American picnic is a shepherd leading his sheep right past you! It is pretty fun though.


As you can see... the kids from Casa Rebeca enjoyed their labor day very much. It is great to have times like this with them to teach them life skills, allow them to have fun outside and to have time just to sit and talk with them about what is going on in their lives. It was a great holiday!

Casa Daniel...

Our biggest need right now is for funding for a therapeutic home for our most troubled kid. Last year child psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Myers, came to Romania to train our clinical staff and to assess some of our kids who had been abused when they were in the state orphanage system. Thereafter, the most problematic of the children, a ten year old named Daniel Simon, continued to digress. (Daniel was abused by his birth mother, abandoned to the streets at age 5, eventually sent to a state orphanage where he was sexually abused by older boys and violently beaten consistently until he was finally taken into the care of our foundation two years ago.)

Because Daniel's condition is currently causing him to lash out and behave very dangerously, we had him assessed by Dr. Karyn Purvis from Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth, Texas. She is a neuro-psychologist who is the leading expert in helping post-institutionalized kids overcome the syndromes and abuse issues from their past. Her recommendation for Daniel is that we create a temporary "therapeutic home" for him so that, through an intensive and intimate therapeutic regime, we can allow Daniel's brain to re-route through his past obstacles and ultimately allow him to be healthy and whole again. After all the research that we have done on this issue, this seems to be the only hope for Daniel to safely be reintegrated into the group home in which he now lives. She is willing to take on this case and to come over to train staff specifically for this and to monitor the treatment. Our obstacle is that we need $40,000 up front if we are going to be able to commit to this ministry to heal Daniel.

Honestly, we have thought about throwing our hands in the air and saying this is too much for us and too much of a risk for our other kids. However, the alternative is to throw Daniel to the lions back in state care that would not treat his condition at all. The abuse would almost certainly start again and any potential for healing would be over. This would also send a devastating message to the rest of our kids that if they get too sick, we would send them away. We say that we try to care for our LOC kids as if they were our own. I think we are being tested on this right now. If he were my child or your child, each of us would sell the farm to attempt to make our child well again. After consulting all of our clinical staff, those who care directly for him, our Executive Council, and our Board of Directors, we are stepping out in faith to raise this money for this child's treatment that we need to begin as soon as possible. Please pray with us for Daniel's healing and pray that the all-knowing God would provide the resources and personnel for this therapeutic home. This is our most daunting challenge at the moment because we cannot see what is behind this dark cloud hovering over Daniel. Any help that you can offer would be greatly appreciated. You can give to this by marking checks for Casa Daniel and/or giving through our website and noting it for this specific ministry project. Our prayer is that we will be able to see a NEW Daniel a year from now!