These past 2 months have been very busy with 10 to 11 hours days being the norm to include some Saturdays. So I have tried to pick a few high lights of what we have been doing.
In late March we held a conference for all the Humanitarianism Missionaries in the Europe area. We had 10 couples from 10 different countries attend. We were responsible for the everything in the conference from content to housing to food to transportation. It was a huge project, but very successful. The couples really enjoyed being together and they shared a lot with each other that they had learned. Each couple said the conference was helpful to them. We worked long and hard on this conference especially during the month of March, and its' success was greatly rewarding for us. It really was a good experience. for everyone, us included.
On one of our trips we returned home through Berchtesgaden, we happened to be there for Palm Sunday. This Sunday, Easter, and Christmas are the only Sundays that the churches are full, and they go to church in their native dress. They carry these beautifully decorated branches to church with colorful ribbons with them. I took this picture of a young couple as they were coming out of church. As you can see the tradition and the dress is very old, but the technology is new. We love Berchtesgaden and enjoy every time we can drive through it.
The end of March we returned to Budapest to represent the Church at a ceremony where the Church donated 500 wheelchairs to a non governmental organization for distribution to the people. The church is now the largest wheelchair distributor in the world. Since 2001 the Church has donated over 474,000 wheelchairs world wide, almost a 1000 in Hungary over the last 3 years. The Hungarian government is aware of all the humanitarian aid the church has provided their country, and has publicly expressed a very high opinion of the Church. They have commented on the family values of the Church, the Churches health code, the extended life expectancy of Church members, and the Church's moral stand and teachings.
This distribution of all these wheel chairs got the media's attention and they came to the ceremony. Here I am being interviewed by one of the 4 TV stations that came to the ceremony. They wanted to know why the Church was doing all this humanitarian aid for the people, I told them because the Church believes we should follow the teachings of Christ and help our fellow men. By the time the media was through they did an 8 minute program about the church, and interviewed some of the local leaders as well. The fellow by the interviewer is a member of the Church and my interpreter.
This is a picture taken at dusk (without a flash). It is called Hero Square, and thehave various kings between all these columns. Many of the leaders of the 1956 rebellion against the Soviets are buried here. This is in the beautiful city of Budapest, which was originally two cities separated by the Danube River.
This is King Stephan who is the patron saint of Hungary, Albania, Romania, Moldova, and probably other Balkan countries. He lived in the 11th century, and welded all these countries into 1 great empire. WW1 and WW2 both diminished the size of Hungary. This statue is in the castle compound in Budapest
In Moldova we visited a school and orphanage where the Church partnered with the US Army and another organization to remodel and upgrade the bathrooms in one of the dorms for the children. Children without parents or whose parents can not provide for them are put in an orphanage or a boarding school. The children are generally happy here because the have a roof over head and at least 1 good meal a day. Children with a learning disability or emotional difficulties are put in the back of the class if they do not disrupt. If disrupt they go into an institution,and that is where they spend the rest of their lives. This swan is made of small pieces of paper which have been folded and assembled together. There is no clue holding the swan together, it is how the small pieces are assembled that keeps it together. As you can imagine they are very time consuming and delicate to make.
This little guy has Leukemia and has been in the hospital for a while. The Church went into the hospital at the request of the social worker (one of the very few in the country) and refurbished an empty room with books and toys, murals on the wall, chairs and a table were provided for a play room for the children. Before the Church furnished this room the children would spend day after day with nothing to do but lay in their room. This little guy is stuck in his room because of his IV, but a coloring book has been brought in to him to make life a little easier. You can see they still use glass IV bottles.
I saw this ambulance at the hospital that we visited, and noticed that the gas cap is locked on with a paddle lock. The dishonesty in some of these east block countries makes living very difficult for the people, and you have to admire their efforts to be honest under very difficult circumstances. The general distrust of everybody and always expecting to be cheated was one of the side effects of 50 years of communist reign. In the USA if you want to be honest generally you can be that way with a minimum of effort.
We were in Albania with the Willis, and one of the projects they are working on is to help a Roma (gypsy) community to have employment and thereby to create a better life for themselves. This picture show 3 Roma men working at a recycling plant compressing and packaging old paper products. The Church purchased a commercial grade scale for them to weigh these big bales of paper so they will know the weigh and how much money to expect when they sell them.
Reingard and William Blacoe with us on Reingard's birthday.Even though we have not written for a little while does not mean that we don't love you,we do!
Oma und Opa
