Driving to Bucharest

Elder and Sora Hinson along with Elder and Sora Telford had a big adventure on March 13th. The Telford's had CES meetings in Bucharest and invited Fred and I to go with them. Neither of us had driven in Moldova or Romania since coming on our missions and were a little nervous about navigating the roads and traffic. We didn't want to go on the Harry Potter train again, and certainly not take a maxi taxi for 12 hours. So that left 1 option, drive! We had a GPS with us in the car and everything was great. We will probably drive again as long as we have GPS, or (Jill) with us. The highlight of the trip was to the biggest mall I have ever seen. We ate at Burger King, and the hamburger and fries were great! Nothing like greasy fast food. That night we took Fred to the Marriott Hotel for birthday dinner and dessert. It was a great get-a-way weekend.

Reliability Daycare Center Drochia

This little daycare takes us about 3 hours to drive to. It is located in the northern part of Moldova. They help 4 villages in their area. Their purpose is to help disabled children, especially those with physical handicaps. They help about 30 children at a time, and would help more if they had the room. There are about 1,000 children that are disabled in these villages. Most of these children are in wheelchairs and when the weather is bad and the roads are muddy and rutted they can't come for rehabilitation. There are 7 children that have never been to school, and these children are coming to this center to learn a skill. These are very poor families and this daycare tries to help make life easier. There are 8 people working without salaries to run this center. There is also a doctor, nurses, and teachers that volunteer time to the facility. They receive no support from the government. They provide physical therapy and other services. They also provide medicine for the poor. They also have terminally ill children (leukemia) that they provide services to. They also go to disabled patients home to provide services. They have 2 rooms that they use for activities and also physical therapy. There is no heat in this facility because the gas heat needs renovation. There is no wood or coal for a fireplace, and no money for electricity. This little center is a renovated house that was donated to the president of this facility. The president is also disabled (muscular dystrophy)and allot of the people in this area have this same disease. We hope to be able to help this daycare in some small way. There are just so many facilities just like this all throughout Moldova.