A letter from Jay and Nancy Adams in Germany
Fall 2013
Together with 21 students and staff, Jay and Nancy Adams are going to Vizuresti to help build a school and medical clinic for Roma people.
The village of Vizuresti lies 35km (22 miles) from Bucharest and on the wrong side of the tracks. For the first few miles the road from the highway is paved, passing through a prosperous district with solid houses and well-tended fields. But once it crosses the railway, leading only to the Roma settlement, the tarmac stops. The way to Vizuresti is 20 minutes of deep potholes and ruts. Life for its 2,500 people, four-fifths of them Roma, is just as tough.
Mihai Sanda and his family, 37 of them, live in half-a-dozen self-built, mud-floored huts. In his two-room dwelling seven people share one bedroom; chickens cluck in the other room. The dirt and smell, the lack of mains water, electricity, sewerage and telephone are all redolent of the poorest countries in the world. So is the illiteracy. Ionela Calin, a 34-year-old member of Mr. Sanda's extended family, married at 15 without ever going to school. Of her eight children, four are unschooled. Two, Leonard, aged 4 and Narcissa, aged 2, do not even have birth certificates; Ionela believes (wrongly, in fact) that she cannot register their birth because her own identity document has expired.
—Bottom of the Heap: The dismal lives and unhappy prospects of Europe’s biggest stateless minority, June 19, 2008, Economist Magazine, Brussels and Bucharest
This past week students and staff from two schools in Kandern, Germany, gathered to meet each other and pray for the Roma people in Viz Romania. But, in addition to praying, this team is using their spring break from school to physically build a school and medical clinic for and with the people the Economist Magazine described as “Bottom of the Heap.” Please click below or use this link to read the article. http://www.economist.com/node/11579339
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Mission team to Romania
We welcome your prayers and your financial support. We dare not attempt the impossible without God and without the support of the Body of Christ, fellow followers of Jesus. Black Forest Academy (9) and Freie Evangelische Schule Lörrach (12) are teaming together to raise the funds for building materials and work costs. Committed parents are covering travel expenses. Please join us by praying for teamwork: we have five different nationalities on our team. Also pray for and consider giving funds to enable Nancy and me to continue serving the most discriminated-against, least-educated, most-impoverished people group in Europe.
We will be going to Vizuresti, Romania, the week before Easter 2014. That will be Holy Week for both the Eastern Orthodox and the Christian Church in the West this year. We will be celebrating the risen Christ each day we pick up a hammer, shovel and paint brush. There will be Roma people who will build and paint right beside us...we are in a partnership with the local Roma leaders and the mayor of the village as well as Habitat for Humanity Romania, who are well connected to the local people. We will eat together and share our lives together for the week.
We are asking you and your congregation to join Nancy and me in this project. We trust you will check the blog we are creating, and there will be a new post of our progress each day we are in Romania: http://bigbuildvizuresti2014.tumblr.com/
One additional prayer request: while Nancy and I do care deeply for the Roma people, we also seek to expose the students helping us to the horrible aspects of discrimination and poverty. These 21 team members are impressionable teenagers who are willing to have their lives changed by the families they see and work beside in Romania. They want to be the hands of Jesus reaching the "Bottom of the Heap." Become a ministry partner with Nancy and me today as you pray and contribute to our ECO Account E074690. Your gift of $100 or $500 or $50 or any amount is much appreciated. The out-of-pocket costs for participation in this outreach project are $2,500.
Rejoicing in the birth of the newborn King,
Jay & Nancy Adams
The 2013 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 283
Read more about Jay and Nancy Adams' ministry
Blogs: homesforthehomeless2013.blogspot.fr
and www.romaniahome.wordpress.com
Write to Jay and Nancy Adams
Individuals: Give online to E074690 for Jay and Nancy Adams' sending and support
