Recently, I had the most wonderful experience of gathering together my whole family for my youngest son’s 40^th birthday.  Several years ago, all my sons and two of their wives, at the time, and one fiancée were all together in my home for a holiday.  But since all have married and given me six grandchildren, we had never been together as a family.  Some of the grandchildren had never even seen each other before.  We got to spend three glorious days in a beach house right on the beach in Destin, FL.  When Liam, my four year-old grandson who had never even seen his Georgia-cousins before, saw us all hauling our suitcases into the same place, and realized that all fourteen of us would be staying together in the same house, he was overwhelmed.  He looked around, and filled with excitement and joy he exclaimed, “Look Mammie, we are all going to sleep together!  Isn’t that crazy?!”  And I answered him, “Crazy – wonderful!”  He squealed, “Yes!” – and ran to give me a hug.

It is common knowledge that one out of every three children in Romania is born with a birth defect.  There are at least three main reasons for this.  First of all, the mothers’ lack of nutrition.  It would be extremely improbable for any woman to birth a healthy baby if she subsisted on a piece of bread every other day, or a potato every other day.  Many of the babies that we see come into our ‘baby’ orphanage, have a disease called opisthotonos (spasm of the muscles causing backward arching of the head, neck, and spine).  There are many causes of opisthotonos, but lack of Vitamin B is one.  There are many babies brought to the orphanage severely underweight and struggling just to live from the mother’s long-term lack of nutrition.

Several years ago as I was entering church one Sunday morning, one of our young fellows who has a developmental disorder, looked at me and said quietly, “My favorite day of the week is Sunday.”  I smiled at him and said, “Mine, too”.  And beyond that, I have to say that my favorite Sunday of the whole year is Easter – Resurrection Day!

In August, 2007, I took a long trip to Sebis – a twelve-hour trip northeast of Brasov in Romania.  The purpose was to see the work of Dan Hurrelbrink, an American born fellow, and his wife, Maria, a Romanian.  At the time, they had three daughters – and had built their own orphanage.  Dan had taught me so much from an American’s point of view on how to live in the very foreign culture of Romania.  When I first went to Romania, I was blessed to stay in his flat in Brasov with his secretary while he was in Sebis and the States much of the time seeing to this ‘dream’ God had for him – an orphanage.  I will forever be indebted to Dan for teaching me so much.  I consider him to be a dear friend.  He is a man of purpose with a heart to serve the Lord.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’  –  Psalm 51.7

 Every time I hear the words from the familiar old holiday song, ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow’ – I have to tell you that those are not my sentiments at all!  In my mind I am saying, ‘No!  No!  No!’  Even though I grew up in Down East Maine where it was not uncommon for it to snow every day in the winter – where we had to put ‘flags’ on our car antennas  so that other vehicles could see us approaching intersections – where snow plows plowed around the clock – and where the snow mounted up over one’s door making it necessary to find Plan B to get out of the house, I just never got used to – nor did I ever gain a fondness for snow.