I trust that you all had a wonderful Christmas!  A Christmas full of the celebration of Christ, the Savior.  It seems as though I barely had time to get used to writing 2018, and here it is 2019, already!  The last month of 2018 was productive for our Lord’s work through Love From Above in Romania.

“A gift opens the way and ushers the giver into the presence of the great.”  – Proverbs 18.16

Love From Above continued with the purchase of prescription and OTC meds in November for our babies and ‘kids’.  We also bought a door for a building we are renovating on the same property as Barza Mica.  This building will be used for storage, and a place for our ‘kids’ to go while we do our crafts, stories, music, etc.  The workers at Barza have been hard at work repairing the building, including a partial new roof.

I praise God for a safe and uneventful trip back to the States on October 10.  How difficult to leave our precious babies and ‘kids’, though!  Please pray over these cast-off ones for their angels to be so close to them, to protect them and shelter them from the cruelty of the orphanage workers.

Praising God that after 5 weeks of a serious sinus infection, natural meds that my beloved (now, Dr.) Ioana who worked with me for over six years, and all your prayers completely healed me.  (I love it that the Lord gave us natural products of the earth to keep our health in tow.)

“For the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever.”  – Psalm 9.18

In spite of a month-long sinus infection, and on-going problems with the Romanian government, there was much to rejoice over, and give the Lord ‘thanks with all my heart’ for in the month of August!  Once again, it was great joy for LFA to be able to give Pastor Ovi his financial support.  Please – if any of you who are not already giving a monthly support for Ovi and his family, it would be deeply appreciated . . . !

So thankful to the Lord to have arrived here in Romania July 12.  It was not without some difficulty.  Just a few short hours before leaving my home in Norton, MA, Air France let me know that my flight had been cancelled.  I love flying, but this is one of the reasons I don’t like traveling!  These incidents don’t concern just me, but other people I have to ‘put out’.  The one who takes me to Logan Airport, and the one who picks me up in Bucharest.  Within a couple of hours, I was contacted again to say that I would be flying that evening – at 11:00p on British Airways.  In my scurrying to finish last minute packing, I neglected to include some things in my luggage that I really wanted.  Notice I said ‘wanted’, not ‘needed’.  I have managed fine in my little flat in Brasov .

The anticipation is great in leaving once again for my beloved Romania on July 11.  And our kids at Barza Mica are equally as excited for my return.  They don’t know the months, etc., but they do know that when it gets warm, it’s time for me to return.  They even sit on a little rock wall outside the orphanage watching the planes go overhead and wonder if ‘that’ will be the plane that brings Mama Dawn . . .

May has been a really busy and challenging month!  On the second day of the month, I got word via Corina (my translator, and overseer of the ministry while I’m out of the country) that there was another situation at Barza Mica that the director said ‘only Dawn could solve’.  And, I knew that ‘only God could solve it for me’.  If we didn’t get some steel transported to a place in Brasov where we could receive money for it, once again the government threatened us with closing the orphanage and taking the director’s license to operate from her.  With God’s help – and with Ovi’s help to do the transporting, we were once again safe – and still had a place for our ‘kids’.

Thank you for praying concerning my trip from Romania back to the States.  In my section of the plane which would ordinarily seat 90 people, there were only 12 of us.  Not feeling very well from the flu, that was great – because not only I but the others, too, grabbed pillows and stretched out in all three seats, or as many as we wanted to!

It seems as though I was just asking for prayer for my trip from Michigan to Romania – and now here I am asking for prayer from Romania back to MA.  I am in no way mentally or emotionally prepared to leave this ‘other land that I love’ on April 6.  Please pray, not only for a safe trip back to the States, but that the Lord will guard my heart . . .