I have an idea...

Okay... So we have all these activities and things planned for the kiddos this summer and I'm thinking it could be really fun and helpful if we practice a little. Our church works with an English as a Second Language program that meets at the Thriftsmart off Nolensville Pike and we watch the kids while their parents learn English. So why not practice some of the art projects and play some games with kids from four or five different countries to see what it is like. If you are interested, email me and let me know: heather.manning@comcast.net. I promise it will be good for you and you will walk away with some funny stories.

Baby Stas

So, I realized that we didn't have any pictures of any of the sweet children I was talking about in my last post. So, here is one of my very favorite little ones in Moldova - his name is Stas and he is 4 years old now. I met him when he was 2 at the Falesti camp, and he is about the cutest thing ever. We started calling him "Baby Stas" . . . and the name has stuck. As you can probably tell, he knows how to work it!

A New Beginning

So, I'm sure you're asking - Why Moldova? . . . where it is? what's there? and what's in Cahul? Well, Moldova is both the smallest and poorest country in the former U.S.S.R. It is located right between Romania and the Ukraine. And why? Our church felt led to Moldova in 2002 to work with an orphanage called Internat 2 in that capital city of Chisinau. As a church, we couldn't turn away once we heard the statistics and realized what these children in Moldova were facing. Statistics tells us that over 70% of the children in orphanages in Moldova will end up in the danger sex trafficking trade or in prison, and 10% will commit suicide -- all within a year of leaving the orphanage at age 18. So, these children face a world that seemingly has turned against them with no family, no resources and no hope for the future. In the face of these odds, we have a hope and a future to offer them in Christ and the love of a Father who will never abandon them. So Rolling Hills took a team of 18 in 2002 to do summer camp at the Internat 2 orphanage and have been back every summer since -- expanding our camps to two weeks long and to other orphanages including Falesti, and now this year, Cahul.

Cahul is the third largest city in Moldova, which is actually a pretty small city - of about 150,000. We are partnering with an orphanage right in the heart of the city where about 120 children go to school during the school year. In the summer, most of those children have family members or friends of some sort to go stay with, but about 30 are true orphans and have no one to keep them and end up staying with their teachers. So, we are doing a day camp for these 30 children, and any others in the city that want to come and learn Bible stories, do art, play games, learn skills like sewing and cooking, and just have a really good time. Hopefully during the time that we are with them, they will come to know something more of God, who He is, and how He loves them.

Fourteen of us set out on this adventure to Cahul on July 1 - returning to the States on July 11. We'll have day camp with the kids July 4-9. Please begin praying for us and for the children that we are going to encounter and certainly come to love.

We are: Gretchen, Heather, Jeff, Pam, Kathy, Stefanie, Scott, Eric, Erin, Jana, Sam, Lindsay, Che, and Ashleigh.

It has begun...

It's official. The Cahul team now has a blog!