Thank God for folks like Hardie and Beti

Phylis. Her Dad beats her when she talks about wanting to attend school. She has lost large patches of hair due to lice.
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We spent the morning with Hardie and Beti helping in the 3 school areas with poor kids.  Conditions are worse than you could imagine.

We are all learning quite a bit about what it takes to be a missionary.  It's a thankless job.  When I think about the conditions Hardie faces here...all I can say is Thank God for folks like Hardie and Beti.  Beti is an amazing woman.

We see Beti and Hardie's work as a ministry to admire, while many of the folks they try to help think Hardie and Beti get paid from somewhere based on the number of kids they get into their school.  They will help a family for months just to have them complain about Hardie buying a school van instead of building them a house.

The community Center. A few rooms in this building are used for the Open Doors Foundation (Hardi and Beti's ministry).
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They have 3 places to operate from.  The Community Center (which is owned by the Pentecostal church now),  Casa Alba (the White House) which is an old delapitated apartment building and School #4 which is the name of one of the public schools that gives them a room to teach in.

In our first visit to Casa Alba we came in through the back door and tried to get Phylis' mother (See photo of Phylis) to sign a paper that would let Phylis go to the park with the other kids.  The mother, crippled and sitting on her bed in a dark room, would not sign.Most people are illiterate, but she didn't seem to understand what we were asking, or what the benefit would be.  On the way to the room there were a couple of kids playing hockey with wooden sticks and using a dead rat as the puck.

Typical transportation driving on streets right along with the cars.
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On the second day we played Football (Soccer) and frisbee with a bunch of kids at a sports field beside the canal that connect the Danube river to the Black Sea.   They loved it.  Later that day (Tuesday) we drove to visit more poor families where Beti knew of kids she wanted to take to the beach.  Every time Beti meets with these families she gets involved in another big family problem which she tries to solve.  There is no such thing as a 1 minute visit to one of these mud shacks.   Beti pushes and pushes to get the parents to agree to let their kids have an education or go the beach.  With the Turkish families the mother-in-laws call all the shots.  If there is no money in it for the parents or grandparents there is no point is sending the kids to school.  Parents send their daughters to Italy for prostitution instead.  Many little girls are married and start having kids by the time they are 13 or 14.

The market place photographed from Daniel and Julia's hotel room window. The vegetables and fruit is SO good; vine ripened! Lots of watermelon; we ate it everyday. Dad K would like it here!
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After attempting to recruit some new kids for the beach (the next day) we drove to Mamut Bai which is one of the most pathetic areas.  'There we handed out  bread, candy and Julia's Beanie Babies.  These kids love to get their photos taken and then look at the photo on the camera.  That is because most have never seen themselves....there are no mirrors.  Some mothers at Mamut Bai would not let their kids come and get food or a Beanie Baby beause of pride.   However, we had to park with the van aimed at the exit because, if the entire neighborhood were to find out about our visit the van would be swarmed by kids and we could never get out.

Beti (in blue) in her element. She is like Mother Theresa.
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Needless to say, this is something we will never forget.   With all the sadness, the kids still smile from ear to ear.

Brad