January 22, 2006
Dear Friends and Family,
I hope that this email finds you well. I am doing fine. I am sorry that I am not
able to send you pictures with this update, but the computer is not really
acting right, and it takes so long that I decided to just send a regular email.
Hopefully next week I will be able to send some more pictures.
We are now feeding around 25 people in Station Hope. We have been approved by
the health department since I last wrote. You have to open it, and then get it
approved here. We passed with flying colors! The inspector told us that it was
"ideal", and they wished that they had more places operating at our level! Of
course, that means more paperwork. We have had to hire another person. Milen is
our accountant now. Rado is the maintainance person--that actually means the
person who does the ordering, keeps daily track of stock, works with the vendors
and delivery companies, and processes all the receipts to run the foundation. We
have added them to our staff with Petya, the cook, and Hristalina, our
foundation director.
We have expanded the number of people that we are feeding, and also doing
several home food deliveries now. Most of them are elderly, but one is a young
mother, Silvia, with two small children. She was about to give up her baby for
adoption, because she could not afford to feed it. She grew up in the girl's
orphanage here in Lovech, and she has nobody, but the other orphans that she
grew up with. Hristalina knew her through her work with the local orphanages
here. When she heard what she was about to do, she contacted her, and we added
her to our program. There are two other grown orphans (ages 20-21) that are in
the program as well. They are all the family that they have. Maria attends
Shalom Church here, and the people there look out for Maria, though she has not
had much opportunity. We pay her to clean the center every evening, and she
cleans my apartment right now as well, one morning a week while I am at work.
The other one is Valeri, he just came back from serving his required time in the
military. He had nowhere to go, and no way to support himself. He started the
program, and has really been helpful without even being asked. He stays there to
keep warm most of the day, and does whatever he sees needs done. These young
people have no real family, and nobody to help them. We have asked Valeri to
help deliver the food to the shut-ins. We have an elderly couple, and the wife
has gotten very sick the last couple of weeks, and now her husband is having
trouble with an open wound on his leg due to diabetes. He asked if we could
begin delivering food to them since it was so difficult for either of them to
come. We asked Valeri to take walk with him back to his house so that he would
know where to deliver them. It was so nice to see the way he responded. He took
the bag of jars from Iliya, and said, "Come on, Grandfather, I will help you."
They have been in Bible study together, and it is great to see such
relationships develop. Pray for Silvia and Valeri that they will come to know
Christ. Valeri seems very interested in the Bible studies, and I believe that
soon he will make a decision for Christ. There is also a new older man, Nicola,
in his seventies. He is deaf, doesn't smell too good, and rarely interacts with
anyone. He is all alone. He just sits alone and looks down at the table. I
always try to make an effort to greet each person as they come in. I will get
up, and shake their hands, and try to converse with them the best that I can
with my poor Bulgarian. I always get Nicola a cup of tea when he comes in. On
Friday, he came in the door, I stood up to greet him, he smiled really big at
me, and then came and hugged me, and kissed me on the cheek. That is the first
time that I have seen him respond to anyone like that. I was so glad to know
that I had connected to him, and that he knows that he has a friend in me.
Things like that make this kind of work such a blessing to do!
An unusual thing happened after church today. Two gypsy boys came over to me
smiling and shaking my hand. Their names are Sharkov and Miroslav. I feed them
fairly often. They are always in town begging. I will not give them money, but I
will buy them some food. Today while we were one the way to the tosteri (a hot
sandwich stand) they were asking me for three leva (about $2) instead of the
usual ten stotinki (about 6 cents). I asked them why so much. It seemed like
they were telling me that they were sick, and then I realized they were talking
about pain. Finally Sharkov made Miroslav show me this horrible, infected
looking place down on his jawline. I wasn't sure what happened--if it was a
puncture wound that had gotten infected, or what. I could not understand what
they were saying to me. So I took them back toward the church to see if I could
find someone to translate for us.
I was told that they probably would lie about what happened, because their
parents had possibly beat them for not getting enough money while begging.
(This is quite normal in the gypsy community.) I asked what they needed, and
CiCi told me that the best thing to do was to go to a pharmacy, and ask the
pharmacist. Everyone agreed that the sore needed to be tended to. I bought them
sandwiches, and then found a pharmacy that was open. The pharmacist said that he
needed to see a doctor. I ended up taking them to the emergency room, or
something akin to that. It ended up being a very large boil. The doctor treated
him, and I was surprised when there was no charge. Another thing that surprised
me was the poor condition of the emergency room. Everything was old. They put
him on a vinyl coveredbed with no sheet or paper. The doctor didn't wash his
hands, or wear gloves.
The forceps he used he just picked up off a table. He did not clean the wound
area with alcohol, or anything--ever. He just put a glob of some kind of
ointment on the bandage. I am sure that it was some kind of disinfectant or
antibiotic, but it was so very far below the standards that we are used to.
Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that they didn't charge anything!
Miroslav was so happy after that. The pain had gone, and he felt so much better.
We took a cab back to the city center, and when they got out they ran to another
tosteri. They were hungry again! It had only been about an hour since I had last
fed them, but I let them weasel me out of another meal. They are small for there
ages. I thought Miroslav was probably six or seven, and he was nine. I thought
that Sharkov was around nine, but he is probably about two years older than his
younger brother. I don't know how many of them are in that family. I feed a
sister when I see her in town, another Silvia, who is older than Sharkov . I
have also sent milk home fora baby, when they tell me that there is no milk, and
the baby is crying. I have asked them why they aren't in school, and they told
me that there mother got a doctor's excuse for them to stay out of school, and
that they can make more money if they beg in town. We are hoping to get a
regular feeding program for children like them. Right now, it is when I see them
on the street begging. We haven't figured out the best way to do that yet.
Prayer Needs:
1. Pray for clear communication between the staff and myself, it is sometimes
very difficult.
2. Pray for the finances to come in so that we can continue to expand this work.
It takes rent,
salaries, utilities, equipment, and food to run a program like this.
3. We are having our formal grand opening on January 31. We are inviting the
mayor, and other
local leaders (Social Services, Child Protection Services, etc...) Pray that we
will give a good im-
pression, and have favor with them.
4. We are in desperate need of a new computer here. This one barely runs, and it
is necessary for
good communication to the States.
We appreciate your prayers for us, and for your faithful support. If you would
like to make a donation to this ministry, you can send your tax exempt donation
to Obedient Life Ministries at P.O. Box 267, Clarion, PA 16214, or you can
donate by credit card through our secure link to PayPal on our website at
www.obedientlife.org. Thank you so much.
Be blessed in Jesus' Name,
Martin Sutton