Bringing joy to the Mocrea Hospital

It's been a woolly hat and gloves day with snow on the mountains and icy pavements.We were out and about early photocopying lots of Christian Christmas prints for the Mocrea patients to colour. We travelled with Pastor Jackie in the truck, taking along crafts, snacks, hot coffee and cold drinks for the patients. It had been a month since anyone had been allowed to visit due to the swine flu epidermic. A few of the patients were initially upset with us thinking we had simply forgotten about them but they later understood and their whole mood changed. Soon the crayons and glitter were out and they created some wonderful Christmas pictures to the sound of Romanian Christmas Carols. We felt reluctant to leave but assured them we would be back on Friday for their Christmas program. Sadly our locked cupboard at the hospital had been broken into and a lot of materials have been stolen. We respect the privacy of patients by not taking full facial pictures.

After leaving we bombed along bumpy roads surrounded by open fields and snowy mountains to the remote village of Dude. It was just getting dusk as we arrived at Lena's house, one of our dear ladies from the Widow's Mite project. She loved her Christmas present and we left armed with her own free range eggs and some black home made sausage. Like many Romanians she had killed a pig. On Saturday when I went to the outside earth loo of one of the dear old lady's I had to walk through the blood of another that had been slaughtered the previous day. Then it was on to George who was also touched to receive a present. It is always difficult driving at night on the country roads because there are bicycles and horses and carts without lights but Pastor Jackie did a brilliant job of getting us home safely. We had a blessed day.