Baby on board!

Our most surprising news is that yet again we find ourselves taking care of a young child. This is the child of a young street mum who is living in a derelict building in Arad. Last week her mum asked if we could take care of her for a few days while she looks for a decent place to stay and gets herself sorted out a bit. I know her mum loves her but the wee soul is terribly neglected and is one of the saddest looking babies we have ever seen. Obviously having her is a lot of extra work for us which we could well do without ... but on the other hand who could look at her and not want to help her? We don't know how long she will be with us but we will do our best for her in the time we have.

After over two years of recurring problems with our email we finally have broadband so we can access the Internet from home and hopefully update the blogs more often! For a long time our emails weren't arriving but we didn't know and were so busy that we didn't really notice that we hardly ever received emails any more! Meanwhile the drop in centre is proving to be a real godsend to many poor and street families with queues every day to have showers and wash clothes. We are coming to the end now of the cup-a-soups but it looks like winter is also coming to an end, so the need for something hot won't be so great.

Throughout the Christmas period we were distributing shoeboxes - hard work with only three people doing it but worth it when you see the faces of the people receiving them. We had a Christmas eve celebration with 26 street children and young people and even though we were all to exhausted to enjoy a family Christmas day it was definitely worth it. Several local volunteers helped by bringing food and making up sandwiches and arranging the food ... more about Christmas later!