They Are Precious In His Sight

Before I get lost in telling you about my babies, I realized there are a couple of other things that I want to tell you about Romania in general. I do, in fact, stick out like a sore thumb here. For the most part, Romanians are dark skinned with brown hair and brown eyes. I am pretty much the opposite of that, plus if I happen to be talking with someone as I walk along the street I tend to get several second glances.

You should also know that there are giant snails and slugs here. Everywhere. Really... everywhere. They are sick! It has been raining just about every day since I arrived (I am so over the rain!) and the slugs and snails come out to play. They are gross to look at, but even worse to step on. It honestly causes a physical reaction in me, much like the beginnings of nausea. Ick!

And now, what you really want to know... all about the babies! Right now, there are close to 20 kids in the hospital without mothers. They are in cribs with anywhere from one to four in a room. Generally, if a baby is more sick they have their own room. We split our time between the 3rd and 4th floors of the hospital and simply go into the rooms to spend time with the kids. If we are not in there, they are left alone unless a nurse is in to pass out bottles or administer medicine. Some of the kids act sick, but some of them seem like your normal, active toddler. We never know from day to day if the same kids will be in, if we will have new kids, or if some of them might be going home. Yes, most of them do have a home. The parents either can't or won't take care of them and they end up at the hospital. There are a couple of villages around Brasov where the kids are from and the Firm Foundations volunteers work closely with the hospital social worker to get the kids back to their families. More often than not, the child will be back within a couple of weeks.

Another service Firm Foundations provides to the hospital is handing out diapers on a daily basis. They do this for all children without parents on all five floors of the hospital. This includes the maternity wing for newborns, a pyschological wing, a terminal wing, an intensive care wing, and a surgery wing. Before they started providing the diapers, the hospital would just put the children in rags. Check out the Firm Foundations website link on the right side of my page to learn more. For the morning shift we go in at 9:30 and go from room to room spending time with the kids until 11:00 at which point we disperse the diapers. Each child gets four diapers a day and is changed at certain times. When we finish passing the diapers out we return to the 3rd and 4th floors to help change and feed the little ones there. Our shift ends at 12:30ish. The afternoon shift starts at 3:00 and goes until 6:00. We get to spend the whole time with the kids. We bring in toys and get them out of their cribs. They are not allowed to be on the floor without shoes, so we carry a bag of little shoes from room to room. They also are not allowed to sit or crawl in the floor to play, so we have to be careful about making sure they are either being held or can walk on their own. Those are all hospital rules.

Now that you know what I am up to, let me give you some specifics about my loves! Roxii (Roxy) has just started to learn to walk. She is a bundle of energy and loves to walk back and forth down her room for as long as we are in there. Robert has been in and out of the hospital his entire life. He is getting close to the walking stage and has the biggest tummy of any of the kids. :) He discovered bubbles for the first time last week and was beside himself with glee! There was a new little boy on Friday who also had great fun with the bubbles. We don't actually always know their names. Sad, but true. But that has only served as a reminder for me that Jesus knows everyone of their names, their stories, their families, even the number of hairs on their heads! Emmanuel is also at walking age and is all smiles and grins when we are there to play. He is such a joy! Sometimes, if we don't know their names, we give them names. Like Grumpy-Bum, who is very aptly named. We have kind of transitioned to Oscar (the grouch) for him. He loves to just be held and cuddled. I think he is always so upset because they insist on putting him in pink clothes. Andrea was there for a couple of days when I first arrived, but has since gone home. We have another nameless girl (Laura) who has a twin sister up on the intensive care wing. There is Roxana who has gotten more sick of late, Stelli who is a miracle baby, Louie who is named after the orangutan on The Jungle Book, Nicku, Idina, Monica, Daniel, more without names, and Willamesh. Willamesh is blind and so sweet. I cherish the time I get to spend singing to him and watching him smile. He is so small and does not eat much. I'm sure I have forgotten some, but hopefully this gives you a glimpse into what I am getting to see here.

The hospital does not allow us to take pictures, so we do it discreetly. I am hoping to get some pictures this week so that you can see these precious ones! I still have more stories to tell, so keep reading. :)
Love from Romania.