Brindusa Center for Children at Risk

How fun to help these children!

Their bunkbeds were literally swaying back and forth when we got there. Their wardrobes had the doors off and some shelves missing. The playroom had a sofa falling apart and the 30 chairs had no backs on them. The lights in the kitchen didn't work, and two faucets were coming apart. The stove couldn't be used because they couldn't afford the gas. The refrigerator no longer worked right. The dining tables were swaying nearly as bad as the bunk beds.

So....Elder VanWormer and Elder Kitchen and Jacob (from Suren and Sona's family) did a MAJOR repair on the beds and wardrobes. Major! There is a picture below of a boy straddling two of the beds after the repair and the director said he could never have done that with the swayness of the beds before the repairs.

And...we replaced the 8 yr old, pee'd on, torn, mattresses, pillows, sheets, and blankets. They got 30 new chairs, 4 dining tables with benches, an electric stove they could afford to use, 2 faucets, 4 light fixtures, 2 sofa's, toys, craft supplies, hats, and boots. The Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Chisinau made slippers and wonderful fleece blankets that the children really loved.

The Brindusa Childrens Center in Hincesti Moldova

The wardrobes with doors off and shelves missing.

The chairs with the backs broken off. Dangerous wouldn't you think?!
Elder Kitchen and Elder VanWormer repairing the 26 bunkbeds.

The Relief Society's wonderful fleece blankets being delivered.

The first nap in her fixed bed, new sheets, new mattress, new blanket, new pillow.

This could not be done before the beds were repaired...they would have leaned too much!

Ruslan was baptized! A shy young man about 26 years old.

We also heard today that Sasha has put in his mission papers. Senic has returned from his mission in Urkraine It is a great time for the Young Single Adults in Chisinau.

Irina Sunny

We were asked to check on Irina. She had aged out of the boarding school/orphanage and had exhausted her resources of places to sleep and had no money, clothes, or food. Marc Barlow, from the U.S. was willing to sponsor her if her situation was as truely desparate as he was being told. This is a photo of Irina after we told her that Marc had agreed to sponsor with a minimal monthly sum.
This is Irina after a nights sleep on our couch. The coat was given to her from a friend who is pregnant and couldn't fit into it any longer.
Irina came to the taco party we had for the missionaries at the Aikens house. She had never had a taco before. She is so shy. We love her already.
Irina went to our project for the children at the Hincesti Brindusa Center. She helped carry things in. Since she had lived in this kind of setting while growing up it was a nice project for her to join us on. That night we got her settled into her very own bed at a student hostel. We got her blankets, pillow, hygeine things, a phone, towels, pots/pans/ dishes. She is a very special person who has endured much and yet remained sweet and tender. She has been coming to church so we are hoping she can be "adopted" by the members and finally have a family.

TWO Christmas' in Moldova!

There is an "acknowledged" Christmas on Dec 25th. Then a "celebrated" Orthodox Christmas on Jan 7th. Today. It's interesting to have celebrations for Christmas twice and the New Year celebration in the middle. Gift giving is not such a big part of the celebrations as in the USA.

Because today was "Christmas" (again) and because we still had some toys that had been donated by the PennYan Branch in New York, Patrice Read's family in Indiana, and some Moldovan money from Alexandru one of our contractors - we decided to buy a few more things and do Christmas for one of the poorest families we have met so far in Moldova.

We visited this familyof 6 last week to find them living in a corner room in a tool shed on a pig and sheep farm. They had been homeless and living in an open field previously. The farmer allows them to live in his tool shed only if they will work on the farm. They have 4 boys: Victor 7, Maxim 4, and 3 year old twins Constantin and Natolie. 7 year old Victor was shepherding about 100 sheep across the mud road to pasture when we pulled up. (see photo). Mom and the 3 other boys were in the corner room in a tool shed that was big enough for a double bed only. It had a ledge at the end of the room that boys played on because the inner wall was heated. It was -9 outside! Mom had been hanging the boys cloths outside on the line to dry so when we went inside the 3 boys had almost no clothes on because their only clothes were hanging outside. Tom called it "freeze-dried" cloths. Elena Barlow came with us on this visit and we both felt so much compassion for this little family that we gave Olesea (mom) the cash that we had in our pockets so they could buy food. Elena was adopted from Moldova by an American family and had come back to Moldova for Christmas to donate coats to orphans. We also sent along a large box of boys clothing that Vera from the Chisinau Branch gave us to give away and we gave them a blanket that we had received from the Coltons while we were in Germany.

Lidea, our water contractor and NGO, told us while were there that this family could get social assistance if they could get into a house and the cost of buying a home in that isolated village was about $1,000-$1,500. Can you imagine buying a home for so little!??!! Elena said she was going to go home the next week and immediately try to get donations of that amount and send to Lidea so she could get this family into a home. Lidea and Elena have been emailing about how that is coming along. We said we would help personally with some household goods to get them into a home.

For now, though, we decided to give the boys a moment of joy on Christmas day. Look at the photos of what we saw the first time we visited and some photos of us delivering the gifts. We took so many photos! It was so soul satisfying to be a part of this. Lidea gave them warm orange socks, hygiene kits, and some other needed items. Because we took so many photos I've decided to post some photos and then do a fast speed slideshow of the boys opening gifts. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you can identify items that you donated and see how much joy it brought to these children. They will NEVER forget this day. We gave mom and dad gifts too and even gave them Book of Mormon's in Russian and Romanian. Merry 2nd Christmas to you all!

7 year old Victor shepherding.

Dad taking care of the pigs.

The tool shed they live in. Actually they live in a corner room of the shed.

The outside door leads to the hall to the corner room.

The rest of the toolshed I saw while walking to the back room they live in.

The door to their room.

Twin 3 year olds sitting and 4 year old Maxim standing on the ledge in the room.


Olesea and the boys. She had just been outside hanging cloths in -9 weather.

Elena (back seat) planning with Lidea (front seat) on how to help. Tom is driving.

At 8:30 am on January 7th, the official Orthodox Christmas... we arrived at Olesea's and Uri's "home" with the gifts that Santa accidentily left at our apartment for them. They were thrilled! Enjoy the moments captured in this slide show. And again, Merry 2nd Christmas to all you who helped make it happen. We love you

Christmas 2010 Medley of Events

There are 2 Christmas's in Moldova: Dec 25th and Jan 7th.

The December Christmas was on the white side - but beautiful.

Our apartment building entrance.

The garbage truck couldn't get up our hill. At least we had an excuse for the overflowing trash this time!

We receiveded TWO packages from home! 1 was from the Hatch family (yeah!!) and 1 big one was from our Fishers 2 ward family. The ward sent a stocking full of love notes from everyone. It made us cry to know that so many people love us and remembered us during this special Christmas. THANKS-WE LOVE YOU TOO!!!

The Chisinau Branch Christmas party. (shshshsh-Nella played Father Christmas)


Irina and Toni at the Branch Christmas party.

The Hincesti Pro-Women's Shelter. Marlene Lopez, next to me is the Peace Corp Volunteer.


We delivered to the Pro-Women's Shelter toys for the children, a clothes dryer, a refrigerator, a couple of high chairs, some Newborn Kits, goodie bags, and...

...some diapers! The young mothers and the center had no budget for diapers of any kind so the mothers were not using any diapers at all!! They just washed baby cloths alot-thus the need for a dryer. So we ordered g diapers from Babies R Us. They were were so excited!

Tom and I picked up KFC for lunch for 38 missionaries for zone conference. We also fixed a Christmas dinner for all of them. It was great!

Christmas Eve we went with all the Young Single Adults and the Kitchens to a wonderful concert. These 3 guys are triplets and sounded terrific. They wore suits at first and were super good looking.

The female vocalist was Moldovan and she was extraordinary!

Doina really got into the concert. It was almost as much fun watching her as the concert.

Christmas Day at President and Kesli Aikens home. The missionaries got to skype call their families from the Aikens. We had chili.

Sister Hansen and Sister Hansen made carmel apples for us. No, it is NOT a typo...both Sister missionaries have the same last name and they are NOT related.

Santa brought the Aikens a WEE game and here is Ryan loosing at bowling!

The Elders played a game of Risk while waiting their turn to Skype their families.

Just us.

Kesli and President Aiken chilling out after everyone else went home.


Then we went to Blind School #135 for their Christmas concert. We definately got our kid fix! It was so cute. The boy second on the right was a perfect little "Ralphie" from Christmas Story.

Father Christmas wears a robe in Moldova. He was fun to watch in the program. They played games, danced, and sang. Everyone new their part perfectly and most could see where to go!

Made us miss the grandkids... a lot!

Then Elena arrived from Orem Utah. She is the blonde. She grew up in a Moldovan orphanage with Alina and got adopted by an American family. They are members of the church. Elena came to Moldova to visit with friends and to give winter coats to orphans. She also brought 6 coats for a family were going to do Christmas for; Aurica and Vladimer's family.

Here's Aurica's family with their new coats. They also got new boots - even dad!

All the coats perfectly...except for the littlest girl. It will fit her next year and the year after!

We went to Aurica's home and shared Christmas gifts with them. They had never seen so many gifts at one time. Their Babuska watched as they happily opened gifts. Money for the gifts was donated by Elder Jentzsch's family and our contractor Alexander.

The biggest hits were the Barbie type dolls, the CD player, and the back packs. Notice the sleeping baby: she slept through all the noise and gift opening. She is sleeping on the bear we gave to her.

Then we had a big dinner to celebrate Senic (front right) coming home with honor from his mission to Ukraine. We had an American Thanksgiving meal complete with turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie.

We let Suren carve the turkey

Sona made me 2 hats, a scarf, and gloves for Christmas. She is such a doll!

Senic's mother, Hripseme, made me a green scarf. I love it!

Here are some of the bottles of wine that were given to us and to Katea's office. They say they get so many bottles each year that they could open a wine store. We told Dorina that part of her job as a translator for us was to get rid of the wine we kept getting.

It is Jan 2nd today and it still this beautiful outside.