Caleb
Ministries has been operating in Romania since 1990. Initially seeing its vision as
encouraging the underground church to come forward after the revolution, the
emphasis has now matured into a partnership for reaching for and the powerless.
Caleb continues to encourage church building through its evangelism and helps
programs throughout Romania in Eastern Europe. Medical clinics established at Petrosani in the West, Bucharest in the country, Iasi in the East and the Braila
and Constanta in the Southeast Delta region continue to operate effectively. The
Petrosani program is by far the largest, operated by Philadelphia church and
includes a full medical facility open seven days a week offering free care to
the needy. Open-door clinic in Bucharest services many as well as does
Faloncalia in Iasi. Other programs have now been given over to churches for
local administration and we have concentrated on specific medical needs of
individuals such as major surgeries, Aids care, and dental clinics. These are
nearly all self-supporting within Romania by the Caleb churches, Caleb's
Fundatia Betani and Caleb’s Foundation Timothy and Caleb Din Romania. In the
last two years Caleb has sent less than $3000 in funds total to Romania to keep
the program going!
Through the
gift of Glycobears from Mannatech Corporation and Manna Relief, we continue to
supply approximately 2400 bottles of supplements for down syndrome children
within Romania. The Mannatech people have visited the Caleb programs over the
last four summers and now ship the product directly into Romania without any
cost to Caleb Ministries.
At
Braila Fundatia Betani operates the Caleb warehouse out of Second Pentecostal
Church under the direction of eastern European director for Caleb ministries
Marin Tiripa and his wife Christina. Since we have stopped shipping containers
of clothing we have been purchasing truckloads of good used clothes from Western
Europe which are trucked into Romania for under $1,500.00. Each truck load is
equivalent to what our containers would hold. The container cost rose to over
$10,000 per delivery making the truckloads a much better opportunity for us to
continue our work. This coupled with the fact that since its entry into the
European Union, internal regulations at the port of Romania discourage goods
being received from outside of the European Union.
Through Faraway
Lands freight, we continue to send personal goods, medicines, vitamins, books,
candy packs, and specific needs for individuals within Romani
Church building
has now been concentrated on the Delta area which s the poorest section of the
country and contains many villages and towns populated with Russians, Turks,
Gypsies, and Romanians. We have had three evangelism tours each of the last
three years through the Delta. We continue to support orphanages, hospitals,
feeding programs, missionaries and outreaches throughout the country. Last July
we delivered 18 boxes of clothing to one orphanage alone, in Braila. At the BeClean hospital for handicapped or Impaired children, we supplied Glycobears
and toys and clothes. Evangelism and long night services continue to be held in
14 Gypsy in the tradition established during the Ceaucesceau dictatorship where
people, and pray and preach in worship throughout the entire night. We are
sponsoring several children in school and supplying materials to employees a
hospital for young mentally challenged children in Lugos.
Below are links to the work and
trips to Romania since 2006. Check out them out or send us an email to ask
specific questions. We'd love to hear from you.