The news featured on this page comes from Carolyn White, volunteer administrator for NOROC, and Mary Ferris, Mission Co-Worker for the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. in Romania.

November 27, 2003

Mary writes:

Dear friends,

As this is Thanksgiving week, I want to begin by saying Thank you to God for this past wonderful year. Everyting we do, every breath we take God is infused into the fabric of every action. I know what Paul meant by praying without ceasing. Since I live in a crisis mode a lot, God is my partner minute by minute, second by second.

With God's direction and help, NOROC has truly harvested a bumber crop of young adults who are amazing in every way. I want to thank all of you for your diligent prayers, your faithful financial support and your unflagging friendship and emotional backing. You have all remained beside me throughout every ordeal we face. I will highlight a few examples of the good year we have had, and close with asking for prayers.

At Cocorri, the baby orphanage, we just completed a wonderful two day training with our grannies by Dr. Jones, who helped the staff institute a regime of using a nasal wash which will help prevent resperitory problems. Some of you remember year before last when four babies died from respritory ailments. Dr. Jones' simple teatment will be highly effective, if they use it. Also, the heating system seems to be working fully for the first year that I remember. Jerry Bozeman did a wonderful training session with the grannies on play therapy. This was a follow-up with a session done last year.

The work of our grannies is so vital here at Cocorri. We now have two shifts working with the newborns- more needs to be done in this area- but we are making progress.

The older toddlers are starting pre-school in the community and are doing very well. We want to thank our speech therapist and our kindergarden teacher, both of whom come faithfully every week to work on speech development and readiness for school. The staff has undergone an amazing transformation here as well. There does not seem to be the us - versus - them philosophy, but more of a team effort. NOROC's part-time psychologist, Cristina, does a lot to make this happen, as well as the faithfullness of Florintina, the director of the center.

NOROC is no longer the only group coming to Tulcea from outside of Romania to help in Cocorri. The Danish, the French and the English have all come this year. I think the readiness of the Department of Protection of Children to allow other groups to have hands-on experience is directly related to the goodwill created by the work NOROC has done. All in all things are the best at Cocorri than I have ever seen them. This is a great cause for rejoicing.

Our program in Babadag with our club NOROC has remained faithful and steady and very deep relationships are developing between the older children we serve and the grannies who work there. As some of you may not know, a year and a half ago they moved all the toddlers from Babadag to Cocorrii and moved in 35 older children with families in the Babadag area to the redeveloped center there. This meant NOROC and our grannies had to shift our facilities to accomodate the older children. We established a club for the children that offers a huge range of activities. Currently we were cut off of the heating system at this center and we now have to provide our own heat to the club. This is difficult because of the inadequate wiring. I am confident this problem will be overcome -but it will mean an additional expense for NOROC monthly. It is a good trade-off, once the heat is working properly, as we will not be considered a financial drain on this center.

This summer they combined the boys home and the girls home in Tulcea. They accomplished this by drastically reducing the number of students in each center. Many of these children have been sent back to their families and in most cases this is very good. Even if they are poor, being with your family is very important. In many of the villages they have opened centers to feed the children in the day time and offer them places to come for doing their homework. They call these centers daycare centers, but they are not for the working parents -but for parents who are destitute. It is a different concept than we have in America. Some children have been moved several times from center to center and this is creating a problem with some of them. However, I pray that most of the moving around is over. The new refurbshed center for boys and girls in Tulcea who remain institutionalized, called Speranza, is very nice and warm. The staff seem to be working very hard and they have a good, tough director with whom we have an excellent relationship. We managed to maintian our Big Hearted Teachers throughout all this turmoil, so we can be very glad of this. There are increasing needs for more advanced tutoring as more girls especially move into highschool. At the other end of the spectrum, more children have had their education disrupted and are in need of special catch-up help.

Our Big Hearted Friends program is still a roaring success. In a way it is easier now that there are fewer children, and now that they are all together. However, the boys have lost their place to play soccer and their out door sports area which was at the boys home and this is not good. We have cooking and sewing classes every Saturday, recreational activities every week, monthly birthday parties and small group activities every two weeks. These activities we provide also provide the children an incentive for behaving, as we do not allow children who have skipped school or who have misbehaved to participate.

Many of you have been following faithfully the fate of the private orphanage for the handicapped children/young adults - CRISP. Their beloved director had a stroke and probably will never return to full-time involvement. The staff has struggled, successfully so far, to keep everything going. The Department of Protection for children has decided that the center will no longer be allowed to house children under 18. These children will all have to be involved in one of the state run centers. This is not good news for these children. However, it does mean that now the center is solely under the Department of the Handicapped. The same man is still the overall director from the city council, but The Department of Protection of the Handicapped is under a very very nice man, who is very good to work with. This will be a blessing, we hope. Thanks to the extrememly generous contributions of many of you out there, CRISP has managed to pay regularly on their bills and hopefully in January, the bills will be assumed by the Department of the Handicapped. This will be a true blessing. Many of our favorite young adults are finding a refuge in this wonderful center with their open door policy -so this is a place to continue supporting and praying for. In fact, today, one young man will go and take a small apartment they have for rent at CRISP. He is a wonderful young man who is crippled in his leg from polio. He graduated from the boy's home and has a bad job, with very little money at the worse sewing factories in town. It was the only place that would hire him with his disability. Even with financial assistance from NOROC, he has been unable to find a place to live. No one wants to rent to people from the boys home, much less some one who is crippled. He has had four places to live in two months. The new director at CRISP, Daniela, has agreed to rent him this small efficiency apartment until we can find a permanent place for him.

The area which occupies most of my time is in working with the youth when they leave the system. We have a wonderful "youth group" of these young adults and this is a growing positive force. They are helping one another, and me, a lot. All four of these kids are doing fine at the moment. More and more of them are wanting to continue their education. They are serving as positive role models for the kids still in the system as they see that hard work and honest behavior pays off.

Not everyone of these kids is perfect, but there is marked improvement in most of them. As a whole, the group is doing great. We now have five young men in university. NOROC is not paying for all of these young men, as each one is a different case, but we are emotionally supporting them and they were all in our groups before they graduated. Without a doubt, except for one who would ahve gone to University anyway, the other four would not be there except for the help given them by NOROC. There are now five girls in highschool from the girs home. This is a tremendous achievement. We also are supporting another two girls in boarding school who have been terminated by the department and are in highschool. One of them was our first girl to graduate from grade twelve. She passed all her classes and now is working to pass her bacculaureate exam.

Of particular prayer concern today:

1. One very troubled young women with a history of terrible abuse who is now on highschoool and making very good grades. However, she continues to act up in the bording school and is sometimes defient of their rules and of all authority. We need to pray for her continued progress and that she will behave so she is not terminated from school.

2.CRISP - They are in limbo as to their status at the moment and selfishly I do not want them to close as we would not have a place for Aurel, Marius, Georgita, Dana.

3.Carolyn White and all the board of directors of NOROC- Give constant prayers of thanksgiving and support for these wonderful, wise people. Carolyn especially carries the burden of the financial side of our mission. This she does without compensation, except for stars in her crown in heaven. She taught me -The Lord is the Lord of all the Gold and Silver so I pray enough of this Gold and Silver passes through NOROC's mission to keep us going and to allow us to expand.

4. All the children -so many of them have passed out of the system without any notice to us and I know God knows where they are. Many of the children I have grown to love very much are gone when I go- they have been moved for one reason or another. PLEASE pray that this shuffling around stops.

5. We have a real medical crisis we need to plan and deal with. 13 out of the 19 boys at Speranza are now smoking, Most of the older girls are smoking also. Some of these children are as young as ten years old. This is a mushrooming crisis. It has never been this bad. I do not have a formal plan yet- but be assured we will do something. Suggestions are welcome.

6. Continued health for all of us involved in NOROC.

This letter is too long already - so Thank God for Jesus, my best friend and confidant and without whom we would not live or move or have our being.

Peace and to God be the Glory,

Rev. Mary Ferris

Old News

November 2003
August 2003
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November/December 2001
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