From 600 to 1400 fed every day in Romania

Visiting new developments for our feeding program is never easy,. Conditions for giving the go ahead would not at times meet normal criteria for governmental standards of Hygiene, Health and Safety, and many other criteria that we would class as essential within our daily environment.

Very near to the centre of Bucharest we visited one of the proposed new city sites for providing a feeding program for children in some of the poorest areas that I have seen in Romania. Located in an alley way off the main street, it was a surprisingly big church that had an attendance of around 80 people. To reflect on the nature and outreach that the church was reaching into, the pastor described how one of the mafia type gangster’s wives had recently come to the Lord.

The heart of the church was to reach out to the people in the area and bring hope to the children that lived in squalor and chaos, to provide food yes but also an education and a hope that they could have life beyond their current circumstance.

Poverty here could be measured within a contained environment of blocks of flats, streets and communities that could be identified with and be appalled at. Our next port of call was to an area called Love Field which took our emotions to a deeper level and one of admiration for those who are called to work there and a heartfelt pang for the situation of those who lived there. Unable to take the vehicle onto the site for the mud, we had to walk down a path strewn with human faeces.

A shanty town built on reclaimed land once used for a dump for construction material, with a ramshackle collection of clay brick, pallet wood patchwork walls and tin roofed huts, with no electricity or mains water, right in the middle of Bucharest. In the midst of the squalor sat a hut used as a church which will be turned into a feeding centre by the congregation, run by a young man, who had spent 7 years in prison who now had a vision to work with ex convicts, who the majority of those who lived in the commune where, having to live under such conditions as they had no support and less opportunity to find a mainstream job.

Rejected by society, they have not turned against it, but having found hope in Christ, turned to look at how they could reach out to the local community to help, provide food and an educational program to the most vulnerable of children in the surrounding area. What love is this that breaks down walls of human reasoning, core values that resonated with us at Feed The Hungry, to help the unloved and rejected, and to bring a hope and a future to those in need.

Read more about the different places visited and the new  feeding locations opened on our full report on http://www.feedthehungry.org.uk/ . The difference you can make today will pour out an avalanche of grace on these children for with every £4 donated we can provide 100 meals to provide meals to over 35,000 children Every day

Thank you 

Gwyn Williams

Operations Manger

UK and Ireland