The Ongoing Challenge

It has been a while since me your humble Director has made a post on our blog. We have other very capable people doing this. However, I feel I have something of value to share with you today; and that is sharing with you the ongoing challenge Another Child Foundation and our ministry partner Fundatia Buckner struggles with on a regular basis.

Over the past 12 months the school we support in Romania (Point of Hope Development Center) has been given additional regulations to follow. While many of these regulations make perfect sense on paper they do bring some challenges that have the potential to do harm. The one regulation that I want to share with you is the rule that now says that anytime children are brought together in a community place, like our school, all the children must have papers saying that they have had the required medical checks/physicals and vaccinations up to date. To me this makes total sense. We don't want to infect others with any viruses or issues another child might have. This brings us to the problem. In February we shared with the parents the need to conform to these regulations and that their help was needed. These medical checks or physicals do have a cost associated with them. The cost is not high for an employed person, about 7 USD, it does cause a problem for some of the families that ACF supports at the Point of Hope. Many of these families live on a very small monthly stipend from the Romanian government. So choices have to be made by the parents. Where will they spend their monthly support? The daily attendance dropped sharply at the Point of Hope due to many of the children not having the medical tests completed. Sadly, most of the parents have some type of addiction to nicotine or alcohol so a portion of the money goes to support this habit along with a little bit of food and other material needs the family has. So, where does the money to have their children checked out by a physician and immunized come from? This is the CHALLENGE for ACF and Fundatia Buckner. ACF and Fundatia Buckner could easily pay for these physicals to keep the children in school since the cost is manageable. But, at what point do we turn over some of the simple but very important responsibilities over to the parents. Fundatia Buckner is already giving their children up to 8 years of education with no cost at all.

Lack of accountability is something in which people in all cultures are really failing to understand the impact. This is becoming more and more of a problem throughout the world. ACF and Fundatia Buckner are standing up against this problem. Fundatia Buckner has a social worker who has the responsibility of visiting each of the homes, who have children in our program, to speak to them about the need to provide for their children. This visit was very well received by most of the families and they now understand at a new level the need for them to provide these medical tests for their children. However, one family still does not see the need and now have their child begging in the streets of Tarneveni instead of attending the Point of Hope. This is so sad but clearly shows the challenges we have as ministry leaders as well as the people we are serving. Fundatia Buckner President said it best when he made the comment that "it is not our goal to simply educate the children, but to guide the parents to learn to provide, value, and love their children and give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to transform lives." Setting higher expectations for the parents proved to work. I realize that people will step up if we let them know what is expected from them. If we set no standard of expectations or accountability people will live up to them as well. Beginning next week we expect the attendance to be back to normal and a lesson learned by the parents that THEY need to provide for their children if they expect the children to prosper to a higher level.

So as we continue to move forward in reaching, teaching, and transforming lives please keep ACF, Fundatia Buckner, and all the people we serve in your prayers. It is the power of prayer and faithful action that is doing God's work in Romania and to all the ends of the earth. AMIN!