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Since
many of you may not know anything
about the ministry here at Fairhaven,
which has led to the Romanian Ministry, Hopes For Others, I would like to just take a few moments to tell you about it.
Love in Christ,
Johnny
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On
this page
you will learn about...
The
Founding of Fairhaven Ministry
The Beginning of
the Romanian Ministry
Sebastian... “An Angel Unaware”
The Continuation of
Miracles...
Seeking God's Will
Three of God's Miracles
Founding of Hope
for Others
Our Board of Directors
What
the Ministry of Hope for Others Tries to Accomplish
Mrs. Shirley Gremeychev... a Special Angel
What is a shipping container... and how is it packed and
delivered?
God's Goodness and Faithfulness
Our Greatest Blessings... Are the Special People We Meet
Scriptures that Touch Our Hearts...
A Special Miracle!
God is Faithful... and THANK YOU for your Prayers!
A Brief Summary of
Events...
In Summary...
Contact Information
The
Founding of Fairhaven Ministry
Bro.
and Mrs. Harold Brown founded
the
ministry at Fairhaven and has now been in operation since January, 1966.
Fairhaven Ministry is a non-profit organization which has been
dedicated to helping children who come from difficult situations. We accept
no state or federal aid and have always depended on our Lord,working in the hearts of people, to meet the needs here. It
is our desire that the children who come here will not only have a
stable, Christian home, but more importantly, will come to know
Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
Through the years,
we have had the opportunity to share in the lives of over 300
children. This ministry is a tribute to the faithfulness of our
Lord.
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The
Beginning of the Romanian Ministry
In
the fall of 1992, as Bro. and Mrs. Brown watched a 20/20
documentary on the “Unsalvageable Children of Romania”, their hearts were broken by what they saw. Of all that they saw,
the child that affected them the most was a little girl named
Elana. According to the documentary, this little girl, with the deformed
leg, had been living in a cage-like room for 12 years.
After watching the documentary, they prayed for the children
there, and I believe that it was at that moment... that our
ministry in Romania began.
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Sebastian...
“An Angel Unaware”
In
February of 1993, Bro. Brown went to be with the Lord. In April of that year, we were contacted by Highland Park
Hospital, in Covington, about taking a Romanian child named Sebastian.
Sebastian was brought to the U. S. for medical help. His situation was completely misrepresented by the media,
as we were told that he had no one to care for him in Romania.
After he was with
us a short time, we had a phone call from his mother, in
Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
It
was evident, after much communication with Sebastian’s mother,
Marianna, that Sebastian had a family who loved him very much. The Lord also
impressed on our hearts that just because we could provide help here in the States which he couldn’t
receive in Romania, that it didn’t give us the right to deprive Sebastian of his
parents or his parents of him.
Sebastian
lived in our home for 2 years and we always say that if there was
ever “an angel unaware”, it was Sebastian. He won the hearts of all who came in
contact with him.
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The
Continuation of Miracles...
With God
Leading the Way in Life-Changing Events...
I
took Sebastian home to Cluj-Napoca Romania in March of 1995, never dreaming that I was about to make a trip that
would affect and change my whole life, as well as adding to the ministry
hereat Fairhaven.
On that trip, I was
gone for 17 days. I was overwhelmed by the poverty and the needs everywhere I went. What surprised me
the most was the effect which it was all having on me. I had
spent a year in Viet Nam in my youth, and have been in other countries
in the world where things were worse, but God was breaking
my
heart in Romania.
I
knew that Romania was the last stronghold for communism in eastern Europe until the overthrow of the dictatorship in Dec. 1989. What I had not realized was that here was a country a little smaller than our
state of Oregon with a devastated economy and at least 250,000
orphans, street children, and abandoned babies (with at least 5000
new abandoned babies per year), not to mention the sick,
handicapped, and the older people who are often forgotten in the
day to day survival situation.
From
Dec. 1989 till Dec 2001 the inflation rate averaged about 57% per
year, with the exception of one year when it was 67%. As of Nov, 2002, it has only been about 30% or so for this year.
I had absolutely no idea what we could do, but I knew that we were
supposed to do something.
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Seeking
God's Will
I
came home, and told my wife, and her mother (Mrs. Brown) that I
didn’t know what, but that I really felt that God had something
for us to do in Romania. So, a few weeks later, in May, Mrs.
Brown, my wife, and I were back in Romania.
We
were there, and traveled for 8 days before the Lord started
directing us. We found 3 children’s homes and started by helping
them.
We returned in October of that year to buy food and warm clothes
and shoes for the children in those homes, and to be sure they had
what they needed to make it through the winter.
There was also another reason for going back. We were
bringing 3 Romanian young people to the U.S. Two we were bringing for medical help and the
third was to be our translator.
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Three
of God's Miracles
Sergio,
had been having seizures since age 6 when he had meningitis.
The medications in Romania were doing more harm than good.
After 6 months of treatment, here in the states, I took him home,
to Arad, Romania, where he is , today , with no more seizures and
doing well.
Adrian
is a young man we met in one of the children’s homes we were
helping. Adrian had lost part of his right leg in a train accident the
previous December. We brought Adrian to the states, thinking that he only needed a
prosthesis. Adrian has now been at Fairhaven for about four and one-half years. He has had to
have surgeries and prosthetic work that have totaled about $90,000 so far. As always, God
was faithful to take care of the bills. In March, 2001, Adrian received his Green Card, which meant
that he could then leave the States without fear of not being able to return. In March,
Adrian went home, for the first time in 51/2 years, to visit his family.
The third person we
brought here that October is Alina, the sister of the young
man who was having the seizures. She came as our translator since
neither of the boys spoke English. She is still in t he U.S.
and has now graduated from SLU in Hammond, La.
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Founding
of Hopes for Others
On
every trip we made to Romania, we always took the maximum amount of check-in baggage which is allowed
on
international flights. This is 2 seventy pound bags per person. We
would take clothes, medicine, toys, or whatever the Lord provided
for us to take. We simply felt that we were to do what we could with
what the Lord provided.
In the spring of 1997 the Lord laid it on our hearts to help
to
establish a licensed, non-profit organization in Arad, Romania.
In May of 1997,
Sperante Pentru Altii (Hopes for Others)
was licensed by the
government of Romania as a non-profit
charity organization,
complete with a board of directors.
(In Romanian this actually means HOPES and
this is where we get our website name)
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Our
Board of Directors
I would like to pause here for
a moment and tell you a little about our board of directors. Our
Lord has joined us with a group of Romanian Christians who have a
deep and sincere desire to serve our Lord and to serve others.
We praise God for these very special friends. We consider
ourselves both blessed and privileged to have friends such as
these. They consider themselves stewards of all that God
provides for them to distribute and they do not take this
responsibility lightly. One thing they are always expressing
to me is the difficulty in knowing where the supplies need to
go-- because the needs are so great everywhere.
They are always praying that the Lord will direct them in
this according to His will.
(Pictured with
Johnny is Ani Chisca,
President of our Board of Directors for Hopes For Others in Arad)
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At
this point,
I will try to explain just what
the ministry of
Hope for Others tries to accomplish.
As
our Lord makes it possible, by touching the hearts of people here
in the U. S., we are able to help meet the needs of those in
desperate (sometimes life or death) situations. We do this
by providing the food, medical supplies, clothing, and other
necessities necessary for
survival. Often we are able to provide financial support in order
that someone may be able to receive the medical help that would
otherwise be impossible for them to obtain.
The most important part of all of this, though, is that we have a chance to share the love of Jesus
Christ in word
and deed. It is stressed to all of the recipients of these goods
and services that it is only because of the Love of Jesus that
this is possible.
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Mrs.
Shirley Gremeychev... a Special Angel
Through a series of
circumstances, the Lord put us in touch with Mrs. Shirley Gremeychev of Universal Aid Society in Canada-an organization
which helps to ship containers throughout the world in order to provide relief for
those who are in need. Universal Aid helped us to ship our first container in November of
1997.
Since then, with Shirley's continued efforts and faithful support,
we have been able to ship 40 more containers, the last one of
which had almost 20 tons of food, clothing, medicine, toys, and
other things needed for the ministry there. We praise God for His
faithfulness in filling and sending these containers.
Shirley is truly a Special Angel... who is letting God use her...
to make a real difference in people's lives throughout the world!
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What
is a shipping container...
and how is it packed and delivered?
For
those of you who do not know what a shipping container is, it is
similar to the large 18 wheeler trailers you see on the
interstates. The one we ship is 8 ft. wide by 8 ft. high by 40 ft.
in length.
As people send food, clothes, medicines, etc. to Fairhaven, these items are all sorted, packed in boxes, and labeled.
When we are ready to load, the container is brought here on a
Friday afternoon. This gives us the weekend to load it. It
is then picked up on Monday and taken to the port of New Orleans
where it is loaded aboard a ship.
The container will
be off-loaded in Bremerhaven, Germany and trucked across
Germany, Austria, Hungary, and into Arad, Romania. It is delivered
to the door of our organization there, where they have 3 hours to unload it.
Additional
photos:
