Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention:
Forget your people and your father’s house.
Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.
Psalm 45:10-11
We pray today for renewal of our young people and their memories of the past. Help the children in our mission to heal from trauma by remembering only Your love for them. Please prove to them that you come to make Your blessings flow as far as the curse is found. Amen.
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Romans 12:10
God we are so grateful for every child you’ve brought into Mia’s Children. We know that you have the power to heal them of even the most terrible past experiences. At the same time, we pray for all of the children influenced by new arrivals who need special care. Make the general tone of the house one of love and light. Give Mia and the staff and volunteers wisdom in guiding the children even in the midst of dark personal histories. Amen.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:16
Lord we praise you for allowing some of our children to receive their ID cards this week! Thank you for an answer to many years of prayer. Please continue to protect the children who do not have IDs, who are stateless. Only you can give us true identity – please do so for them. Amen.
All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,
for dominion belongs to the Lord
and he rules over the nations.
Psalm 22:27-28
Lord we pray for the children in our organization who still have terrible memories of their pasts. Please clear their minds of the images and nightmares that haunt them. Help them to see anew and to be free of the years that burden them. Amen.
Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared.
Numbers 14:17
God we pray for the children in Romania and elsewhere who, because they do not have papers, cannot attend school or access special services. Please give Mia’s Children the resources to educate them. Give them a deep assurance of their identity in you as they wait for the state to acknowledge them. Amen
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
3 John 1:2
Lord we ask for mercy on Mia’s health as she struggles with the fracture in her inner ear. Give her the capacity to hear well and to continue serving you with her body. Give any doctors who examine her wisdom in how or if to proceed with any treatment. And if at all possible, we ask for you to heal her completely. Amen.
But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
Psalm 10:14
Thank you for fathers who love you and who give sacrificially for their children’s well-being. We pray for the many children who do not have fathers or who do not know paternal love. Please comfort them and provide them with people who reflect your fatherly care. We ask this for the children at Mia’s Children and for other young people like them around the world. Amen.
Open Door Medical Clinic – Bucharest
Did you know Mia’s Children has our very own medical team?
Okay, well not exactly, but we do have a special place to take the kids if they get sick or need checkups.
Drs. Linda and Milt Hanson, a US couple, run a medical mission in Bucharest called Open Door Medical Center.
From their website:
Situated in the city of Bucharest, capital of Romania, Open Door Medical Center is a full-service family medicine clinic that primarily serves low-income Romanians, gypsies, and refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Services include prenatal care and well-child care, geriatrics, and preventive care. The medical staff includes Drs. Milton and Linda Hanson, associate professors with University of Minnesota School of Medicine.
Most patients are very low-income Romanians, many of whom make less than $40 per month. The Romanian government provides no safety net medical care, and most low-income persons simply go without, but for the charity care offered at Open Door.
Refugees from Africa, and Iraqis and Iranians living in Romania also frequent Open Door Medical Center, as do some Americans and Western Europeans living in Romania.
Open Door’s two physicians are a husband and wife team. Milton and Linda Hanson are associate professors with University of Minnesota School of Medicine.They first came to Romania in 1994, learned the Romanian language, received their hard-won Romanian medical licenses, and then initiated the Open Door Medical Foundation in 1997.
For many years Mia has been able to bring the children and her own family to the center for quality, compassionate health care. What a blessing in a country with overburdened medical programs and a struggling economy.
Learn more about Open Door Medical Center and how you could get involved with their work.
Did you know Mia’s Children accepts short-term missions teams and individuals who want to help?
With the new building, we are able to accept groups more formally to work with the students on a short-term basis.
Projects might include:
All projects would be under the direction of Mia and the Romanian staff. Because of logistical challenges like housing, size, translation, and funding, we can’t accept every group that wants to visit, but we are happy to work with you as we and the Romanian team are able.
Contact us for more information.
(The following update from Bucharest tells the story of two new members from the “wolf group” of children – arrivals at the mission who Mia and the rest of the association have very courageously taken in. Please consider their plight in your prayers this week. They represent exactly why Mia’s Children exists.)
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In times of concerns and social, economical, moral crises when people are so much focused on their own drama, trying to find answers to so many questions, God is giving us grace, prosperity, meeting His promises for us: “Don’t be afraid, I am with you !”
And He is!
Romania is going crazy through all this: the school system, the medical care, the social policy and not only these, are not covering the real life and the results are a disaster. More kids are abandoning school, all types of viruses are going around, and there are no medicines, no money, no proper education in school–the society seems that it is asleep.
But in spite of this, the Lord is giving us a special vision to redeem, to rebuild, to refill the precious spirits and hearts of those who are brought into our work. That’s why we accepted two more children, coming from” the wolf group”, Bogdan and Emi. At the age of 8 they look like 4-year olds, mal-nutitioned. Wild an scary as they lived for months and months in a place where they imitated the way beasts are walking and speaking.
It’s incredible how children can survive with no love, no care in this moment in the society and how they can try to survive, having refuge among animals, who became a kind of family for them. The first days they were speaking in strange language, imitating the sounds of animals. And it required great courage for Costi and Oana to bring them inside the group, to clean out their lice, to try to calm them and cut their wild hair, and to give them the first bath….the words are too poor, sometimes ….
It is tremendous to see how hard it has been for them, and also for the group, to all of us to change their habits. The kids are trying to adjust their new life, including the new boys. We notice the great progress the two boys are making in one month: they started to love to play with other children, to speak, to listen and respect simple rules, to take baths, to stay dressed.
They still are rocking back and forth and sucking their thumbs, and they want to be taken in your arms as babies, emitting different sounds that have no meaning for us. They started to love to be hugged and touched, and looking at the rest of the group, they want to start to write. Emi drew his first tiny house and gave it to Mia, telling her how much he loves her. He also hangs on Oana’s feet, and we discovered that one of his legs is shorter than the other. Please pray for these children and us to continue to improve their lives.
All of this is possible because God loves each of us so much, because of each of you who are praying, giving, trusting, helping to design a vision for a better tomorrow. This can be a way for a better society, an answer for a safer world, where love and peace and understanding and supporting can take place and help human beings to live in harmony with God and each other, rebuilding the moral fiber of God’s creation.
Thank you for your faithfulness and dedication, for your supporting Mia’s Children!