Christmas Newsletter 2008
Here in the East Riding the cold northerly winds have been blowing snow showers onto us, and the political climate also matches this as today Alistair Darling, has produced a special budget to try to get us out of the present recession. It is nice to think back to the autumn and to report the warmer happier times of our Romanian bike ride and the wedding of two of our Rehab young people, Elena and Vasile. The wedding happened first and was a very happy occasion with many of their friends at both the civil and the church wedding followed by an excellent reception at a restaurant in Radauti. However, only two days later came the news that the Swedewood factory was to close and seven of our young people were out of a job. This was a big blow to our Rehab unit but the good thing was that they were now all able to join us for the bike ride and they did, even our honeymoon couple. The Romanians outnumbered the English and were usually first up the mountains. We discovered a very beautiful lake at the top of some mountains and swimming to cool off was enjoyed by most. The beauty of Romania never ceases to amaze us and each year we add more beautiful places to our collection.
After the bike ride we inspected the site where our new houses are to be built, just on the edge of the river Siret. The land is good and I am pleased to report that the foundations are in and the building has begun to happen. Even more progress was happening on the school for handicapped children which is now completed up to the first floor and is surprisingly big. Our Dutch friends are funding this work which has now stopped until the spring. While we were in Siret we had the pleasure of helping Brindusa to unload our container of aid and distribute it to several hospitals and clinics. The medicines were very gratefully received by all the doctors and they were obviously still very needed.
This autumn we also managed to get another load of mostly medical supplies into Moldova for distribution by ORA. Their leader, Veronica, visited us in Beverley in the summer and was particularly impressed by a local old peoples’ home and she went home vowing to try to bring such help and comforts to her old people in Moldova. We are very happy to try to help her to achieve this and we hope she is successful. There is still a lot of help needed in Moldova and changes are slow. We thank God that we have been able to safely deliver our precious loads.
Just now we have a container full of medical supplies on its way to Tamale, a town in the north of Ghana. This town has a medical school and a large teaching hospital. They had heard about our help to Nandom and Lawra and they asked for help too. We also have had another request for help from Sister Justina who has now been moved from her convent in Lawra to be head of a large boarding school in Nadowli where there are 640 boys and girls aged 16 to 21 years old. It is situated in the bush and is very isolated. The task is an onerous one and she needs our help. The feeding and health care needed will be costly and the school is less than ten years old. She needs sports gear in large quantities so please don’t throw away your old football, hockey and tennis gear. We would welcome anything useful. The Ghana containers are extremely costly for us as are the Afghan ones but we cannot ignore this cry for help.
The present economic disasters have severely affected our friends from Iceland in their attempts to set up schools in Burkino Faso just over the border from Lawra but they now have started their first school and we hope to have some discussions with them after Christmas. I am told that most Icelanders are now so poor that they cannot even afford to buy their own fish!
We hope to have our container for Kiev, Ukraine, delivered by Christmas. It is usually one of the most troublesome loads for our driver, Titi, and he will be very happy when he returns to Beverley to collect his return load for Romania. We are sending help for the haematologist, Dr Nadja Bilko and her research team at the Mohyla Academy. Laboratory equipment and disposables are very needed for their work. They will distribute some clothing and food to their students who are poor and also to a home for handicapped children.
With the safe delivery of the Afghan container that we sent last summer and news from Dr Farid that it had been safely distributed we decided to go ahead and load the next which sails in early December. The steadily deteriorating security has made it difficult to continue some of our work and there has been a change in distribution. Our medicines are now reaching many outlying parts where the need is great, even to Helmand where the fighting is most and the injuries the greatest. This is thanks to the setting up of some mobile clinics. They are reaching areas such as Badakshan in the far north west. We are still helping all three diabetic centres in Kabul, the main orthopaedic hospital and the Mywand hospital which has a children’s unit. Dr Farid has delivered tents, blankets, food and medicines to the internally displaced people living under canvas on the edge of Kabul. They have fled their homes to escape the fighting and now have to face the extremely cold winter. We hope to help again soon.
In October Peter and I visited Pakistan again. We heard how the war is causing many problems for the people living in the Northwest Frontier region. If the villages side with the Taliban the Americans bomb them and if they don’t the Taliban intimidate or send in suicide bombers to blow them up. Some young men are leaving this area and have fled to places like Karachi where they sleep under bridges and need to beg for food and work. The present recession is hitting countries like Pakistan very hard. Inflation is 30% and the poor cannot afford to eat. Power cuts have been up to 12 hours a day and nobody knows what is going to happen next. Perhaps this puts some of our own difficulties into perspective. Most of us can still afford to eat. In Pakistan many people are vegetarians, not by choice but because meat is out of the question. They have no money. As Advent leads on to Christmas this year perhaps the present shortage of money might lead us to look at the kind of gifts that Jesus would have us give each other - some time, some love for each other and a helping hand for those in need.
Everyone at Jacob’s Well would like to thank you with all their hearts for the many gifts that you have sent to help this work to continue. We wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas.
Beryl Beynon, Medical Director
The Wedding of Vasile and Elena
Lake Ana - Cool rest for hot cyclists in Romania
Please note our new email address which is;
office@thejacobswell.org