Our Missionary, Rebecca Graham, first traveled to Campulung, Romania in February of 1997. On that trip, she visited 8 different orphanages in the area and sought the Lord’s will for where she should begin working. The Lord directed her to help at a boys’ orphanage of 100 children. These boys were starving in everyway. She began feeding them, helping with medical, clothing and educational needs, taking them to Sunday School at the local Baptist Church and Vacation Bible School. Several local national young boys and girls began going to the orphanage with Rebecca and helping her with the children. Until she began working with the orphans, none of the local people ever went to the orphanages. A Mission Team from Charleston, traveled to Romania and came to the Baptist Church, Rebecca was attending with the orphans.

During the first visit in 1997, the Lord gave Rebecca a vision for a Mission Centre, which will house 85 to 100 children when it is finished. The Lord gave us property in June of 2000 and on September 25, 2000, we broke ground on the building. Our ministry with the children has continued over the years with a Bible Sports Ministry, Puppet Ministry, work with the community churches, government orphanages and with many Mission Teams coming each year to help love on our children. God has worked so miraculously and we have seen many adults and children give their lives to the Lord over the years. God has blessed us with many local youth who help us with Vacation Bible School each year and with 3 national staff personnel who have worked with our ministry for several years. Our construction crew at the Mission Centre, is directed by our foreman, who is an elder at the local Baptist Church. We have prayed over every inch of the 10 acres of property the Lord has given us and we have seen many lives changed before the Centre is even opened.

The Mission Centre has a barn that will house 4 cows in the future, a space for pigs, a Chicken coup for chickens and turkeys, a huge garden and an orchard with 255 fruit trees. The Centre includes a computer, educational room, a container that will be turned into a pottery, carpentry shop and we will also teach the children to sew, cook, clean and daily living skills. Our goal is to train the children to be productive citizens. All of these previous years, we have worked to introduce the orphans to the local community. It is exciting to see the change in the local community’s heart, concerning the orphan children. Each year the orphans put on a Christmas Program for the community. They sing, memorize Bible verses, have the Nativity Play and we have a wonderful time. It is rewarding to see the negative attitude and the stigma of “orphan” reducing each year. With the help of some dear friends, in Litchfield, Illinois; we are able to hand out hundreds of Christmas stockings each year, filled with toys and necessities. Our friends have a “Christmas in July” project each year where they make hundreds of stockings and send them to us along with beanie babies, toys, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soaps and many toys. For the orphans and many of the community children, the Christmas Stocking is their Christmas.

While the main focus of our work is with the orphans, we also minister to the entire community through many programs. When the Mission Centre is open, we will have many programs to help the general population. At the Centre we have Medical rooms along with a Dental room. When Medical teams come, we will have free services for not only the orphans but also the general population. Our goal has always been to reach out to the entire community At present we have three apartments. Our first apartment we have owned since 1998 and is where Rebecca lives and many of our Mission Team members stay when they come to help. We also have an office ministry apartment and we were given another apartment that is used at present to house our first 8 adopted children.

We took custody of 7 girls and 1 boy on October 25, 2004. We did not think we would be responsible for our own children until the Mission Centre was finished but God made a way for us to take these 8 children. We are training them in daily living skills and for the future so they can become productive citizens.