Bonus Pastor Foundation Newsletter - April 2007

Various

· Teri Sz?cs took a leave from the Foundation to work on her Ph.D.  Ferenc Bálint, who is to fill her position, is currently in training. In a month's time he will be ready to carry more responsibility inside the Drug Therapy Centre.
· Laci Szalcer was hired to oversee all of the manual labour which is part of our clients' work therapy.
· At the beginning of May two functionaries from the state accreditation office visited the Drug Therapy Centre. They found everything in order and promised to give us official accreditation soon.

The Aftercare Conference in Cluj

The Conference was held in Cluj, in the Kerekdomb (“Round Hill”) Reformed Church.  It was a new location for us, and it seems that it was beneficial both for us and for the local hosting church. There were around 100 participants. The atmosphere was very good; the presence of present and former Drug Therapy Centre clients proved favorable for the group-meetings.

Drug Therapy Centre, Ozd

The membership of the Drug Therapy Centre peaked at 18, than began to drop a little. Now, with 13 members, the centre is doing quite well compared to the same period last year.

“There was a problem with some relapsed guys who wanted to come back to the Centre. It posed some problems and lots of questions about how to do it. Finally we ended up with some sort of system which seems to work with the expected results: if we are not positive about somebody's attitude we have tools with which to motivate him or her, but the final decision remains with them. Which is good.” (Gyula Bodó-Tóth)

Case Study

“I have worked for a few months with a lady who has been attending our support group for more than ten years.  She is the wife of an alcoholic and her daughter is divorced from her husband because of alcohol problems (they lived in the same home).  She is a physically handicapped woman and asked for help because of her panic illness.  Some of her brothers in Christ were attacking her because of her persisting panic attacks, saying that somebody who has faith can not live with such fear, and she began to question whether or not she was a believer.  We spoke a lot about it; we prayed and discussed together and read a Christian book by Samuel Pfeifer about psychological disorders.  Now she is at the point where she understands that Christians can have also psychological problems and we are working on her panic problems and family relationships.  We hope that after a time we can invite her husband to our discussions.” (Tünde Geréb)

Farm development, Ozd

· We are planning and budgeting for summer projects: a silage store and smaller construction works.
· We have to buy some agricultural equipment; a car is needed also.
· We should buy the cows we couldn’t buy last autumn

Praise points

The work goes well in all areas. There are clients in the centre, events run smoothly, and we don’t have financial problems for the time being.
Blessings from the Aftercare Conference. The enthusiasm of the Bra?ov group members (an article appeared about them in the Brassói Lapok newspaper). 

Prayer points

Farm development: there are many questions and limited funds.
Summer programs: the Aftercare Conference, Children and Teenagers’ Camps, and the Romanian-Language Treatment Camp.
For the volunteer work-teams, who come from outside Romania.
For the new co-workers (F.B, R.U, L.Sz.)