Weekly update 35/22

 Cristi from Botosani is making good progress with the repair of the fire damage of the boarding school under construction. An admirable energy from him and his team, I respect it.

A while ago I was with Nico and Cristi in the Ukraine and had a meeting there with Igor a pastor of the Pentecostal church. Igor and his team provide daily meals for approximately 2,000 refugees. He sent some pictures of it, especially because I've been there myself, I'm amazed at how they manage this. It almost feels like an obligation to continue to help these people, luckily we have a good partner for this in the person of Cristi. The photos were also taken further inland to the Donbas region, close to the places where this war is still going on for incomprehensible reasons. It's a bit of a shame that Igor is more of a doer than a story writer (see weekly report 29).

Here the link to pictures of Cristi and Igor

On Wednesday, August 31, another nice cargo of relief goods was loaded with destination Botosani. We had to contend with a slight understaffing, but nevertheless everything ran smoothly again.

Here is the link to pictures of the loading.

Toth Attila sent a few photos of a boy from the Ukraine who came to him through the Romanian Child Protection Agency. Unfortunately I don't know the back story.

Here is the link to photos.

Reghina from Ticau also sent pictures of her work, always nice to see.

Here is the link to her photos.

The founder of the Jan Valk Promotion Foundation organizes wonderful tours, as many motorcyclists know. He has invited our Romanian aid workers Csaba and Imola and their friends Csaba and Melinda as his guests for a multi-day tour in the Dolomites. This as compensation for the hospitality that we always use when we are in Breaza. I thought it would be a good idea to accompany them from Breaza and go to the Dolomites together. My motorcycle was brought to Breaza by truck and I ended up there with a Wizzair flight from Eindhoven to Cluj Napoca.

Friday 3 September was therefore a great opportunity to spend a day with Csaba and Imola. It's unbelievable how many people call them asking for help. Good that many requests can be met. Together we brought a trailer full of goods to Elena in the village of Urmenis. Elena is a social worker in this municipality, she is happy that she can help people with this. For example, she said that people don't send their children to kindergarten because they don't have decent clothes. In kindergarten, however, the children don't get a meal after a huge mountain of formalities have been fulfilled. So if your parents are illiterate and just let it go, you get nothing as a child. Elena does what she can but it's not easy. A serious case is a father and a mother with two small children in an old caravan, absolutely unsuitable for living together. The father is a shepherd and the mother is spiritually immature. For food they depend on the neighbors and especially Elena. The mayor wants to make a piece of land available to build a house for them. This is on a long lease with a duration of 90 years. The man's father also lives here. A small simple house costs about € 5,000, Elena and Csaba expect. We are going to discuss how we can make a difference here.

Here is the link to photos.

Saturday we drove to our first stop the farm in Marghita. This went very well along a
beautiful route we reached the farm there. Attila the farm manager had a lot to say about the ins and outs on this beautiful farm. With the whole group including Attila and his wife Marika we had a very pleasant evening in a local restaurant.

On Sunday we will continue to Maribor in Slovenia and on Monday we will arrive in Wolkenstein together with the other mainly Dutch motorcyclists.

We received another message from Virorel from Deaj about the activities there.

Here is the link to the photos

Saturday 10 December is a beautiful day to visit the beautiful village of Westzaan. There are all kinds of activities there and the proceeds go to the Promotion Foundation!

On Wednesday there will be pick-up jobs again.