First Trip to Constanta

 We drove to Constanta on Wednesday, the 30th to check on a project the Church helped with in 2023. It took 3 hours and a toll pass to cross the Danube. The weather was delightful. We stayed in a hotel on the Black Sea.

I was channel-surfing and found a documentary on architecture in English. I think it was LaVar Burton narrating. Then I heard the name Brigham Young.

The Salt Lake Tabernacle is renowned for its acoustics. It's so-called “perfect” sound is revealed when a pin dropped at the pulpit can be heard at the back of the hall, in a balcony nearly 200 feet away.

The next day we drove 90 minutes outside the city to a small family where we had donated a greenhouse. The families that the NGO helps all have a member with AIDS.

Between 1986 and 1991, at least 10,000 children contracted HIV in Romania. The rapid spread of HIV among Romania’s children can be directly traced to the policies of Nicolae Ceauşescu, the country’s then dictator. As hospital and orphanage staff struggled to keep these children alive, they relied heavily on antibiotic injections and “microtransfusions,” under the mistaken belief that small transfusions of blood would boost infants’ nutritional and immunological status. 

But Romania did not begin screening blood and blood products for HIV until 1990, and hospital and orphanage staff often failed to properly sterilize needles to prevent transmission of HIV. According to records from this period, it was not unusual for children in some hospitals and orphanages to receive 120 injections during a four-week period.

Now these children are adults with children of their own. The NGO supports the families with donations from many organizations. The Church is only one of many groups that are helping. When I look at this pup on the property it reminds me of the little family living here. Five little children and not much to go around.

We spent the day traveling many miles to different families that have been helped. It wasn't until we were home that evening that I started crying.