The 15th of August is not my birthday, nor is it Christmas or Easter as I’m sure you are aware. However, it is a day I shall celebrate because it is the day I met the loveliest family in Romania, potentially the world. We’d finished for the week after working at Casa Lumina so Steve and I popped 2 minutes down the road and walked up a long windy path with many an angry dog, rickety gates and fields of sweet corn. We ventured through all to find ourselves in the midst of a party. A party that very quickly and guiltily dispersed when our arrival was noted. Of course I was suspicious but I soon realised it wasn’t that they were trying to hide anything, they just wanted to be polite. The mother showed us the house, a beautifully looked after but absolutely ancient construction that had the ongoing threat of collapse hanging over it and Steve and I said “Vadem” (we’ll see what we can do) and made our plans.

We returned with a fresh team and a fresh plan Monday afternoon armed with pickaxe and spade ready to begin work on stabilising the circumference of the house. We were raring to go, just before we started we were invited for a quick black coffee and an introduction to her three sons: the clever one, the beardy one and the cheeky one (who is, against all expectations, still alive despite numerous diseases). Quite some considerable time, several good conversations, black coffees and snacks later we remembered we’d come to work. When we tried to thank her she would always reply by saying “it is I who is thanking you.” And she would always apologise that there weren’t enough chairs to sit us all down. She made us so welcome we forgot to do any work that day.

As the week went on we were stricter with ourselves so we got more work done, brought milk so our coffee was whiter and brought chairs so she could host the way she dreamed she could. I was also introduced to a liquid substance called Viscinata. This is a killer, 90% alcohol, 10% cherry with a kick like an enraged donkey. They offered me more and more as the week went on……of course the quality of my work was in no way affected. Also, I remember it very clearly, when one of the brothers first saw Nat carrying a bucket of water. What on earth was wrong with these English people that they let a fragile, little women carry anything. She was immediately relieved of her bucket as was every other girl from any task harder than cleaning until one day they’d had enough of wheelbarrows and buckets and spades being grabbed of them so they refused the gallant yet incredibly misogynistic help of the brothers prompting them to come up to me and say “Jack, these English girls, they are very strong da! It is very attractive.” Well guys, it’s a start.

I don’t mean to do the brothers an injustice. The whole family are fantastic, one day the mother told me how proud she was of her sons, she said “They help me, they respect me and they love me” which is good going for sons really. However, one afternoon, my bubble was burst when I heard what they weren’t telling me. Behind a woman who loves to host and boys who love to help is actually struggling with bankruptcy. The social worker told us after the first group had finished the concreting around the circumference that Anna thought this was an absolute miracle as she’d have had to take a loan that she couldn’t afford otherwise. The brothers old enough to work have been messed around and scammed by several employers but one has recently heard of an offer of a job in England (another dream come true) so I will pray with all my heart that this comes through for him. Having learnt this every coffee, every Viscinata, every sweetcorn didn’t taste the same. It showed just how much love they all had for us to still be offering when they had nothing. From then on every shovel of balast, raking of concrete and digging of ditches didn’t feel the same because love is infectious and I now love this family with more love than I can sensibly afford.

Jack

Whenever you go somewhere or do something new, you always learn new things. This summer in Romania has been no exception.

For example, during our week in Constanta with the kids, I very quickly learnt that a black stretch cotton T shirt does absolutely nothing to prevent sunburn. I also found that I am useless at fielding in cricket, rounders, and ‘crounders’ (some bizarre mash-up of the two the kids ended up playing), particularly when the games are played on sun-baked sand. We as volunteers learnt that when you take a group of children and young people to the beach, kids who have never been to the beach before in their lives, it takes around two minutes of time after arriving to want to go to the sand, and around the same amount of time for them to be splashing you with seawater (which was invariably accompanied with sand, seaweed, and mischievous giggling).

Going to Casa Lumina week after week, I learnt a lot about the kids over there. I learnt that Carmen will happily strum open strings of a guitar for two hours straight – which in turn made me want to learn how to tune to open chords. I learnt that Radu, somehow, remembers me from last year, and has clung to my hand just as faithfully as the week I was here in 2014. I learnt that once you’ve gained Maria’s attention – an achievement in itself, it has to be said – her favourite thing to do is to place a hand either side of your head and beam at you while blowing at your face, shaking your head around, touching foreheads, or some combination of the three. I learnt that the language barrier is not something to worry too much about at Casa Lumina – the majority of those who are verbal simply ask you the same three things multiple times. Which does, admittedly, make replying somewhat easier.

Ungureni, the state run adult institution with close links to Casa Lumina, teaches something very different. It gives more of a glimpse as to how things were before CitD, although Ungureni is far, far better than it and similar places were ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Again, just over the few weeks I’ve been here, bonds have formed with patients there, and you can begin to get to know them better than you could ever hope to in one short morning of a week-long visit.

Negustorului teaches you very quickly how to deal with swarms of excited children – ones who adopt the stereotypical British way of making themselves understood by speaking louder and slower to you. The Roma village teaches you how to distribute your time and attention between multiple kids, many of whom may just want to show you their colouring in – which is always, of course, absolutely beautiful. I know I sound sarcastic there, but these kids and crafts? Getting to be a perfect match there.

During day centre at the hospice, you have no choice but to learn quickly. The Romanian words for ‘let go’, ‘stop’, ‘later’, ‘now’, and ‘I’m serious – stop playing music on your phone while the volunteers are telling you bible stories’ are needed from the first week. The harsh reality that as much planning as you put into activities for day centre, the kids know that they are by no means obligated to complete any of the crafts set out for them – a lesson that group after group of volunteers has been forced into learning. You also learn from the kids, and I don’t just mean in terms of card games: seeing the kids being kids, playing and colouring and making a mess everywhere, it brings a jolt when you suddenly remember why Casa Albert, Casa Lumina, and Cry in the Dark are even necessary.

When I was here for a week last year, I had a glimpse of what CitD does around Bacau, of the lives it changes and the people they help. Being here for two months has given me the chance to see everything in more detail, to bond with the kids over at Casa Lumina in a way slightly beyond handholding, to help with the day centre and be able to hold a conversation with the kids. Seeing not just the kids themselves, but how they interact with each other – Octav and Madalina arguing over a small doll (one wanted to cuddle it, one wanted to throw it across the garden); Andreea, Laura, and Sera wearing identical outfits at the beach (Mickey Mouse tops, of course); learning and playing (and losing dramatically) a Romanian card game that I can’t spell but is very similar to Uno! with a few of the young people.

This week, a group from my home church is out here with us. One of the leaders asked me earlier how the micro-gap had changed my life, and at the time I couldn’t find the words to explain it. I told her that I wasn’t very good at looking at myself objectively and seeing how I’ve changed, but I guess the truth of it is that I genuinely hadn’t thought about it. This summer has taught me a lot about myself – I’m pretty good at picking up pronunciation of Romanian words and I can mix decent concrete, for a start – so I feel like I’ll go home in a couple of weeks not just knowing CitD and those the charity works with better, but myself too.

I started writing this post intending it to be far less diary-esque than it has turned out to be, but hey, what’s a gapper to do. Unfortunately, in just a couple of weeks, I’ll be seeing flat Suffolk fields once more rather than the tree-coated mountains I’ve grown accustomed to recently. I can honestly say that this summer has been the best I’ve had, and I can say with just as much truthfulness that I don’t want to be flying home any time soon.

Wren Coolbear

Well it’s been a while since I blogged!

So I thought I would blog today as we are entering our last week of summer short term mission teams and it has been a good and at times challenging summer.

Firstly I want to thank the leaders of the groups that have come out to Romania this summer who have entrusted family, friends and youth groups to us to give them just a taste of what it can be like to be in the practical mission field sharing Jesus through what we do and even sometimes by what we say!

It’s easy at times for words to come and go, they sometimes enter our ears one side and go out through the other ear without us even really hearing them although we say we listen.

This week we have been working at a family house in Comanesti where five adults live in two rooms with no bathroom or real kitchen. One of the members of the family has Down syndrome and a few more complications too. There is no father at home as he died a few years ago and the mum has had to give up work to look after one of her sons.

There is very little income and not much chance of anymore coming in, as the town is pretty depressed and there is not much chance of employment for the other two sons as they grow up!

The house they live in is very old and built pretty much from mud and house poo covered with a lime type render on the outside which was falling away at the bottom near the ground.

So with the team form St Johns Colchester we set about putting this right and whilst at it we decided to put in a path down one side of the house which was very much needed as we found out as it poured down with rain all day whilst we worked there which then created pretty much a mud bath!

On the second to last day we were talking in the garden and the mother of the family came out into the garden and said a very profound thing which really impacted me.

She simply said this….“I have dreamed of having this concrete done like this and today my dream came true!”

As she said it I realised that her dreams were very different to mine, so simple but yet would change her life in a very practical way.

God had used us to fulfil her dream…. How awesome is that… No matter how small an act of kindness it just might be the answer to prayer of even a dream fulfilled.

Steve

People Whom I Love                                                                        

Either fate, God or God’s control over fate has caused me to, on multiple occasions, cross paths with a small girl who is actually a teenage girl. She has Cerebral Palsy and hasn’t grown at all really past the size of a young child, she’s partially blind, she doesn’t speak but she is gorgeous. The first time I met her I was a little awkward, there wasn’t anything that I could think to do. She’s lying fragile in a bed, locked in her own head and not knowing many other voices than her mother’s. What moved me most was the flies that covered her; one on her hand, three on her hair, one on her eyelid. So I sat with her every day for a week in the lunch break on our construction work there, sometimes I’d pick her up, sometimes I’d tickle her foot or sometimes I’d just hum to her. I don’t know what she’s thinking, I don’t even know if she enjoys being with me to be honest but I am at one of my most happy points in all life when I sit with the little big teenage girl. Imagine my infinite joy when I’m tapped on the shoulder and turn to find her and her mother at the day centre at Casa Albert!!!! Now, towards the end, I always set aside about 15 minutes, for this little girl, just sitting and hugging or massaging. Please pray for a hot Wednesday/Thursday soon because the dream is to give this little girl her first go in the swimming pool. We will need a cleaner present because when that day comes I may just burst with happiness.

Now Ungereni is a state run institution for adults with special needs that I really rather enjoy. It is full of people who are unassuming, full of love and immediately friendly. As I went from room to room passing out cakes and “buna ziua”-s as I went until I entered the fifth door and met two very lovely gentlemen. One young and full of beans, the other old and always ready with a lengthy story and a hand massage. The first has a passion for Jesus that puts me to shame. He asks me to pray with him and he was gifted me with a Jesus bracelet……..in return for a pair of snazzy sunglasses, he now looks like James Bond. The second I could sit with for hours, I can’t understand a single word he says but I laugh when he laughs, lean in when his voice builds and enjoy the most phenomenal hand massage.

Finally, in the world of day centre, my favourite place, I have discovered that my favourite thing to do with my favourite people in my favourite place is talk about God. I have had the privilege of leading Chapel time with the kids and I have done Job and Jacob (Israel) except they were both, in my story, called Octavian. I have learned a few things; don’t leave people out, don’t go on for too long and most importantly don’t sing!!! I just burst with excitement and a little fear all the way through sitting up late planning, thinking of ideas, gathering props and finally telling the kids the story with a personal twist and a message. Then they offer a little of their skills – Lorenzo will sing a song (and I try not to cry) and they recite the Lord’s Prayer, I don’t know why it’s so much fun. I just want these wonderful kids with the threat of a terribly short life to be 100% that God loves them.

Jack

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I have spent one year of fundraising, exams and UCAS applications wishing myself back in Romania after spending week there last summer. However, I’m ashamed to say the first thing I did on arrival at Casa Albert was fall asleep in a starfish position on the bed. Days went by and eventually I woke up ready for two months of helping people live better lives……..after shaving all the hair on my head off.

My travels to Casa Lumina have been brief but never lacking in excitement. We took 4 of the guys swimming; Lili, once you get her in a pool you can’t get her out, Christina, with a tendency towards the deep end of the pool but a disliking of any floating apart from me, Maria, the one that you have to tease into the pool and Radu, a man completely smitten with my fellow gapper Wren to the point where I seriously feel like a third wheel. I also had the honour of meeting the English Ambassador in Romania when he came to look at Casa Lumina. I became all flustered and called him “your excellence” and he tried to say “just call me Paul.” But it was too late, I’d already committed to a half bow.

Construction with Steve and construction with Beth are two very different things. With Steve we work through the heat of the Romanian sun, shovelling 4 part sand, to 1 part cement, to 1 part water into a mixer on repeat all day. It sounds like a gruelling task but I’ve never stood on a slab of concrete before and felt so proud. Construction with Beth is far more difficult, I had to paint bunting within the lines set for me. When it was accepted that this task was one step too far for me I was put to work marking out where to hole punch, I just about managed this.

The day centre held at Casa Albert is my favourite place to be. On Wednesdays and Thursdays I get to play, for a day, until the kids go away, yeah it’s pretty okay. So imagine my joy when I realise that I get to spend a whole week with them at the beach. Not even stuffy shared rooms of 8 people could ruin it, or communal showers, or tasteless stodgy food or the 8 hour drive. To see those kids on the first day when they saw the sea for the first time it broke and filled my heart (which is of course a flawed metaphor as if you tried to fill something that was broken it would just spill out – but it did happen). Whether I was fighting waves with Andreea, singing Frozen songs with Madalina, kicking a ball around with Octav and George or being horribly humiliated at chess by Gabi. We were watching weak-bladdered elephants at the circus, going up and down the slides at the aqua park until our tickets ran out, strolling around a nature reserve, making animal noises and sometimes just chilling at the beach. That week will take some beating.

As I write this, the first group is just arriving, one of them has already found the guitar, I’m looking forward to this, here we go……

Firstly I must apologise for my non-existent blogging during the California dreaming bike ride! My excuse is mainly that I was far too tired every evening and falling asleep as soon as I got to bed but also I can put blame on some patchy internet!

It was a truly a fantastic ride and all the riders did amazingly well, at the moment Cry in the Dark riders have raised around £20,000 which we are thrilled about – and there’s still money coming in.

The next California Dreaming bike ride will be in 2017 if your interested drop me an email please at steve@cryinthedark.org

Now both Beth and I are in Romania and over the last two weeks we have had two groups from Manor CE Academy York with us. Each group was made up of 14 – 15 young people from Year Ten. The first group were escorted by Pat Tasker, and Carol Rowbotham and her daughter Georgie. During the week we completed two paths and a concrete bridge across a drainage ditch outside the house, this means the family can now bring little Mihaela in her wheel chair out into the street etc. This will make access also easier for our nurses too!
Well done guys.

Week two was led by Mr Andy Crisp and Elaine Stevens and Mr Crisps daughter Beth. This team also worked so hard and we finished a 30 metre path for a family on our palliative care program. The son Adrian has been diagnosed with an inoperable tumour and the path will make access now and in future easier for everyone in the family and for our community palliative care team. The team was also involved in running activities at Casa Lumina and at the Hospice Casa Albert Day centre which they did brilliantly.

On Friday the 3rd July we launched our new Hospice project here in Bacau it will be a 14 bedded in patient unit dedicated for paediatric palliative care and terminal respite. It will be located in the city of Bacau with land donated by the city mayors office, it will be built and run over the next three years using money that we have won form the Velux foundations. No doubt more news will follow as this project develops!

It’s now Friday the 10th July and we have had our 2 micro gap students with us for 3 days – Fridays are the outside work project days so they are getting ready to get stuck in to their summer project, Should be fun!

Next week sees the start of our first ever patients seaside holiday! We are taking 15 children and young people from our Hospice programme to Eforie Sud on the Black Sea. Most of the children have never been to the seaside before! This has been made possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters in the U.K who have sponsored the children, we also have 4 intrepid volunteers joining us from the U.K especially for the Holiday known to our supporters as Voliday!

Well I’m signing off for a while as I have asked our two Micro Gappers to do a weekly blog whilst here with us in Romania so we look forward to reading all about their time and perspective whilst with us until September.

If whilst reading our blog you have become interested in joining us in 2017 for the next California Dreaming bike ride or next year for Micro Gap or the Voliday or feel you can help in some other way please contact us at Info@cryinthedark.org.

Thank you.

Hope you all have a great summer and thank you for taking time to read this!

Blessings Steve.

Steve Cooper CEO/Founder. Cry in the Dark

I have just spent fours days riding in Romania with Marion Hudson, Dave Cockerill both from York Manor C of E Academy and good ol’ Neil Curtis super trustee!

Well we had four brilliant days weather wise but I’ve got to say cycling on a mountain bike up and down very steep and long hills takes its toll! But we had a great support team made up of Beth Johnson and Nat Andrew who were driving and generally encouraging us with Beth sorting all our meals as we strived to complete the four days cycling!
The hi-light for us all was the warm welcome we received at Casa Lumina! As usual Mariana Cretsu (Director of Casa Lumina) had organized a special meal for us all to enjoy together, but the thing that made this day special was that it was 15 years ago to the day that we dedicated Casa Lumina to God and the next day, My 29th 2000 the youngsters moved in! 15 years later it’s still a thriving beautiful home and that is due to people that have brilliantly supported us over this years without you we would not have been able to achieve what we have thank you so much and thank you to all the guys that have cycled for us over the years your all heroes!
On the 6th June the big ride in the USA starts please visit our Facebook and blog for daily up dates. Bring it on!

Blessings
Steve

Me with Bernie Andrew (AKA the Dark Destroyer!)Who is also participating in our California dreaming bike ride June 6th – 12th. A legend indeed!

Hi welcome to our latest post on our blog!

Well the days are running down toward my CEO challenge the first part starts for me on May 24^th where I will attempt to ride at least 50 miles a day on and off road in Romania and believe me there are some steep climbs involved and as I get older the climbs just seem to get harder!

I will be joined this year by Marion Hudson, Dave Cockerill (of York Manor C of E academy!) and one of our own trustees the Bang tidy rider Neil Curtis!

We had a larger group to start with but we have lost a few riders in the last month or so! But hey that’s life!

So I fly out tonight on the dreadful red eye from Luton at five to one in the morning arriving in Bacau at around six fifteen their time and I never normally sleep on that flight so could be feeling shattered by the time I get to Hospice Casa Albert, just in time for our 8.30 am meeting with the Deputy British Ambassador! He is paying us a much overdue visit! Let’s face it we’ve only been working in the country for 17 years!

But on a serious note it’s great that he is coming up to visit the projects especially as we are about to expand our palliative care services for children!

On June 28^th we all leave Romania and head back to the U.K just in time for the FA Cup final hooray! C’mon you Gooners! (Opps may have upset a few of our CITD supporters sorry!)

Then on June 2^nd I along with Beth Johnson, Elaine Cornwall and Phil Shorthouse who make up the brilliant support team fly out to San Francisco to make sure everything is in place for the rest of the cyclists that will be joining me on the California Dreaming bike ride 2015, 620 miles in 7 days as part of my CEO challenge!

The other 20 cyclists plus Kay Johnston and Holly Penalver (also support team) will fly out Leaving London Heathrow on the 5^th June.

It’s going to be a fantastically busy summer but personally I thank God for what he is doing and I thank all the people that support our work and our wonderful Romanian staff.

I’m hoping we will give regular updates on the rides almost as they happen… well no quite but you know what I mean so watch our Facebook page for Blog alerts!

There is still time to sponsor me if you have not already done so at

uk.virginmoneygiving.com/steve.cooper5

Thanks and blessings

Steve

We have some very exciting news to share with you – why not take a read of our latest newsletter and get up to date with our work in Romania.

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Hi Guys

Welcome to our brand new blog!

This is the place where you will be able to read and comment about the latest stories and updates from Cry in the Dark and the projects and people we support and work with not just through our Charitable arm Asociatia Lumina in Romania but also through volunteers, schools, churches and businesses that support and work with us here in the U.K.

Over the next few months we hope to bring you some exciting news from Romania, watch this space! Plus blogs written by our volunteers, Micro gappers and staff.

We hope to this will give you a fully rounded picture of the people, work and projects of Cry in the Dark.

I’m very excited about the coming year as we have some big things planed including the Bike Romania Challenge at the end of May and the California Dreaming bike ride in June plus all the schools and volunteer groups that start coming out in the summer and for the first time this year we have the Voliday! 

Now here comes the self-promotion bit!

Over the winter/Spring months you may have seen on my personal Facebook page or Strava that I have been out a lot on my bike!

Well as CEO of Cry in the Dark I’m often in the position of asking people to fundraise or take part in our events so every two years I challenge myself to raise funds for our work too and this year I have decided to take part in both the Romanian bike ride 240 miles on and off road in 4 days and then a week later 620 miles in 7 days (San Francisco – San Diego) that’s the California dreaming bike ride which is fully funded personally so every penny raised will go straight to our work!

If you think that you might like to sponsor me on my CEO challenge please click here.

This year I’m hoping to raise enough money to employ a palliative care nurse for one year which is about £4000. Please help if you can, our nurses are very much a lifeline to many adults and children that are living with terminal or life limiting illness.

Many thanks for taking time to read my first ever blog!

Steve Cooper

CEO