In recent months we have been busy distributing donated sets of Lego© and Duplo© to needy institutions in various countries…we would like to thank the Lego Foundation in Billund, Denmark, for their very generous contribution and help towards this charitable initiative.

After a safe drive down from Scandinavia with a van full of humanitarian aid, we have begun the distribution by visiting Kosovo, a province that is still suffering in the aftermath of political and ethnic turmoil, and wallows in an uncertain limbo regarding its future status. We also have deliveries scheduled for Albania, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Poland and Serbia.

When the Christmas “shoe box” gift packages come to Serbia, there are literally thousands that need to be distributed all across northern Serbia. With schools closed for 2 weeks for winter holidays, that means the distribution usually stretches out through a good part of January…

Roma children are not used to receiving gifts at Christmas, or at any other time of the year for that matter. It’s a hard fact of their young lives that standards are low, life is hard, and if there’s ever any money around, it will go to buy food. How wonderfully satisfying was it then for us to be able to be a blessing and the hands of Jesus during this Christmas season by bringing the children Christmas “shoe box” gift packages…

We had been talking to two of our friends about how we were helping the poor Roma settlement near to us and how we had recently brought them a donated generator so they could have electricity in the evenings, since the isolated area where they are living does not have running water or electricity. The young couple, who are not so well off themselves, said they wanted to donate to them some warm bedding and other things for the winter…