Exhausted, Angela the head of CONCORDIA in Moldova returns from the “Village of the
Forgotten”. Along with her helpers she brought survival packages for elderly people there.
She reports:
The village of Sinesti can be found at the end of a scraggy valley. It is fifteen kilometres
away from a paved street. The mud is knee deep wherever you go. A thousand people
still live there. More than half of them are old and sick. Their clay houses are falling down
because they have no money, no strength and no help to maintain them. Water is only
available at the village well.

In large school buildings where even ten years ago four hundred children were still being
taught, now one hundred come. The head mistress is fighting to keep the school open.
They can no longer heat the building because the community has no revenue from taxes.
The nursery school was closed a number of years ago and the building is crumbling. Most
of the young people leave the village; there are no jobs, no craft businesses, no pub. The
few who have stayed fight for their survival as sheep shepherds.

We visited Eugenia, a young woman with three children. She owns two sheep, but she
can barely feed her children with them. The children are cold and hungry. Her son Eugen
sits behind the cold oven. He ate the bread and chocolate that we brought greedily and he
hid one piece under the blanket. Eugenia asks about work and she shows us her strong
hands. She doesn’t want to leave; she would like to stay in the village with her children.
The village hall has not been used for a long time. We will set up our soup kitchen there.
Eugenia will be trained and she should manage the project. Twenty young helpers have
already signed up. They will deliver the soup and help the elderly people at home. In doing
so they will learn elderly nursing care and neighbourhood help, but most of all they will
learn how to help themselves. When the strength of the young people is awoken we will
initiate new projects with them. They can become small entrepreneurs. And the forgotten
village will come alive.

I dream and I wish for Sinesti that Eugen and the other children in the village no longer
suffer from hunger. That all of the hungry poor people get a good meal in a soup kitchen in
the village centre. That the nursery school is re-opened and the school is heated in winter.

That was Angela’s report from Moldova where the flu epidemic is raging at the moment.

With all of my power I would like with you, dear friends, to support our courageous
helpers in Moldova, so that the poorest get a warm meal every day. In the “Village of the
Forgotten” a hope which is stronger than death is on the rise. This hope also embraces
our children and us. I can see that in the many young people who come to us in Moldova,
Romania and Bulgaria. They leave prosperity behind in order to help. Often under the
most difficult of circumstances. They are carried by the generosity and the prayers of our
friends. Whoever helps now can feel Christmas spread through their home.

With an urgent plea and great thanks, I am yours,

Chisinau, Advent 2009