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Bulgarian Child, Inc.
has been busy! Volunteer Teams - Food - Shoes - Clothing -
Computer Labs
With the generous donations of so many,
BCI has been able to accomplish much these last few months!
We have delivered humanitarian aid, hope, and love to
thousands of kids. Enjoy reading about past activities and
future plans. Then, decide how you can be involved in
helping us meet needs of the thousands of children in
Bulgaria.
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JANUARY ACTIVITIES
Deliveries to home in Borovtsi:
tables and chairs, a new refrigerator, computers, pajamas,
tablecloths. We have finally found suitable tables and
chairs for the cafeteria and computer lab at the orphanage
in Borovtsi. These tables and chairs were purchased with
money donated by the children at William's Trace Baptist
Church, Sugarland, TX. An enormous new German-made
refrigerator was purchased as a designated gift to BCI. The
kitchen staff was overwhelmed. This will allow them to
provide some fresh foods for the children – not just canned
goods.
Warm flannel pajamas and bright new
tablecloths were made by the sewing circle in Rakovitsa
(thanks FBC, Cabot, AR for the machines and fabric).
Six computers/monitors/mice were donated
through The Heights Baptist Church, Richardson, TX. Andrew
Ridgway had the pleasure of delivering all this in
mid-January. The staff and kids were thrilled. The orphanage
personnel had contacted the local news media. Camera
crews showed up to film Andrew setting up the first computer
and doing some introductory activities with the kids! It was
quite a day!
Deliveries to the Berkovitsa home for
children with chronic respiratory diseases: clothes dryer
and kitchen stove. These were much needed by this home with
more than 100 children. The kids all got warm new jammies!
Shipping of two 40-foot containers of
humanitarian aid by The Heights. Included in these
containers were:
- Clothing from Kelly’s Kids in Dallas,
TX. BCI board member Cookie Slate is also a member of
The Heights. She secured a donation of several thousand
items of new children’s clothing from Kelly’s Kids. This
is the third contribution they have made to Bulgarian
Child. The clothing is of very high quality and we are
thrilled to get it. The lighter weight items were for
spring delivery. Most of the clothing will be for the
winter months
- New clothing, shoes, fabric, etc.
donated by many individuals and church groups.
- Summer canvas shoes purchased by
BCI.New cotton underwear collected by ladies from FBC,
Lorena, TX.
- Toys collected by folks in Georgia
thanks to the effort of D’Ann Renner.
- A keyboard donated by FBC,
Gatlinburg, TN for the home in Borovtsi. The Borovtsi
home has a music group of five or six teenagers. It is a
great way to occupy their time, develop their skills,
and heighten their self-esteem.
- Blankets made by the children of The
Heights.
All these items were stored by The Heights
in a rented warehouse until we could find an appropriate way
to import the goods into Bulgaria. We really appreciate all
the folks who helped to make this happen - not the least of
which are the guys who spent their Saturdays with the
backbreaking work of loading the containers! The containers
arrived safely in March.
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FEBRUARY ACTIVITIES
Heavy snowfalls prevented us from visiting
many homes this month. We managed to reach Dren and Petrovo
after many failed attempts! The homes in Dren and Petrovo
received visits, food, clothing, and diapers. Petrovo
project begun: BCI continues to employ a special education
teacher at the home in Petrovo. We are now financing the
work of an art therapist there, too! She is working with a
few of the children with elaborate puppets. They prepared
for an International Puppet Festival held in Varna in May.
Much paperwork was done this month for the delivery of the
containers of humanitarian aid.
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MARCH
ACTIVITIES
The American Embassy here has built a new
building and has bought all new furnishings. At a warehouse
sale in early March, BCI was able to purchase several large
desks, filing cabinets, coat racks, and a medical cupboard
for a doctor’s
office. The filing cabinets were delivered to several homes.
The desks were distributed to two homes in Berkovitsa. They
are great for the computer labs we set up! The medical
cabinet was given to the home in Borovtsi where the new BCI-financed
building houses a medical office.
Later in the month, we took diapers,
pajamas and food to the home for handicapped in Petrovo. The
new director at home has asked us to provide funding for a
psychologist to work part-time, beginning in April.
Darrell and Mary Sue Ard (The
Heights) were here from March 28 to April 25. Darrell was
the force behind the preparation (cleanup, repair) of 115
computers sent on the containers by volunteers in America.
Here in Bulgaria, Andrew
Ridgway, Hristo Radev, and Sergei Iliev
worked with him. The guys bought new cords (editor's note:
European outlets are different than American), made sure
that each computer/monitor worked, installed programs on the
computers to make a standard keyboard type the Cyrillic
font. They personally delivered more than 70 of these
computers to various hospitals, orphanages, local government
offices, and even fire departments! Computers were
given to hospitals in Shumen, Lom, Berkovitsa, Sofia,
Blagoevgrad (two different hospitals), and the Sofia
Children’s TB hospital and to orphanages in Dupnitsa,
Berkovitsa, Lom, Belogradchik, Roman, Isperih, and
Bratsigovo.
Mary Sue Ard did not just accompany
Darrell on the trip. She worked hard sewing hundreds
of cloth bags that we stuffed with toiletries and underwear
for distribution in the orphanages. I have to give
Darrell credit here too, for cutting fabric and putting in
drawstrings! The Ards joined an April shoe team and helped
put shoes on the feet of hundreds of children.
Tom and Lorraine Roote were
involved in “bag” making, too. They were in Bulgaria for a
few months working at the International Baptist Church. They
traveled and worked with the first shoe team for a few days.
We hope they will come back and “bless” us for a longer
time!
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APRIL
ACTIVITIES
The Heights sent two “shoe teams” in
April. Phil and Cookie Slate arrived a week earlier than the
teams to help sort through hundreds of shoes and thousands
of pieces of new clothing. These teams had wonderful
experiences. Read about them here! (Link coming soon!)
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MAY
ACTIVITIES
PETROVO ART PROJECT:
BCI sponsored a special art project at the Petrovo home for
severely disabled. An art therapist worked with three of the
children to prepare a puppet theatre. The children
traveled to the Black Sea coast city of Varna for an
International Puppet Theatre Festival. This was not an event
designed for the handicapped and these children were the
only such participants! No one was aware of the
“special” children until they had finished the program and
came out for bows! They were very
 warmly
received. Now, they are scheduled to present their program
at several preschools in the area around the home in Petrovo.
Thank you for giving these children such a wonderful
opportunity!
CONTAINER FROM ARKANSAS:
We finished documentation on a shipment of humanitarian aid
from FBC, Cabot, AR. Bonne Jensen and Lea and Dennis
Hyland were key to the gathering of materials, loading the
container, and preparing all the necessary paper work. The
container has just arrived in Sofia – a few days before
their team will arrive. In the container is medical
equipment; waterproof mattresses made to order and donated
by Dreamline Mattress Company for orphanages here; fabric
for sewing classes; and lots of other items. Another
truckload of blessings! Preparations were made this month
for the team coming in June!
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JUNE
ACTIVITIES
In early June, FBC, Cabot, AR will send
another team to work in orphanages in Berkovitsa. This team
is multitalented! We will try to use all those abilities to
help lots of children.
Sewing team: These ladies will teach
sewing in one of the Berkovitsa orphanages. This class was a
big hit with the kids
last year. They really enjoyed being able to make new
clothing for themselves. This is a wonderful skill for them
to learn.
English team: Teachers and a few advanced
students the Health School in Berkovitsa will have the
opportunity to brush up their English language skills with
the help of three members of the team.
Computer team: These folks will be working
with children at the Berkovitsa health school in the new
computer lab BCI set up for them in April.
Construction team: A few members of the
team will work with the youth at the Berkovitsa home for the
handicapped. They will build playground equipment for
that home and least one other home in the area. BCI would
like to commission these youth to build playground equipment
for more homes in the future.
All the team members will spend a couple
of hours each day playing with the children in the home for
handicapped.
One team member is a pediatric physical
therapist. She will be able to work with some of the
children who are more severely disabled. An art major
and an early childhood specialist will help with creative
and appropriate activities for these kids.
(Editor's note: this team went
wonderfully, and we will updating our site soon with more
involved information!)
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Summer
Projects
PETROVO: BCI
will build ramps from the second floors of two of the
buildings housing handicapped children in this home. Few of
the children are ambulatory. They are housed on the second
floors of these buildings. There are neither elevators nor
ramps at this time. We are still awaiting the final word on
the future of the home – some of the children may be moved
to another location. Therefore we will proceed with plans
for ramps in only two of the three buildings. We have
received a sizable donation that will fund the building of
the ramps, but we would also like to be able to renovate a
separate building as a physical therapy center.
DREN: This home
for preschoolers has just begun to accept placement of many
special needs children. Our partnership with Buckner
Benevolence will provide funding for a multisensory therapy
room. We also have funds available for a nurse, but are
having difficulty working out the legalities.
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A Special
Expression of Gratitude:
Bulgarian Child, Inc. was greatly
honored by two families during the last few months. Both
families had been to Bulgaria to work with us in orphanages.
Both families have suffered the loss of a loved one
recently. In lieu of flowers, they asked that donations be
made to Bulgarian Child, Inc.
We want to publicly express our thanks to
the families of Brady Hooper, a teenager from FBC, Cabot, AR
and Sheryl Williams, of Williams Trace Baptist Church,
Sugarland, TX. We pray for these families as they deal with
their grief. We are very thankful that they chose to help
BCI minister to more children in Bulgarian institutions.
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