Huși, Romania, June 5, 2020
Photo: ziarullumina.ro
International Children’s Day, June 1, was celebrated in a special way this year by the Huși Diocese of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
On this day, the first three houses of a series of six were gifted to disadvantaged families as part of the “Joy is Home” project that helps needy families with many children receive new housing, furniture, household appliances, dishes, and clothing, reports Ziarul Lumina.
The keys to the new houses were handed over after they were blessed by His Grace Bishop Ignatie of Huși.
The first to receive their new house was a family with three children whose house burned down in the summer of 2018.
“It is the house that expresses family, warmth, protection, love and, above all, the place where we learn to love God. This is how we want this house to be for the three little children and their parents: the place where they feel that they are surrounded by love, joy, security and faith,” His Grace said following the service of the blessing.
“This house is the fruit of the love of the priests in our ward. It was raised exclusively with the support of all the priests of the diocese,” he added.
Photo: ziarullumina.ro
The second house was gifted to Marius, a high school student who lost his mother at the age of 3 and his father in a fire that destroyed their home in 2018. He was supported by a local village family since then.
The third house was gifted to a family with six children.
Fr. Vladimir Beregoi urged all the children to remember the help they had received: “Time will pass, you will become great people and you will have possibilities, because you are wise children. Do not forget then that somewhere, in a city or in a village, there is a child, or several, waiting for you to share such joys.”
Providing housing seems to be a common good deed in the Romanian Church. In March 2018, at the initiative of local priests, Romanian villagers purchased a home for a family with 9 children in Parhida; in August of last year, it was announced that the Archdiocese of Roman and Bacău was purchasing a house for the young family of a priest who died in a car accident; in October, it was reported that Hadâmbu Monastery in Schitu Hadâmbului, Iaşi County was building a house for a family with 10 children; and in November, it was reported that the Monastery of Sts. Ilie Iorest and Sava Brancovici in Valea Bistrei was building a house for a family with 7 children.
