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June 1997 News: 

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Mercy Ships International  

University of the Nations

CHRISTIAN WORKERS ARE helping to feed and care for orphans and the elderly as the country's economic collapse leaves hospitals and other government institutions without even basic supplies. 
        Nearly 50 Youth With A  Mission staff across the country are distributing medicines and food to ten hospitals and orphanages, and helping staff  look after some of the young and old hardest hit by the desperate financial crisis. They also provide weekly food supplies to 400 families. 
        Meanwhile YWAM colleagues in other parts of the world are organizing financial and food parcel collections to help the Bulgarian teams, some of whom have skipped their own meals to share the food with those who have nothing to eat. Local churches are helping with the distribution. 
        One relief shipment has already been sent from YWAM's ministry center in Tyler, Texas, in the United States, where director Leland Paris said that the dire needs provide an opportunity "not only to meet their physical needs, but comfort them with the love of Christ". 
        He added: "The situation is so bad that some have resorted to eating dog food in order to survive. One YWAM worker went to an orphanage and found 70 children who had just one piece of bread and one glass of water each for the day." 
        The American relief effort - matched  by another at a YWAM center in France - is being headed by Brett Harwood, who visited Bulgaria to organize the overseas aid and despite having "seen much suffering around the world" returned "shocked" by what he had seen. 
        At one home for mentally handicapped adults, the men slept two to a bed with just a thin blanket to share. Broken windows were covered with plastic, and several men with frostbite were unable to stand. Eight residents died of starvation in an eight-week period. 
        Conditions at a home for physically handicapped children were "just terrible". Because medicines normally used to pacify them were unavailable, some children were left tied to beds to prevent them harming themselves. 
       "The people running these places are caring but they are just completely empty-handed, they don't have anything at all," said Harwood. "It's always the way that the mentally and physically handicapped suffer in times like these - theirs are the first institutions to stop receiving funds and supplies". 
        YWAM's national director in Bulgaria, Hristo Cholakov, said that his staff would continue to help provide food and medicine for at least the next year. "This is an opportunity for us to demonstrate practical Christianity," he said in his appeal for international assistance. "The orphanages and old people's homes only exist because of the help they receive. The government has responded with respect for all we have done." 
       

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