The ride goes on

Michele Marr

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, Chet Fouche of Calvary Chapel Huntington Beach,

like so many sponsors of last weekend’s scheduled events and wondered if

the show should go on or be postponed. By Saturday, the shock and

mourning in the wake of the Tuesday’s numbing terrorist attack on our

nation would still be incalculable.The church’s inaugural outreach for

the children of Romania Bike-A-Thon and 5K Walk was meant to be an event

of celebration and hope.

But how?

On Sept. 15, 75 of the 100 registered participants showed up to bike

or walk at Edison Community Park. Money is still coming in and the funds

raised by the event are still being counted.

Fouche rides with the 25-member Team Jesus, a group of cycling

enthusiasts from Calvary Chapel. Each year they ride in the Multiple

Sclerosis 150 Bay to Bay Tour. That gave him the idea for the bike-a-thon

and Walk.

“It was a good day,” Fouche said. “We were there to comfort one

another and to raise money for an important mission, too. It’s a start

and next year we will do it again.”

The goal is to raise enough money to develop a 20-acre site outside

Bucharest, Romania to serve as a camp, retreat center, orphanage, a

school and a Bible college for the orphaned and abandoned children in

Romania.

Most of the children are from broken and abandoned homes. Most lack

proper identification and stand little hope of getting it. Without

identification they cannot work.On the streets they are prey for pimps

and pedophiles. The police despise and harass them. They are seen as less

than human. For Romania they are not a priority.

“In the winter it’s snowing. It is freezing and kids are coming up

through holes, literally holes in the ground, by the dozens,” recalled

Trisha Daniels. “They’re in T-shirts and bare feet. They are all high

from the glue or the paint they are huffing.”

Huffing is the great escape for these sewer children. It is the eraser

for their physical and emotional pain.

“You can’t imagine what these kids have been through,” Daniels said.

“These tough girls, they have been raped. They have been beaten. They are

so unloved. So unwanted.”Bob and Teresa Keenan live in Romania and lead

the mission work. They have five children and are adopting a boy, Costin.

Others have followed: Carrie Ritter and Elizabeth Silagi, who met and

married Adrian, her husband, in Romania. Angela and Brent Slusher are

planning to join them with their family of three children Shawn, 11,

Brittany, 7 and Autumn, 2.

For all of those involved, their goals are the same. They want to

establish an ongoing network for these kids, a ministry that will give

them the hope and the skills that it takes to get them of the streets,

out of the orphanages and into families and meaningful lives. They want

to bring them the love of God.The Romania Children Outreach helps

abandoned street children get off the streets, it provides summer camps

for orphaned children and provides support and encouragement to families

struggling to support their children in their homes. For more

information, go to o7 https://www.kampromania.org.f7