We were met at the airport by a humanitarian aid team, Greg and Tammy Jenkins. They drove us into the capital city of Tbilisi, where it appeared a war was fought and lost. The condition of the apartments and buildings caught us completely by surprise.  The roads were more potholes than roads as our SUV moved us past the devastation.

We learned, in fact, this was not the result of war.  The primary cause of their poverty was the failure and fall of communism.  The world as they knew it ended instantly, causing widespread unemployment.  Professionals and laborers became equally unemployed.  With doctors, store owners, government employees, and others are now sitting on a curb selling a pint bottle of gasoline to purchase food for the day, you can understand why orphans are of no concern. 

We went exploring the countryside for an orphanage needing us to find them.  We visited several with different degrees of need, but none "spoke" to our hearts. Then we came upon, Bodbe Internaat.  It is located in a tiny village in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, near the Georgian border.  In fact, it is closer to Azerbaijan and Chechnya than Tbilisi.

Kids at Bodbe are challenged with learning disabilities, making them of less importance than other orphans.  When we learned they had been without electricity or water for 5 years, God spoke to our hearts, "This is your job."  The three of us looked at each other and said, "I felted it, too."  This is the unity we wait for when we make the decision to take on a project. 

When we left, Treasures had provided money to fix the windows in the dorm (not one window had all its panes in the entire complex), provided lumber to replace doors, purchased farm animals, and delivered food to them.  We purchased a new wood burning cooking stove.  After completing our mission to Russia, we returned home to find a way to help these kids.
 

"The afflicted and needy are seeking water, but there is none,       And their tongue is parched with thirst;       I, the Lord, will answer them Myself,       As the God of Israel I will not forsake them.  "I will open rivers on the bare heights,       And springs in the midst of the valleys;       I will make the wilderness a pool of water,       And the dry land fountains of water." Isaiah 41:17-18

By October 2001, eight short months later, water flowed into Bodbe!  It was not without trials and tribulations, but, at God's hand, it was finished.  In the process of piping water from the spring to Bodbe, the water passed through the village, giving them water, too.  As you can see from the photo on the right, we still had some work to do on the plumbing!

Old Pump	New Pump	New Reservoir	Mama & Baby	Our New Flock	Before and After
				Remaining Project We would like to replace these beds with new bunks.
New Windows	New Doors

The next hurdle was electricity, which proved more time consuming.  We faced many challenges.  Contending with the government, finding enough transmission wire to reach the property, blowing up an ancient transformer when electricity was turned on, and locating a new transformer were some of the obstacles to overcome.  We could never have achieved our goal without the help of the Assemblies of God humanitarian aid director, Cecil Eshelman.  Georgian's have no concept of an estimate, bid, or contract!  We had to continually remind ourselves, first, God called us and, second, it was for the good of the kids.  On June 11, 2002, we got this email:

From: Cecil Eshelman

To: Treasures of the Heart

Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 8:25 AM

Subject: transformer

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