Romanian Projects

LIM was officially set up in 1994 by Pastor Paul Hallam in response to the situation in Romaina and the terrible legacy of the Ceacescu years, which resulted in the ruin of thousands of Romanian children’s lives as they were forced to endure horrendous living conditions in “orphanages” that were little more than prisons.

One of the first objectives was to build a Day Care Centre through the Romanian branch of LIM (which is now known as Casa Luminii). Hence the Casa Luminii Centre was born, or as it is otherwise known today, the Lighthouse Centre (Casa Luminii is Romanian for Lighthouse). The building of the Centre was funded entirely by LIM.

LIM at first sponsored staff to work in the childcare centre and helped them with training, as most of the children had special needs. LIM was able to build a multi-sensory room in the centre to help the special needs children, which has been a great success.

Jiffy Appeal

The children are the future and we want to help them socially, emotionally, and in school. We want to help them to make good choices in life and value their education. Through the Jiffy Appeal we can make school more exciting with new resources and we will go and help in the classrooms.

To help simply get a jiffy bag and fill it with craft/activity resources such as scissors, glue sticks, sellotape, balloons, googly eyes, crayons, puzzles, bubbles, stickers, card, plasters, games, chalk, puppets, angel delight, sweets, wet wipes, pipe cleaners, or anything else fun you can think of :)

Send your Jiffy Bags to: Rebecca Tudosie, STR ION CREANGA, Bl. 18A, Sc. 1, Apt 20, BALS 235100, OLT, ROMANIA

Lighthouse International Ministries have been holding Youth Camps in Romania since 2002. Our first Youth Camps were held at rented sites, but in 2007 LIM was able to purchase its own 5 acre camp site in Brezoi. In 2008 we held our first ever Youth Camp on our own site. The Youth Camp is an annual event held for two weeks in the summer, taking the form of a mostly tented village. LIM take a team from the UK travelling by road and air to Romania. Each week sees around 3-400 young people attending, 5-13 year olds for the first week and 14-19 year olds during the second. Both weeks are jam-packed with activities such as sports, teaching sessions, dynamic worship, drama and dance.

Over the past 9 years LIM has funded over 2,500 different children and young people to attend Youth Camp. At camp, they are introduced to a God of hope, of grace and loving acceptance. LIM is now one of the few charities working in the South of Romania (the poorest, most neglected areas and the most spiritually impoverished too). As well as working IN Romania, LIM is also working OUT of Romania with highly dedicated staff from the UK and Romania. All we need is a bit of help from people, churches, charities and organisations who care enough to give resources, skill, support and donations.

LIM and Casa Luminii, our Romanian sister charity, have continued to develop new initiatives in childcare. It has become increasingly apparent that more intensive input is needed for some of the children, especially those who are disabled, and so the concept of the Respite Care Home was born.

A plot of land was bought in a beautiful rural location in Plopii Slavitesti, and work started in June 2006.

Children will come from the orphanages for a week at a time, every six to eight weeks, for intensive therapy.

Experience has shown that they retain their progress when they return to their homes, and continue to make steady progress with each visit.

Building work in the home has unfortunately been frustratingly slow due to lack of finances.

In 2003 the team at the Fundatia Casa Luminii started working alongside other organisations (Brighton College, West Street Baptist Church, Crewe and Unilever Plc) and through this the Family Home was also established. The Family Home, also known as “Casa Noastra”, meaning ‘our home’ shows how the ultimate goal of LIM and everyone else involved in the project, can become a reality – taking children out of a harmful environment and providing them with a loving family. We currently have 10 children in the Family Home who live as a family on the top floor of the Lighthouse Centre.