In 1998 Sonny Glover went to Romania on a missions trip looking to do church construction. Instead, he looked into the big brown eyes of a young girl who changed his life.
The girl, a 4-year-old Romanian orphan, was one of the many children literally living under the streets and in train stations, even along the train tracks.
In Romania, abandoned street children begin using drugs as early as 8 years old, and many girls in their early teens have babies.
The street children exist by begging on the streets, and rarely attend school.
It was a scene that touched Glover’s heart — individual faces he knew he’d never abandon.
Glover, a Dothan automobile dealer, has been back to Romania every year since 1998 and now goes every three months for a two- to three-week stay.
“God has given me a vision of building 10 canteens in 10 Romanian cities,” said Glover, a member of Bethel Baptist Church in Dothan.
The Romanian cantina — the origin of Glover’s word “canteen” — means a place to eat. But Glover wanted it to be so much more — a safe place for children to go, be fed and clothed, hear Bible stories and learn personal hygiene.
Hunger satisfied
His vision burst into reality in 2001 when Glover and his wife, Sarah, established “Food for the Children,” a registered nonprofit charity in America and Romania, and purchased two primitive buildings on two acres of land in Cruceni.
Now modernized and fully equipped with gas appliances, electricity, bathrooms and showers, the facilities also have a full kitchen where hot meals are prepared daily for 70 children, ages 2 to 15.
And the vision keeps expanding. Last summer, Glover added a basketball court, a recreation center and fences around the property. He also purchased five acres on which to grow wheat, raise farm animals and plant a garden.
The employees maintain all of this, sell the wheat and use the vegetables from the garden to feed the children.
Glover and his employees also try to meet needs of families by providing firewood and teaching them to can food.
“They do not know how to preserve their food, so we have a canning operation and also let them use our freezer to store food,” he said.
Romanians are fed physically in Glover’s visionary cantina, but that isn’t where the ministry ends.
Through “Food for the Children,” a Bible club has been started, and the children have learned mime and songs and are invited into churches to perform.
At the cantina, four full-time Romanian employees tell the children about Jesus in their own language, tutor the children in English, sing, play games and watch Christian films that have been translated into Romanian, such as the “Jesus” film.
Sixty-five children have accepted Christ.
And the vision continues. Two other Bethel Baptist members, Tony and Donna McCord, share and support Glover’s burden for Romania.
McCord has left his family business to begin One-Way Ministries and respond to God’s call into full-time missions work. McCord hopes to work with churches setting up missions trips.
In December 2003, the McCords raised $5,000 to go to Romania for the organization’s Romanian Christmas Child Project. Rather than paying to ship Christmas gifts to the children, they decided to purchase them after they arrived.
The McCords walked store to store without a translator purchasing gifts — 150 jackets, 600 pairs of socks, pencils, fruit and toys. They prepared boxes with the gifts as well as sandwiches, chips and drinks, then packed a van and drove to areas where the children were.
There, they distributed almost 600 boxes — each holding the precious sacrifices of people back home in Alabama.
For the December trip, a 6-year-old Alabama boy gave two of his own outfits and $30 he had saved to “Food for the Children.”
He begged his parents to let him go to Romania, because he wanted to tell the boys and girls about Jesus.
When his parents explained repeatedly he could not go, he finally asked, “When can I go to Romania?”
The parents told him that he could go when he turned 13. The boy replied, “That’s OK. I will still know Jesus when I am 13.”
The little boy asked that his clothes go to someone his age and that he have the boy’s name and a picture.
McCord found a family with two small boys who could wear the outfits and made enough pictures to cover a bulletin board. The $30 fed that family of four for a month.
Gifts and donations like this child’s run “Food for the Children,” and Glover’s church and several businesses in the surrounding area are sensitive to the need and supportive of the ministry.
Meeting desperate needs
Glover’s next step is to build the second cantina in the city of Arad, where large apartment complexes house many families with desperate needs.
There, the average annual family income is $1,000. If the family buys food, they often do not have money to buy firewood or pay the utility bill.
Glover is free to preach in Romania and was invited to Emmanuel Christian College to speak. He has supported 14 students attending Romanian colleges and universities. After they graduate, Glover hopes to employ them with “Food for the Children.”
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