A CHURCH team flew 1,500 miles to deliver 700 shoeboxes as well as clothes and blankets to grateful orphans and poverty-stricken gypsy families in Romania.
The eight-strong Chelmsford crew ventured into squalid shacks and schools in the remote village of Gilau, near the country's second-largest city of Cluj, to see the conclusion of Tile Kiln Church's Gift of Christmas project.
Linda Mascot, a Chelmsford councillor for Goat Hall and teaching assistant, returned with the team earlier this month.
"What struck me was the fact that they weren't unhappy and were so grateful for our contribution," said Linda, a 53-year-old mother-of-six.
"Two women hugged me and cried, while giving me copious blessings in Romanian. It was very moving.
"There was also the irony of travelling to a remote house, up a steep hill, covered in ice, to find a family who can barely put food on their children's plates, with the mother wearing a donated Slimming World T-shirt.
"The joy of seeing children open their shoeboxes and take out each item preciously was very humbling and something I'll never forget."
The Tile Kiln Church project stems from the work of Chelmsford missionaries Tim and Jenny Gooding, who started visiting Gilau in 1992 shortly after the anti-Communist revolution, later moving there in 2012 and setting up an orphanage.
Shoeboxes from the Robin Way church were sent out to four schools, and gypsy families, in an area where temperatures can drop to -20C during winter.
This year, Mildmay Junior School and Baddow Hall Junior School children piled gifts into boxes, including stationery, tennis balls, toothbrushes, vitamins and water pistols, while the elderly from the Tile Kiln Food on Friday club made children's clothes, blankets and toys.
After three years helping coordinate the project, Linda was asked to join the troop, including Tess Griggs, Tile Kiln youth pastor James Bell and Tim's brother Mary Wood, abroad on October 31 for a week.
She described how the poorest families live in one room in a shack with a wood-burning stove, sleep on settees without electricity and receive water from a communal standpipe.
She said: "It makes you realise that there are other people who need help, that while we're thinking about what we are going to buy for our loved ones, there are people who need basic commodities.
"It makes you think how lucky we are and how if you reach out to people you can make a difference to other people's lives."
