Ben and Esther Smith

Mission Partners serving with the Casa Mea Foundation

Tell us a little about the place where you are working

Hundreds of people with disabilities in Moldova are locked away in state institutions, forgotten by the world, and suffering tremendously. Most importantly, many of these places are without a gospel witness.

The Casa Mea Foundation (Casa Mea means ‘My House’ in Romanian) began by bringing a consistent gospel witness to a couple of disability institutions in Moldova.

Over the years the Lord saved a number of people and they began to dream of starting an ordinary home in a village for some of the women. This was totally impossible humanly speaking due to a lack of resources and influence. Permissions were needed at top Government level as such a development was completely new in Moldova. The Lord overcame every obstacle and Casa Mea now has four community homes across the country, each linked to a local church.

The Lord overcame every obstacle and Casa Mea now has four community homes.

Why are you working at Casa Mea?

Since 2012, we have been involved in short term mission teams in Moldova and over the years we felt an increasing sense of burden for people with disabilities suffering there – physically abused and also cut off from gospel witness and discipleship.

God led us into professional roles in the area of intellectual disability and we felt his leading to commit ourselves full-time to help and support the ministry of Casa Mea.

What will you be doing?

As a family of four (Ben, Esther, Reuben and Simeon), we are in the process of moving to Moldova full-time to help with a variety of needs in the work. These range from practical support in the community homes, to staff training to establishing a more regular gospel presence in the main state disability institutions.

We hope our experience and professional expertise can support the development of the work in Moldova.