Romania - Friday

Final day of camp for the year couldn’t of been much better (except for the sad fact that three interns got sick today and had to go to the hospital for fluids and such…please pray for them). The last day of camp every week is at Camp Vetca, which is outside in a huge field at the bottom of a valley with enormous, beautiful hills on every side. The camp area has a few tents, a recreation area with basketball courts, a house with a kitchen and storage areas, and a bathroom and shower area. The place is one of the most fantastic places to be and every hill just called to be climbed.

         The activities at Camp Vetca were structured similarly to the rest of camp but most of the actual activities were different. The day starts out with a treasure hunt (leaning on the lost treasure theme) where there are six stations the kids have to try to complete as quickly as their little legs can carry them. Verde started out by trying to throw white beans inside some boots while on one foot, with eyes closed, and turned around. Then we had to link arms and get a wet t-shirt to travel down the line of kids, with a bit of help from us leaders. Next was some exercises while doing memory verses and then some strange challenges with string such as taking a piece of string and looping it through everyone’s shirts. This was followed by singing the Romanian national anthem, quite well I might add, and finally running to the bottom of a hill and receiving ice cream. Once all six stations were completed, everyone had to run to the top of a very steep hill to the welcoming arms of an intern with water.

         After a bit of team time, we had a second section of stations but this time they were even better. First, we did water games like passing a sponge down the line of kids to fill a bucket and something that required water and a plastic bag with many tiny holes in it. Secondly, we got to do horse rides!!!! I’ll admit that I may be from Texas but I don’t remember ever having been on a horse so this was a very nice experience to have with the kids. I got the pleasure of sharing my horse ride with adorable Cristina per her request and it was just great. Final station was more memory verses and doing random things like jumping jacks and running around the tents as fast as possible, luckily the leaders got to relax during this except for the always active Tero.

         Lunch was just sandwiches but they were amazingly satisfying and then it was time for the kids favorite part. The Soapy Slip n’ Slide!!!!!!!!!! Apparently some of the kids look forward to this part all year, and I got to experience why. At first I just watched all the kids, young and old, running at top speed and hitting the slide at all angles with cheers all around. Eventually I just couldn’t hold myself back anymore so I jumped right in line and joined the older boys as they hit the slide mere seconds apart from each other. It was a soapy, cold, wet blast that really helped to make the day, right up until prayer time.

         Once everyone was cleaned up we had the chance to have prayer time. This is where each leader in the group prayers over all of their kids individually. In this time, we really get to see how respectful the kids are and how much they really do appreciate us and appreciate our prayers for them. The vast majority of the kids don’t know English so even though the kids don’t know what we Americans are saying, they still understand what we’re doing and like the feelings that come from it. I loved praying for each child and feeling how calm they got. Most of the kids would even put their ears close to my mouth so that they could hear every word. Afterwards, Cristina (from above) said a prayer over me as well and it was the sweetest moment. I can see and feel God moving inside these children and I know that He will bring great things to their lives.

         At the end of the day all of the leaders said their goodbyes to the kids and that was a hard time because the kids were so very grateful and smiling but we knew that it would be sometime before we even had a chance to possibly see them again. I’m going to miss their smiling faces, their loving natures, and just having the opportunity to touch their lives. I hope they know that not only did I try my best to help them, but also they made a huge impact on my life that I can feel, and I understand this feeling will not leave me. I will never again be able to rid myself of this desire to strengthen, to encourage, to give to, and to love others. Now is the beginning. Now is when I must die to myself, and live only for His glory. Now.

“I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me”

Proverbs 8:17

Romania - Thursday

         The last day at the sala… so very sad. There will be no more camp at the sala (the gym) until next summer and now there is only one more day of camp. The last day of camp is held at Camp Vetca, a separate facility that Livada owns and uses for awesometacular fun with the kids. Today’s camp was a truly fantastic time, aside from an ipod being stolen, but admittedly it was bound to happen eventually.

         Today the interns were turned into an arts and craft project, which resulted in Anna looking like a mix between a frog, clown, and all around strangeness. Side note, eventually I should have some pictures posted on here from the trip but that most likely won’t come until I get back to America. My free-time consisted of a lot of hitting a balloon to a little kid and watching him run after it and a little bit of throwing the football around.

Also, I forgot to mention on past days what some of our outside stations games have been, so here you go. Today the game leader would call out either fire mountain or fire ground and depending on which one he said, you would either run to the middle of the field or not move. This game was undoubtedly, hilarious to watch, especially when the game leader (Istvan) would continue to make the kids run back and forth. On Tuesday, we had to put a blindfold on and find our way around the field searching for a futbol that Istvan has managed to kick out of reach. This was especially difficult when a couple of us Americans were forced to go against each other and we could only be given directions in Romanian. Tons of yelling “Dreapta Dreapta Dreapta… Stanga!!!!”, and if it wasn’t for Andrada, then myself and the other American would of smashed heads together. Oh and by the way, I so won.

The challenge of the day was stacking pepsi cans with one can at the bottom and then 2 cans on top of that, 3 on that, etc… This game was a bit easier than the other ones but 2 of the teams were still unsuccessful. Then, the team game was having the kids run to the end of the field, smash their face into a plate of whipped cream and pull out a coin with their mouth. We got tons of pictures of kids with their faces covered in whipped cream. Great times!

Now for a more intense part of the day, the team went to a baby hospital in Ludus. I originally thought that seeing the children in Ogra would be the most heart-wrenching part of the trip but being in that hospital, seeing the conditions the babies are in and understanding how little love they are receiving, plucked at every heart string I have. The interns told us that going there would make us just one to cry and grab a baby and just start running but I couldn’t understand that til we got there. The hospital itself seems to have virtually no security (pretty sure you really could grab a baby and run) and no offense to the nurses, but if I hear a baby crying at the top of his lungs and you’re sitting there smoking in the next room, your priorities are off. The baby’s floor was fairly dreary and parts of it were WAY too hot, while the babies rooms lacked diapers, baby wipes, and baby burp blanket things. These babies all come to the hospital because they are sick but there is no separation of the children or their toys.

The babies may come their sick, but while at the hospital the babies tend to only become worse off. The parents leave the babies there for long periods of time because they either don’t want to take care of the child or just can’t and because there is nothing forcing them to take the babies back. At the same time, the parents rarely give up rights to the babies so they can’t even be put up for adoption. The babies worsen because they receive almost no attention in the hospital and long periods without attention for a baby is literally one of the worst things you can do to them.

With all this said, I love them babies. I spent most of my time in the hospital giving all of my love to Alexandra, Andra, and Georgianna. Even though I don’t have much experience with babies or very young children, I did all I could and was eventually able to get lots of smiles and laughs from them. I’m not talking normal smiles and laughs, I’m talking “OMG, that is totes ADORBS!!!!!!” While we were leaving, all I could think was that we hadn’t spent nearly enough time there and that there has to be a way for these children to be loved on all the time.

It’s been mere hours since we left and I already miss little Alexandra’s smile. I’ll admit that I feel so helpless for these babies because I don’t know what I can do to help them. I can only hope and pray that God has a much greater plan for those babies, that my love was some help for them, and that God has a plan for me which includes hearing Alexandra’s laugh. God is good but can be the hardest to see in the darkest places.

“While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

John 9:5

Romania - Wednesday

         It’s amazing how quickly relationships can change over just a couple of days. On Monday the kids on Team Verde were extremely nice and fun to be around but I could tell that they were less responsive to me (the American who can’t speak Romanian) than they are to Andrada and Tero. Now, on the other hand, the kids are actually far more comfortable around me. Of course the language barrier is still a barrier but we can at least play together and communicate enough to have an awesome time at camp.

         Today, camp consisted of everything I told you about in the last post with some slight variations. The interns’ skits were extra special since they added a skit about the prodigal son, which was informative and very funny. The prodigal son started out played by little Sebi with all of his adorableness and ended up being played by a girl intern wearing a huge afro. During singing time I was actually able to sing all the songs (they’re completely in Romanian) and I forgot to mention on my last post that on Tuesday I told the children my story (and even though I left out some details since they’re young) I think they understood it and hopefully it helped them. Free-time consisted of mostly kicking a lot of soccer balls around and throwing two Frisbees at the same time with Sebi, Adelin, and Alex (a kid from Team Mov who loves playing with me and bringing me random balls).

         Challenge of the day was trying to get a bubble from the middle of the room to a hula-hoop about 10 yards away. The kid would take the bubble stuff and blow as many bubbles as they could and would have 1 minute to get the bubble through the hoop. No one was able to do it at 10 yards so they changed it to 5 yards and we finally got some winners. Our team games were fairly strange today but very exciting to participate in. Each kid would run down a field one at a time and eat something out of a bag at random and the first team to finish wins. I only saw a couple of the items they ate, which was some chocolate, some wafer thing, and a tomato.

         After camp the American team intended to take the LOC kids to the Weekend (a nearby pool place and lake) but for some reason that didn’t work out. Instead we went to the LOC houses and made our own version of the Weekend. We played water games like the Romanian version of duck…duck…goose (rata,rata,gusca) which included throwing water on the person who is the goose. Also we threw water balloons and had water challenges that resulted in everyone being soaked and since the guys somehow lost, we had to stand in a line and have all of the rest of the water stuff thrown at us. The LOC kids were also way more responsive to the team on this second visit, especially since one of my team members, Chris, is very good at making everyone comfortable and ready to have a good time.

         That’s the general gist of Wednesday, so now it’s time for bad and to be ready for more camp. Verde!!!!!

No quote – my bad

Romania - Monday & Tuesday

Yesterday was the first day of actual camp for my American team and it was an exciting and slightly nerve-racking experience. We started off the day fairly slow by heading to the LOC office and doing a team-camp orientation (finding out what goes on at camp) and then heading to the camp gym. At the gym we had another orientation with our assigned interns and volunteers/translators. I have Anna and Courtney as my interns who are fantastic because they are great with the kids and know how to immediately make me feel comfortable in this new situation. Our translators are Tero and Andrada, who are terrific with the kids, the best translators I’ve met thus far, and just great people to be around.

         When the kids first arrived I had no idea what to really expect. We weren’t sure how many there would be and what ages. It turns out that we have about 45 kids this week and their ages range from 5 to 22. My team for the week is Team Green ( Verde) and we have 8 younger children (Andrada, Cristina, Lorena, Carmen, Sebi, Adi, Adelin, Bogdan). The children are all wonderful to be around but I’ll admit that Sebi is one of the most adorable kids I’ve ever seen. It's pretty difficult communicating with the kids whenever we don't speak the same language but overtime it's grown to not be as much of a problem. Hearing the chant “Verde!! Verde!!!” at the top of their lungs is one of my favorite parts of the day.

         The camp days consistent of many different things and is divided up into lots of 20 minute segments. We start out with a lot of chanting and then lead into a time where we sing (in Romanian), the interns do a skit (Wild West themed), and the camp pastor does a mini sermon (the week is focused on being lost and then found). After that we go into stations rotations, which consist of craft time, memory verses, team time, and outside sports. The outside sports are my best part of stations because I’m a fairly active person and those kids help to give me so much energy to keep going all the time. We have lunch (provided by the delicious Romania TipTop restaurant) and then more singing, team-time, and finally the challenge of the day.

         The challenge of the day is based loosely off of the Minute to Win It game. Tuesday’s challenge consisted of having to keep three balloons in the air for an entire minute, which became trying to keep 2 balloons up for 30 seconds. Adelin was able to keep two up for 31 seconds, which was the best time, Verde!!!! Our last thing is team games. Tuesday the game was where each person had to take a spoonful of white, uncooked beans from one end of the gym to the other, and the team with the most beans won. Little kids…spoonful of beans…needless to say we did not win.

         After the kids left and everyone was gone, my team went to Ogra. There is a gypsy village in Ogra that the organization has been helping for some time and three of the interns this summer spent their time teaching the children how to speak and write Romanian and English. The village was far from what I’d originally expected, but I couldn’t help but feel for the children and people there more than I think I’ve felt for anyone else in my life. They have so little and yet the smiles on the kid’s faces were heart-wrenchingly beautiful. All they wanted to do was play and have fun and be kids, and not worry about money, food, clothes, or shelter. When one of the interns asked me what I thought about the village, all I could say was that it was interesting but that was the wrong answer. What I couldn’t stop thinking about when in the village and when thinking about the kids, the people, or the lack of everything, was what can I do?

         Yeah sure I’ve made a huge step in the right direction by coming here, by seeing the people, meeting fantastic kids, and understanding what a different part of the world is like but that can’t be the ONLY huge step. When a person starts walking they do it one step after another, and that is how I have to be. I need to keep taking steps, keep walking in the direction that God shows me. I don’t know whether or not those steps lead to Romania, to further development into Livada, or even to anything having to do with children, but I do know that this trip is already making a life-changing impact and I’m only on day two of camp. There’s no turning back now, so it’s time to trust in God and keep on walking.

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Jeremiah 29:11

Romania!!! (almost)

Less than 2 days until I get on a very long plane ride to Romania!!! Okay, technically, it’s 3 very long plane rides but same thing. I’ve been looking forward to this mission trip for months now and it’s crazy to think that it’s finally here, and even crazier to think that it’ll be over in 2 weeks. I’m excited about the opportunity that has been presented to me, the chance to help the children in Romania and to give whatever aid I can to the interns and the people of the Fundatia LOC. I’m not sure what all I can do for these people, but I do know that I will take every opportunity presented to me over there in order to help and more importantly, in order to spread the Love and Word of God.

I’ve got to thank all of the people who are supporting me in this trip. I can feel all the prayers I’ve received about this trip because things continue to go even smoother than I expected and the financial support I received for the trip was far beyond my expectations. Thank you to all of my family and friends who are helping me in this, and thank you to Livada and Kerra for showing me this trip. I want you to know how much I appreciate you all and how much without you I couldn’t of done this.

Now back to that comment of this being done in 2 weeks. I know that this is only a short term mission trip which means I won’t be there long and it won’t be long before I’m back in the U.S. with all it’s luxuries and laziness. I know that I’m just as bad as the next guy when it comes to indulging in all the great things I have and forgetting about those who don’t have. I understand that when I get back I can’t just allow myself to go back to not caring, to go back to a normal or easy life whenever I know that on the other side of the world or even down the street there is someone that could use my help (or our help). Anyways, who wants an easy life, that just sounds boring.

Sorry that it’s been so long since I last posted and that this is one of my shorter posts. In the future, I’ll try my best to start posting again and when I get back from Romania there should be plenty of pictures and exciting stories to tell so be looking for that.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Matthew 25:35-40