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