Week 1 of Camp, TEAM SUA

Last year, I wrote pages and pages about my trip, only a week long. This time I have many weeks left of camp, so I will try really hard to keep it short. I may not succeed. I am not even sure where to begin with all the stories and pictures I have, but let me share a little about each kid in my group, starting with the girls.

Ana Maria was shy and sweet when it came to our group, but any chance she had, she was off visiting another team meeting boys from other group homes. Honestly, I had patience with her but the other groups did not. They kept getting annoyed that she was in the group. It wasn’t til the last day that she finally felt part of the group. She became involved in the games and was genuinely sad to leave. Hopefully, she listened a little bit to the message.

Rodica was the most challenging of the group. She was fine on second, and off pouting across the field the next. Anytime she messed up at a game, she threw things and ran off. It was challenging to try to encourage her without knowing the language. The translators were very helpful, and by the end of the week, she was in tears not wanting to leave. She might have been the most challenging, but she was also the most in need of love and attention. At the end of the week, we get a chance to pray for each kid on our team. Praying for her was the hardest because she pulled away from my arms and resisted so much. I know she couldn’t understand my words and that’s probably best, but she more than any I saw this week is very in need of emotional healing.


Arpy and Rupy were the calm within the craziness of our group. Both of them were full of energy and wanted to win. Rupy was a wonderful athlete and loved to help the team. But he also loved to cuddle with any of us who would let him. Arpy tried so hard in all the games and didn’t get discouaraged even if he didn’t do well. He was very attentive during all the lessons, and remembered the details. My prayer for him is that God will allow Arpy to understand all the truth he learned this week.

Then there was Nicosor, a young boy with autism. He was so happy all week long. I am not sure how much of any game he understood, but he always had fun. The simple things were enough to make him smile. He was such a blessing. My prayer for him was that God would help him understand His truth as I know He can.



Last but not least takes a little introduction. While praying about camp this week, my slightly lazy, selfish side was praying for a deep bond with one of the girls, preferably one who liked to sit around and paint nails, create fun hairstyles. God had the complete opposite in mind for me this week and it was such a blessing.

Even before camp started, we heard stories about a kid named Boby who was built like a body builder, full of energy, and only eight years old. Though he sounded fun, I figured the many male interns on this trip would keep him entertained. I can’t imagine a child more opposite of me in personality. Not only did Boby end up in my group, he also attached himself to me. During free time he didn’t want to play soccer with the other kids because they were not good enough. But he wanted to play with me. During group times, he was always cuddling with me, if my arms were around him, his were around me. Instead of relaxing during free time, I was chasing Boby around the entire camp. I was exhausted but it was worth it.

When we finally had to say goodbye, he gave me the longest hug and told me he loved me in Romanian. It was an amazing week.

More pics of the week here...

Week 1 of Camp -Team SUA (RO)

Pics

If you want to see more pics other than the few I post here, go to this link

A few days to rest

I have started 3 out of the last 4 blogs with the words "at last" somewhere in the title. How very unoriginal, but it expresses my anticipation for the weeks to come. The past few days, however, was time for much needed rest.

Friday was a relaxing day of shopping and doing laundry. It was in no way exciting, but the rest was much needed. We did go to training with the 40+ high school age volunteer translators, almost all females. They all love to practice English and laughed at my Romanian pronunciations (mispronunciations that is). Those of you who know I love working with teenagers can imagine how exciting that was. I pray I will be able to build relationships with each of the girls I work with this summer.

Saturday I slept in as much as I could (til 9) and headed out to Real for some snacks to take to camp. It was easy to get the taxi to Real but we weren’t really sure how to take a taxi back. I was able to practice my Romanian skills and ask around for a taxi with very little problems (good think pointing is universal language). Then when our taxi number arrived, a woman ran toward it to take it from us. We didn’t know what to do, but I knew it was our taxi we called for, so I just stuck my head in the window and told the driver where we were going and we got in. The lady looked mad, but another taxi pulled up right after. It would have been more polite to say “Sorry, this is our taxi number so you will just need to wait” but the only words of that I know are “Sorry…taxi…” so I didn’t even try.

Then I went to Casa Ana to visit Maria again. I showed her pictures on my laptop. She loved seeing pictures of my family (also sponsoring her) and of my apartment and car. Honda is a rare import here, so they were very impressed with my fancy car (where as Mercedes makes the local garbage trucks here). Then I opened up Photo Booth and the real fun began. The kids enjoyed making silly faces for almost an hour. Below are some of the photos we took. Enjoy.

Setting up Camp

Camp is all set up and ready for the kids.
This week I learned how to pitch a tent, not just any tent, but British Army tents. As a group, we set up 15 military tents and 3 large pavilion tents. My favorite part of the work had to be when one of the Livada staff members. Alina, and I were cleaning out the storage shed. We had almost cleared out the entire shed and together pulled on a large tarp sitting on the top shelf. Two mice fell over our heads and we both screamed as they ran to out the shed. I picked up a pole and poked at the rest of the tarp and one more mouse ran off. We hesitantly drug the tarp on the ground out the door as we laughed at our adventure. It wasn’t really the mice I was afraid of as much as it was the shock of rodents almost falling on my head. We managed to clean the mouse droppings and organize all the new supplies without running into any other live creatures, a fun bonding experience for the two of us. I borrowed the pics from the livada blog because I was working too hard to take pics.

I am becoming familiar with Targu Mures this week as well. We made a few trips to Real (pronounced Ree Al) which is something like a Wal-Mart or Super-Target. As long as I have Real, I could manage to live here. The evenings have been interesting walking around the city center. We found a cute coffee shop with free internet, which is where I am writing my blogs. We also tried eating out a few times. I have learned that hot dogs here have some thick nasty casing and that Chinese food (sticky rice) tastes the same everywhere. I am also able to read menu items and understand what most of them are, which is great progress.

The other night two of the girls and I went out to dinner and ran into some of the mentor apartment girls. The mentor apartments are places for older orphans in Livada’s care to learn skills they need for real life, like cooking, budgeting, and other things orphanages do not teach. The girls joined us walking around the center and showed us the fun places to go. As we were talking, we saw a man chasing after a woman, both yelling in the street. He tried to kiss her and hold her arm back and she was trying to push him away. The man was obviously drunk. We didn’t know what to do and of course none of the interns spoke Romanian. Ani bravely asked the women if we should call the police. We stood at a distance and as soon as the man turned to walk the other way, Ani called the woman over to us to make sure she was safe. The woman explained that the man lived with her and her kids and often acted like this when drunk. She had a scar on her head that looked like she had been hit. Ani proceeded to boldly tell her that she should kick this man out and did not need to let him treat her this way. The woman had heard the same thing from friends but did not listen. We offered to pray for her, which she allowed, and then we parted ways. Hopefully God will use total strangers to help her realize her situation and make the right choice. Regardless of what she does, it was amazing to see Ani take such leadership counseling a total stranger. I have no idea where Ani is in her relationship with God, but she obviously has been through a lot in her orphanage days and it was great to see how God could use her and her experiences to help her be bold and counsel others. I am sure God will do great things with her.

Meeting the kids at last

At last, we’ve been able to hang out with the kids. Not only was it fun, but also it makes for better stories and pictures.
Saturday we went to the baby hospital. The babies were adorable but it was so hard to leave knowing that they will just stay in the crib all day with no one to play with them or hold them. Livada has set up a program to visit this hospital about three times a week just to love on the kids, teach them to walk and talk to them. I am so glad they have this, but it still breaks my heart to know that so many other hospitals exist without anyone to come at all.
Then we went to one of the orphanages, Zau. We were not allowed to take photos, but one of the little girls, Emilia, jumped in our car and used my camera to take a photo of us. She was a bit shorter than me, which is obvious from the angle ☺ The kids had so much fun playing with us and were fighting for attention. I taught a few girls some dances, threw a football, and enjoyed the swings, which were not made for my size people. There were a couple girls there who were deaf and a few of our team members knew ASL. Though it was a bit different then the sign they knew, it made there day to have people able to play and communicate with them. I am so excited to see the relationships that will be built there.
Today I went to church at First Baptist Targu Mures. It was actually very similar to Wedgwood’s format and music style (my church back in Texas). We had headsets to translate the sermon. I was so tired which made it really hard to stay awake, but I am excited to go there every week to see the Livada kids.
The next part of the day we went to the “Casas” to visit the Livada kids. For those of you who don’t know what I mean, Livada pulled three groups of orphans from the worst orphanage and started their own group homes for these kids. They have been in Livada’s care 3-4 years and are healing from the past. They live in a family-type setting with some natural siblings and some others. Livada funds the group homes through sponsorship of each child (let me know if you want more info on how to do this or go here...http://livada.org/learn_about_sponsorship.htm)
My family and I have been sponsoring a girl named Maria. I saw her very briefly last year and decided to sponsor her when I arrived back in TX. Today I was able to meet her again. She was so excited. We went for a walk and talked about the fun things she and I can do together this summer. I have weekends off and can visit her as often as I like. I can also help with her Sunday school class!. I asked her what she liked to eat and she quickly replied French Fries, especially McDonalds. I knew God had led me to the right girl ☺
And last of all, here is a pic of my room so you can see where I stay when I am not sleeping in a tent. And yes, it’s messy. It’s really great to wake up to the sun shining in every morning and to be able to unpack everything in all the space. I’ll update with a pic of the outside of the house someday when it’s finally not raining.

Targu Mures at last

I’ve arrived in Romania safely at last!
The trip here was relatively uneventful, with the only exception being a very thorough search of “my person” from German officials. It seems the foil gum wrapper that I forgot was in my pocket was very suspicious.
It is a very surreal feeling to be in the midst of a crazy school year, then a few very long plane rides later be in Romania. The reality of the next two months is yet to set in. I slept only about three hours total in the 22 hours of travel, so as you can imagine I am very tired.
We are staying at the same house my team stayed at last year. There is one big room and two smaller rooms. I have a smaller room with another girl. We have tons of shelf space/drawers and so I was already able to unpack all my stuff. There are two bathrooms for twelve females for the first four weeks, so we will see how things work in the mornings.
This week we are mainly setting up the campsite to get things ready for the kids. It will be hard work and is not in my area of expertise. I remember trying to set up a tent at D-NOW this year as part of a race and I am pretty sure our group had to give up because we were taking close to twenty minutes. Perhaps I am better at setting up military tents?
Pictures will come soon. So far we have only been to the city center and Metro, a big grocery store much like SAM’s Club. The city hasn’t changed, so I didn’t take any new pics, and I did not take any pictures at Metro because I was too busy trying to read Romanian nutritional labels.

Romania at last!

At last its time to go to Romania!
I can't wait. This blog will be completely transformed into Romania updates for the next few months. I'll update with pics as soon as I arrive. More to come soon...