We
left Romania over 2 weeks ago and we have yet to tell you any details
about what we did during our time there, sorry. Wish we could blame
it on having no internet but honestly in the last 7 weeks we’ve had
more consistent internet than we have had on the entire Race. But
better late than never, right? Also we’ve included several links to
our friends’ blogs because they have done a much better job of
explaining what we did for the month so check out some of the links
to get more info. So here’s a little bit of what we did in Bucharest,
Romania…
For
the month of September we worked with an organization called Casa
Shalom. It would be difficult to explain everything that Casa Shalom
is involved in – they literally have their hand in ministries all
over the place and are doing a wonderful job impacting the Bucharest
community for Christ. One specific thing Casa Shalom does is collect
donations of clothing, furniture, etc. and sell them at a second-hand
store to raise money that goes towards helping the less fortunate. We
got to do a lot of organizing for the second-hand store…yeah for
hours of folding!
One
perk to organizing all the donations is that it gave us a chance to
see all the awesome [sometimes outdated] clothing. And who can look
through all that stuff and not dress up in it? Obviously none
of us can resist that temptation. Speaking of clothes and shoes…you
should read Michelle’s blog here to see what’s next for her after the
Race.
Some
days we spent time visiting Gypsy communities and playing with the
beautiful children. Ever wonder where the phrase “I got gypped”
came from? Yep, from the Gypsies. Brian wrote a great blog about
this…click here to read it.
One
day we invited about 40 people over from a nearby Gypsy community and
put on a program for them. This is a skit we did to encourage the
kids to stay in school. It was entertaining for both the kids and the
Racers.
After
that program we were able to give new backpacks to all the
children…it’s so great to see the smiles on kids’ faces when they
get something unexpected and new.
We
also spent a few days a week at a house called Jubilee – a home for
mentally and/or physically disabled women. These women soon became
our friends and we were blessed enough to spend many afternoons with
them playing cards, coloring, singing, or painting each others nails.
Check out Kendall’s blog here about one of her best friends at
Jubilee.
This
month was also a lot about enjoying our WR community. We were very
blessed to have a schedule that allowed for lots of time to just
spend together having fun and encouraging one another. Check out
Hope’s blog here about some wonderful news she got while we were in
Romania.
And
we got to do some things that are only normal when you’re on the
Race…like celebrating Christmas in September…one of our favorite
WR memories! Read Ricki’s blog here to see some more funny “only on
the Race” moments.
On
top of all that we also got to celebrate Brian’s birthday with him.
Happy b-day old man! Click here to read what he thought about his
blindfolded birthday extravaganza.
That
wraps up Romania! We’ve been in Slovakia for 2 weeks now and we
promise we’ll have details about that coming up soon – you won’t
believe how we got here!
