For the past 4 years of my life, Spring
Break has consisted of a weeklong trip to another state with about 20 other
people to do construction for Habitat for Humanity. Even though I’m halfway
around the world and don’t even get a Spring Break, somehow it ended up just
the same. Our ministry for March was to work with Caminul Felix (http://caminulfelix.org), a family-style
place for abandoned and neglected children to have a home. The ministry was
started in the early 90s to address the problem of the many orphaned children
that came to light with the fall of communism. There were many people who
started the movement to place these children in real homes, with parents and
siblings. A married couple is called to parent 10-16 children that aren’t
theirs biologically, but they commit to being Moms & Dads for the rest of
their lives. Caminul Felix has grown with the help of the UK, US, and Sweden,
with financial support and volunteers that come to help build. We were on the
construction site for the better part of the day, doing a variety of odd jobs.
Right now, the big project is to make affordable, safe houses for the children
who have grown up and want to start families of their own. The job &
housing markets in Romania are not ideal, and the organization wants to bless
them with a home that has an interest-free mortgage that can be paid off over
30 years.
This month was all about planting the
seeds and not necessarily being there for the harvest. We did such weird,
undesirable, and seemingly unnecessary tasks, such as moving planks of wood,
organizing the tool shed, or even just moving trash from one area to another.
We will not be there for the first time the couple will walk into their house,
for the final reveal, and we will probably not even be remembered as helping to
build it, but we know that it is for the Kingdom. In a country where children
are abandoned and unloved frequently, we helped to give them a chance at a
successful and normal life, if only in a very small and unrecognizable way.
photo collage by Elaina Rogers
Even though the jobs were sometimes
thankless or boring, our team had a great time out there in Oradea. We learned
a lot as we dug alongside one another, fought through putting up insulation,
and stacked planks of wood. It was so interesting to hear about how differently
we all grew up, with vastly different environments and parenting styles, how we
ended up on the Race, what our lives were like before we left America, and even
hearing stories about first kisses, what your superpower would be and why, or
most embarrassing moments.
