I’m quite enjoying Romania! For one, I absolutely love the weather! The first few days it was about 45 degrees and after that it warmed up to the 60’s. Such a great change from 97 degrees every day in the hot Haiti sun. This month my team is living and working with one other team, also a big change from living and working with our entire squad. We live in a house with enough beds for all twelve of us, a really nice kitchen, and internet! After 50 hours of travel we all walked in to our house and actually questioned if we were still on the World Race or not. Needless to say, we feel slightly spoiled and extremely blessed.
Hannah and Me by the river in town on St. Patricks Day!
This month we are working with Communal Felix (Happy Home), an orphanage. But this is not your typical orphanage. Here, they have couples move into specifically built houses and then they get children who were orphaned and raise them as their own. So the parents end up with 8-15 kids of different ages to raise! I think that would be a crazy family!
I think it’s such a great organization because these kids who would end up in a state run orphanage (which to my knowledge is not the greatest situation) now have great Christian parents and lots of sisters and brothers to love them.
This month, our ministry is a mix of construction and spending time with the families. Every day for either 4 or 6 hours we are helping build a house. The first few days we dug trenches, laid pipe, and then buried are freshly dug trench. After that we’ve been plastering the walls in a newly built house. It’s always fun to learn new skills, not to mention work with people from different countries.
Me, Abby and, Sarah working hard
Three days a week after construction we go to Village 2 to play with some of the kids. This village is near our house and has ten houses in it, each with 8-15 kids ranging from 2-20 years old. We play with the kids and have gotten to do puzzles, play games, jump on a trampoline, jump rope, rollerblade, bike ride, swing, and play soccer. It’s like my childhood all over again! Some of the kids from one family even sang the Elephant Song which definitely brings back memories! These kids are so great and some of them even speak English which makes communication much easier.
Janelle and Hannah standing outside the Transilvanian Bank
Speaking of banks (ridiculous transition), I’m only about $150 dollars away from being fully
funded! God is so great!
