#10) Mici and fried cheese– Our wonderful contact Paula took us out to “The
Strand,” a fun carnival type area along the river with a pool, rides, dessert
stands and restaurants overlooking the river, to introduce us to some
traditional Romanian treats, Mici and fried cheese!! The fried cheese was so
good warm. It tasted like string cheese, the only thing it lacked was a side of
marinara. Nothing toped the Mici though, it is a delicious sausage mix of pork
and beef and as with every meal I ate in Romania whether breakfast lunch or
dinner it is served with a side of bread.
#9) Six Trampolines and a
Padded Wall– Also at “The Strand” is
a activity originally designed for small children but of coarse enjoyable into
your later years, six oversided tramp
connected with padding and surrounded by netting. They only allowed 3
people at a time, so the girls went first paying the full price of 5 lei for 5
minutes (that is a whopping $1.50). Afterwards Tim and I felt left out so we
asked the guy if we could get a quick 1 minute for 1 lei (about 33 cents), he
agreed. IT WAS INCREDIBLE! With trampoline all around and padding and netting
where there was not tramp we had no regard for safety, flipping uncontrollably
from one tramp to the next occasionally hitting the netted wall and bouncing
back. Tim even completed a double flip not on purpose of course.
#8) Trip to Hungary– One of the joys of The World race are our days off.
When you have a day off at home you head to the grocery store of maybe a movie,
but when you are on The World Race and you have a day off you head to the next
closest country. One of the volunteers we worked with, David, was heading to
Hungry for the day and asked if we wanted a ride. He didn’t have to ask me
twice! We headed about 3 hours away from Arad to a city right across the
Hungarian border called Szeged (how you pronounce it I still do not know). It
was a fun little town with a warm European feel. We checked out the old
cathedral, a gorgeous old synagogue, sipped coffee, ate pizza and devoured our
Italian gelato. The trip was a great success!
#7) Breaking down walls– Each month we have a different ministry that we work
with. This month it was Casa Oaza (House of Oasis) a childrens home, or
orphanage. They take in street kids, most often gypsies, that would otherwise
not have a home. They have three houses and have, at its largest point, housed
21 children. They are now down to six children. They use one of the homes to
house the children. One home to house their afterschool program and are
currently in the process of completely redoing the third home. That is where we
come in. Our job was to do demolition work to prepare for a team of skilled
construction missionaries that are coming in August. It worked out well because
breaking stuff is my specialty 🙂 I was able to be a part of destroying 3
walls, ripping tile out of 2 bathrooms and kitchen, ripping out radiators pipes
and much much more.
#6) Italian Ice cream shop– One of the volunteers at the home is a Sicilian name
Elisao (sp?). He along with his wife Eli, a Romanian Australian, took us on
many fieldtrips to fun places around Arad. My favorite, and thank God it was at
the end of the month, was an Italian ice cream shop about 1km from the house. It
had some of the most extravagant ice cream dishes I have ever seen. My favorite
was called 4 seasons and had 4 different types of ice cream and a different
fruit sliced on top of each. Topped with whipped cream and drizzled with syrup
it could have fed a family of four… or just me! The gigantic dish cost 13 lei
or about $4. In a matter of 5 days we went back there 4 times 🙂
#5) Downtown Arad– Arad is my favorite city that we have lived in
during the trip. It is a really neat small Eastern European town with a lot of
history and culture. Our contact Paula gave us the tour the first day taking us
into the Orthodox churches, through the cheese, meat and bread market, by the
old theatre, the symphony hall, park, river and town hall. It is really pretty
with several fun walking streets and you can get anywhere by trolly.
#4) The mud fight!– To get from the house we stayed at to the other two
houses where we worked each day was a 2 km walk winding through the old
neighborhood. There is MAJOR construction going on with the roads to the point
where pretty much every road is ripped up leaving nothing but huge holes in
dirt roads. After a particularly rainy day of work we headed home in the mud.
We playfully threw the equivalent of crab apples at each other the whole way
back. When we were nearing home Jory threw a crab apple at Catie Fadness who
while trying to get out of the way slipped and got mud on herself. Jory, being
the gentlemen that he is, felt bad so he started running down the street
jumping in every puddle getting mud all over himself to make Catie feel better.
This quickly turned into all of us jumping in the puddles and throwing mud at
eachother! Honestly one of my favorite times on the trip. The Romanians came
out of their houses and just stared at the “Crazy Americans” playing in the
mud. We returned to being responsible adults upon arriving back at the house
hosing eachother off before heading inside 🙂
#3) My teammate Chelsea’s
4th sobriety birthday– It
was such a neat experience to be able to celebrate my teammate Chelsea’s 4th
sobriety birthday. We went out for mici and dessert and had her tell us her
courageous story of how she fought and won her battle against alcohol and how
God brought her through it all. Bringing her to this point 4 years later in
Romania on a year long mission trip around the world. We serve an awesome God!
#2) Our Contacts– The ministry contacts we have in a country can truly
make or break a month. This month they made it! The main contacts Scott, Paula
and her family were incredibly kind to us. As I mentioned above Paula picked us
up from the train station and gave us the grand tour of the city. She took us
out to pizza with her family. She introduced us to meche, fried cheese and The
Strand. Scott preached a wonderful sermon to us the first sunday about the
great commission IN ENGLISH, a rarity on the race 🙂 We got to meet their kids while we helped move them out of
their home. The Dunns are moving back to America after serving many years in
Romania. They are taking a year off to fund raise before returning back to Arad
next year. They were only with us for a week but it felt like much longer than
that. We love you guys! Praying that you enjoy your time in Ohio!
#1) The kids!– This is what is all comes down to. This is the
purpose of Casa Oaza. The kids! We had the wonderful opportunity to spend the
month with the kids living in the house with them. We took them to the park,
worked with them tearing up the house and even took them bowling, which is
something none of them had ever experienced! I signed a contract saying I won’t
use their names or post any pictures but I figured this one would be allowed 🙂
We fell in love with the kids and it was hard to say goodbye. I will miss them
greatly.
Whats next?- A quick rundown of what the rest of the trip will
look like. I am writing this as I travel to Brasov, Romania for our 5 day
debrief. Then my team is off to Serbia for 10 days of ministry, Moldova for 3
weeks of ministry, Ukraine for 3 weeks of ministry then finally to Ireland for
the last week of debrief and The Awakening before heading back to Colorado Sept
3rd! I am praying that all is well with you all! I love you guys and thank you so much for
supporting me in this journey! I couldn’t have done it without you!
