There were murmurings among the three teams who were heading to Oradea, Romania will we or won't be staying at "Ro-merica?" Ro-merica was previously named by other World Racers who had stayed there and found that they had all the comforts of home right there in Romania. Since we had just left Honduras and had all slept in our tents, with cold showers and dirt everywhere, we were all very hopeful.
Welcome to Comunil Fleix! We made it! Ro-merica! Huge kitchen, long family style dinning table, COUCHES (this was one of the most exciting luxury items) beds with clean linen included, hot showers, free Wi-Fi and you could walk around with your shoes off-not only could you, but you were encouraged to walk around with your shoes off! My friend Ashley Sisk and I got to share a room with just the two of us. Where once we entered we both did our own rendition of the happy dance. It was amazing.
Comunil Fleix is a great organization. It's mission statement can be summed up fairly simply with: Children deserve families and we provide families. After a very strict application and interview process a husband and wife are allowed to move into one of the Comunil Felix homes on of their community properties. A family is then given anywhere from 10- 15 orphaned or abandon children ranging in all ages. Similar to our foster care system back home but different in the fact that these children will never get switched families and they are not dumped back into society at the age of 18. once a child has been put into a family, it is in that family forever. Comunil Felix helps send all their kids to college, helps with finding jobs and even helps with finding their children who marry fist time homes. It's very much a true family, just a very large family. They have a child sponsorship program where you can pay $35 a month to help offset some of the costs and the child emails or writes you a letter once a month. It's all very cool.
Ministry was great in Romania we got to work alongside Benjamin; the most patient man in all of Romania and build a house for one of the Comumil Felix families. Lots of sanding and plastering everyday, installing window frames, then some of us were taught how to lay installation . When I volunteered for the installation job I really just wanted to quit sanding and check out the attic; little did I know that I was leaving monotonous work for darn hard work. To all you people who have to prep for installation then lay installation as a job you deserve a prize. Even though getting to wear the Umpa-Loopa jump suit is enough of a prize in itself. But no matter how hard or monotonous sanding was that day, we all got to go back to our amazing rooms and eat home made American food for dinner.
Living in comfort was great, but it also allowed me to get lazy. I was very much on cruise control for the first couple weeks. Definitely not digging deep with the Lord, not pressing into building relationships with team mates, not reading anything of real substance and watching way too much TV at night. It reminded me of home and the times when everything in life is going pretty darn good and I just get lazy and don't depend on God all that much. The worst part for me was that I recognized that I was being lazy and I didn't do anything to change the fact until week 3. It was (and is) a good lesson to be reminded of: no matter what your circumstances comfortable or destitute there will be a lack in your life if you're not pressing into the Lord. So thanks free unlimited Wi-Fi for that reminder.
