Hello from Romania!! Please allow me to give you a small glimpse into what life in Romania has looked like for me this month. 🙂
A little background:
We have been staying in a city named Alba Iulia and partnered with Harmony Church. This month I’ve spent the whole month with TEAM RELENTLESS and these crazy ladies know how to have fun and laugh. It’s been a blast! We have been staying in a very nice building that was built less than 2years ago owned by a Christian organization called PIEI. Our beds are soft, the water is hot, and we even have a little kitchen area where we cook a lot of our meals together. #blessed
Meals
In Eastern Europe, most people consider themselves Orthodox. Fun fact: their Easter was a week later than ours because of the Orthodox calendar, so we celebrated Easter two weekends in a row! 🙂 On Easter Sunday, the meal pictured above was served to Averi and I at the home of Niki and Claudia. Niki & Claudia go to the church we are working with and invited us over for a traditional Romanian lunch consisting of lamb, pork, soup, mashed potatoes, and an eggplant spread for the bread. It was DELICIOUS and our time together was probably one of my favorite memories of this month.
Adventure
Off day:
On our first off day, we went to an adventure place where there were multiple high ropes courses and zip lines in the woods. Some courses were more challenging than others, but for 1 or 2 hours it was only 10 Romanian lei per person- thats less than $3! It was beautiful!
After our time at the adventure place, a few of us walked up a hill to see the view of the city of Alba Iulia. Gorgeous! (Not pictured is a cute little restaurant with a patio and countless picnic tables.)
Spring Cleaning at the Ministry House
Megan and I cleaned out the gazebo in the backyard where they will host small groups for local teenagers. We may or may not have found a dead rat in the process. Eww. By the time we were done dusting, vacuuming the curtains, moving all the furniture out & then back in, sweeping, and mopping, it was looking like a pretty sweet place to hang out!
Across from us in the yard, Averi did a lot of the gardening- pulling weeds, trimming vines, and making the yard look really nice!
Rhi tackled the kids’ playhouse, removing all the play furniture, wiping everything down, sweeping, mopping, and organizing.
Bry & Tay are cleaning off the trampoline in this picture but they also did a lot of the cleaning of the toys for the kids, as well.
This is Zsolt. He hangs out with us everyday. He is 22 and works with the church and makes sure we know what we are doing all the time. His family is from Hungary, so he has a Hungarian name, but he has been in Romania all his life. We have loved getting to know him, messing with him, and learning from him. In this picture, he has gotten down and dirty, cleaning out the pond in the garden.
Days in the Citadel
In Alba Iulia, many people come to visit the citadel in the city. It’s known for its history, the big Orthodox church, the old Catholic Church, and the Univeristy that sit inside this star-shaped fortress. We’ve spent many days walking around here meeting people and inviting them to come to English classes we are hosting at the church.
The map of the citadel
Inside the Orthodox Church
As Bry would say, “Spring has sprung!” We have been blessed with many beautiful sunny days and blossoming flowers and trees in Alba Iulia!
This is Rhi. She is the queen of talking to strangers (in a good way). She is fearless and can make a friend anywhere! I had the pleasure of walking around the citadel several times with her.
Working with Kids at the After School Program
Somehow we were given the privilege to work at an after school care program several times now. Sometimes we practice a little English with the kids (hints why I am using Google translate with Petrutsa in the picture above).
Most of the time we are here, we play games with the kids, have fun, and do a lot of laughing. This was relay race obstacle kind of game.
This is sweet Larisa. She ran up to me almost immediately and loved to be loved. We have shared many hugs and “I love yous”
Evening VBS
On Thursday evenings, the kids from the after school program and other neighborhood kids, come back to the center and some people from the church put on a VBS type program. They do skits, sing worship songs, do a teaching using art as a visual aide, and do an activity with the kids.
Along with all of that, the kids usually do some kind of craft. Here they are making a cross to give away after we talked about generosity how Jesus lived.
Visiting the Kindergarten
This day was so much fun. We visited a Christian Kindergarten Center and played with little ones for several hours. We played Red Rover (Romanian edition), played with chalk, swung on the swings, kicked the ball around, picked flowers, and just got to love on some sweet kiddos. There was a little boy from Norway who had only been there for 2 days. He was still pretty shy around the kids, but he let me hold him for a long time and I loved every single minute of it. I think that was God‘s little birthday gift to me. He knows I love little snuggles. 🙂
Swinging away..
Birthdays on the Race 🙂
My silly Elise bought me purple tulips for my birthday! She knows me well. 🙂
**** Sneek peak of a little birthday vlog I made and will be posting next week.****
More Adventure:
My Cassie! Here we are modeling some world race fashion. I know, too great to handle. Try not to marvel too much. Anyways, we were told we were going to be taken to Lake Balea, a beautiful glacier lake in Romania. This was right before we took the cable car/ski lift thing up the mountains.
Here you can see the waterfall from the ski lift. Stunning.
From the top!
And here it is- the frozen lake behind Elise and I! A little different than what we expected, but still a cool experience.
After leaving the snowy mountain tops, we stopped to see a little city named Sibiu on the way home. It was build by Germans many years ago, and as you will see, it‘s pretty adorable.
English Classes
During many of our days in Alba Iulia, we have been inviting people to come to the English classes in hopes to connect them to people at the church. He is a picture of one of the classes that we have hosted thus far. Tomorrow and Sarurday will be our last ones 🙁
Lunch with Pastor Marcel & Angela
The view from his backyard
The beautiful blossoming apple trees in his backyard
Pretty blossoms
The first little bloom from the lilac bush growing in the backyard! He picked it off and handed it to me.
Marcel and his grandson 🙂
Elise and I taking advantage of the pretty background.
Marcel and his wife, Angela, hosted a wonderful lunch for us the other day. There was salad, boiled eggs, bread, and a potato & sausage kind of stew for the main entree. It was so flavorful and delicious. Hospitality here is on a whole new level. We loved talking with them and sharing fellowship around the table together.
More Food & Fellowship…
This was our dinner the other night at another family‘s home. More meat, potatoes and bread with eggplant spread. It was soooo good! I wish I would have taken a picture of them, too. sorry..
There are many many more memories from this month not pictured here, but like I said before, this is just a small glimpse into our life here. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for following along with me. God is good, all the time; and all the time, God is good.
