4th Romanian Summary – Resting in Oradea

Saturday, July 9th

When I finally strolled down to the courtyard of quaint Posticum in Oradea, they were serving lunch . . . chicken, French fries, and Cole slaw!  I’m sure this would have been delicious if my body clock registered lunch; however, it still shouted out the need for breakfast so I politely declined (well, maybe that wasn’t so polite after all.  Remember, I’m only a pre-school level missionary)! 

 We were here, and it was now time to engage in this mission!  Before I knew it, we were meeting some of the real, live orphans!  The ones who came over from the orphanage were all older and seemed very happy.  Well . . . at least most of them did.  One girl, 15 year Sally (name changed for protection), was very, very sad.  She had been denied the opportunity to attend all of the camps this summer because of her grades.  I learned also that she has a mom and dad and seven siblings, but her parents just don’t want her!  This is such great rejection.  She has been in the government owned orphanage since she was a baby.  She had an obvious love for our leader who has spent years bonding with these precious ones.  Another orphan had been rescued out of a cage while living among dogs.   The stories that matched the faces were too much to take in.  I had to retreat to my room to process what I had just experienced.  Wow ~ such pain!
 

Nothing was really on the agenda for the rest of the day which was a positive.  The pace was at a level I could handle!  We relaxed in our rooms for the morning.  This allowed for a good quiet time actually the best I would experience on the trip.  We then left for Walking Street.  This was a time to walk and shop.  It was enjoyable and a good chance to really begin to bond with the team.  Already God was giving me a love for people I thought I had nothing in common with.  My boys LOVED spending time with the older guys in our group.  I couldn’t have hand-picked better young men for my boys to follow after.

We stopped along the way for ice cream.  I should have bought a large bottle of water along with everyone else.  Little did I know that water would be rationed and very scarce for the rest of the day.  We were warned NOT to drink the water or even use it to brush our teeth . . . yikes, this was beginning to feel like a real mission trip! 
Arriving early for dinner caused us to venture out to the nearby park.  The kids were kids and had a great time on the merry-go-round just playing . . . hard!  The restaurant was better than expected.  We ate outside as seems to be common in foreign countries.  At least there were no cats crawling around our legs as experienced in other countries!  A platter of meat on top of vegetables was served with mainly potatoes and bell peppers.  Hooray for the potatoes!  The food was good. 

We went back to our rooms just in time to witness the tail end of a wedding party or the beginning of the wedding party festivities.  This went on all night and kept many awake.  Fortunately, I was able to sleep more than not and felt rested for most of the next day which would be spent travelling to our home base for the week ~ the camp.

Entries to follow:
Why is an international mission trip a positive thing?
What were the sweet spots for you on this trip?
What were the hard things?
What impacted us the most while in Romania?
How God has used this in our lives and what we have learned from this experience?