Off to Romania!
And So It Begins,
in which we get where are going with minimal fuss and bother.
To all our family, friends and loved ones let me first say, we made it to Romania! All our flights were on time, and no luggage or team members were damaged or misplaced. A brief introduction to the realm of Romanian public transport later and all ten of us are now settling in our rooms in the church in Bucharest, a situation arranged by our dear missionary friends P and S.
Most of our plans for our time here in Bucharest (as far as ministry goes) have fallen through for the present. Tim and Caroline Bailey (one of our fearless leaders and co-leader/fellow DTS student, respectively) will be discussing our options and the available opportunities with P and S tonight. Maybe by tomorrow there will be a new plan to work from; maybe we'll still be winging it. Either way we'll praise God and keep on going. We haven't earned the unofficial title Team Bendy-Straw for nothing :) .
Thank you all for your prayers and support, and don't forget to check back for updates at least a couple of times a week. There will be times during these two months when internet access will be limited and I will do my best to inform you before that happens. For the time being no worries.
God Bless.
To all our family, friends and loved ones let me first say, we made it to Romania! All our flights were on time, and no luggage or team members were damaged or misplaced. A brief introduction to the realm of Romanian public transport later and all ten of us are now settling in our rooms in the church in Bucharest, a situation arranged by our dear missionary friends P and S.
Most of our plans for our time here in Bucharest (as far as ministry goes) have fallen through for the present. Tim and Caroline Bailey (one of our fearless leaders and co-leader/fellow DTS student, respectively) will be discussing our options and the available opportunities with P and S tonight. Maybe by tomorrow there will be a new plan to work from; maybe we'll still be winging it. Either way we'll praise God and keep on going. We haven't earned the unofficial title Team Bendy-Straw for nothing :) .
Thank you all for your prayers and support, and don't forget to check back for updates at least a couple of times a week. There will be times during these two months when internet access will be limited and I will do my best to inform you before that happens. For the time being no worries.
God Bless.
A Few Days in Bucharest
Buna dimineata! Good morning, everyone! It is bright and early here in Bucharest, where the temperature is yet to be below 75 degrees F and the sun is still shining. While our previous plans for our time here fell through shortly before we left Scotland, a new plan has been developed. We will leave Bucharest for Sighisoara on Sunday. Sighisoara is a much smaller city in the mountains in Transylvania, well-known for its historic medieval citadel and as the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for the Dracula legend. We will spend the time between now and Sunday painting at the church and picking grapes and generally making ourselves useful.
Yesterday our friends P and S took us on a tour of part of the city. We had planned to take a tour of the palace, but found it closed for construction. Instead we spent some time in a nearby park, where upon leaving we found we had acquired a retinue of some of the local street dogs. They were surprisingly well-behaved as they followed us on our tour of the Old City, where we saw the opera house and several beautiful old churches. Dinner was traditional Romanian food out, including the world-famous dessert Papanasi, which I am told is so good it will ruin you for other desserts forever.
It is possible but unlikely that we will have internet access in Sighisoara. If not, then after Sunday updates will resume when we arrive in Constanta ten days later. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers :)
Scenes from Sighisoara
Buna zuia from beautiful Sighisoara! I'm reporting today from the church in Sighisoara, home base for our day off. We continue to have nothing but warm, sunny weather, and it is amazing. We are staying in the small village of Soard, a little ways out of town. Our friends at the church there and its parent church here in Sighi have very kindly set us up in a house on the church property, right in the middle of the village. We had a few issues early in the week with the water and there not being any, but that has since been remedied and we are all happy, healthy and comfortable.
We arrived at the village Sunday evening, just in time to get settled, make dinner, and attempt to answer the age-old question, "How many YWAMers does it take to catch a mouse in a bin?" (The answer's about four, by the way). On Monday we had the afternoon to explore Sighisoara, a very lovely and historic city. The citadel on the hill is especially interesting, it being one of the oldest (and possibly the only) continuously inhabited citadels in the world. For anyone who doesn't know the word, a citadel is basically a walled-in city that can double as a fortress, if necessary. It's very cool :)
In Soard we divided our efforts, the girls helping out (as much as possible given the language barrier) with a pre-existing after-school program for the Gypsy children, and the guys heading off to help with the construction of a house for J and M, an older couple who currently live at and help run the village church. When we ladies finish with the kids we go lend whatever help we can with that as well. When work began on Tuesday there was nothing but a foundation and some logs standing as wall supports, but now, on Saturday, it very much resembles a house. We are all feeling very accomplished and plan to celebrate with a team outing for Papanasi later this evening.
Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to :
Here we are in a field by the village, engaging in a truly epic game of Rata, Rata, Gusca (Duck, Duck, Goose) with many of the local children.
And here are Jonathan Ellis, Geoff Holcomb, and Tim Bailey (and Caroline Bailey there in the background) beginning work on the roof supports Thursday afternoon. There's an entire roof-shaped structure up there now and it is very impressive.
This week also marked the passing of Jonathan's 23rd birthday, which our hosts at the church helped us celebrate, providing a beautiful cake and singing the traditional Romanian birthday song. It fit very nicely on top of all the different renditions we had floating around the house already, starting at about dawn. J, one of said hosts and for whom we are building the house, then made Tim's year by very generously offering to prepare one of his young goats for us, to bless us for all that we're doing. So Monday night we will be having a traditional Romanian shepherd's stew with him and his family.
We will be attending and participating in the church services at both the church here in Sighisoara and the one in Soard on Sunday, leading some of the worship and sharing some teaching and words of encouragement. If possible we will try and facilitate a worship and prayer night at the church in Soard on Tuesday. Both days promise to be very exciting.
Our train leaves for Constanta at 2:50 Wednesday morning, putting us there around 12-ish. We'll be staying at the YWAM base there most of the time, so communications should return to normal. Thank you all again for your prayers and support, and I look forward to telling you more about the wonderful things God is doing here in Romania.
This week also marked the passing of Jonathan's 23rd birthday, which our hosts at the church helped us celebrate, providing a beautiful cake and singing the traditional Romanian birthday song. It fit very nicely on top of all the different renditions we had floating around the house already, starting at about dawn. J, one of said hosts and for whom we are building the house, then made Tim's year by very generously offering to prepare one of his young goats for us, to bless us for all that we're doing. So Monday night we will be having a traditional Romanian shepherd's stew with him and his family.
We will be attending and participating in the church services at both the church here in Sighisoara and the one in Soard on Sunday, leading some of the worship and sharing some teaching and words of encouragement. If possible we will try and facilitate a worship and prayer night at the church in Soard on Tuesday. Both days promise to be very exciting.
Our train leaves for Constanta at 2:50 Wednesday morning, putting us there around 12-ish. We'll be staying at the YWAM base there most of the time, so communications should return to normal. Thank you all again for your prayers and support, and I look forward to telling you more about the wonderful things God is doing here in Romania.
Checking in from Constanta
Buna seara and good evening from lovely seaside Constanta! We arrived in the early afternoon on Wednesday after a nearly 12-hour train ride that began shortly before 3 am. Despite sleep deprivation and a growing resemblance to the living dead on the part of most of us, much laundry was done, groceries were bought, and dinner was real food that wasn't sandwiches. The Black Sea is only a few blocks down the road (close enough to smell from the third floor terrace), so several people found their way to the water to go swimming almost immediately. In short, there was an amazing amount of productivity going on given the circumstances.
Our last few days in Soard and Sighisoara went very well. Turn out for the children's program was much greater than the previous week, and we ladies had the opportunity to perform some of the skits we had prepared way back in Scotland, to vast critical acclaim. And by that I mean we go the kids to pay attention. Most of the time. Whatever else, they really, really liked coloring their own butterflies and cuddling with Caroline. The guys accomplished all they had planned to with the construction, putting up a stable frame for the roof and helping with the siding and windows. When we left the place looked like a real house, which it really didn't when we got there. We were also able to bless J and his family with the money they will need to purchase the wood and things they need to finish the house, because God is good.
We are staying at the YWAM base here in Constanta, so all your friends and loved ones on the team should be back in regular-ish contact, and updates on this front should be more frequent as well, so keep checking back.
God bless.
Three Weeks in Romania,
in which amusing anecdotes are shared, a news update is made, and the future is looked to.
Technical difficulties conspired with this blogger's geographical isolation to prevent this post from occurring any sooner. My apologies for the delay.
As I write this from the YWAM base here in lovely, seaside Constanta, the team has been here in Romania for nearly four weeks, about half our time here. Fall finally blew in, chasing away the warm, sunny weather we had been enjoying up to this point, but also bringing much-needed rain to the region. For a team that's been living in Scotland for some time, this was nothing but a return to the status quo. We pulled out our fleeces and our rain gear without breaking stride. :)
While following this blog you may have noticed, dear readers, that most of the posts are largely summaries of our adventures. Many details are glossed over or merely alluded to -- if not omitted entirely -- for the sake of brevity and time. Today, let us look at some of the stories that have previously escaped mention. (Unfortunately, current circumstances prohibit the inclusion of pictures, but I'm sure they will all find their way onto Facebook eventually.)
Bucharest,
work projects gone awry.
The last post from Bucharest mentioned that we would be doing some practical work for our host church: painting, grape-harvesting, etc. Sounds simple enough, right? It did not say that it took two whole days to paint the tiny, living room-style sanctuary because nobody realized until we were on the fourth coat of paint that the reason the paint refused to cover the walls like, well, PAINT was because it was not the kind we were meant to be using in the first place.
Also not spoken of were the details of the grape-harvesting, which involved picking, sorting, and washing more than three large trashbags full of Romanian wine grapes, all while trying to avoid the bugs and spiders prone to raining down on your head if you were picking or running up your arms if you were sorting. It began to seem very clear to all involved why most of us are here on migrant worker visas. When all the grapes were dealt with, several of the ladies (including your intrepid blogger) decided to celebrate their victory by stomping a tubful of reject grapes, as one does.
Sighisoara and Soard,
or Fleas, Sheep-Wrangling, and a Dog Named 'Orion'
(A list this time)
-- Tom Fite, while walking across the tiny village of Soard to our construction site with Elias MacDonald and Geoff Holcomb, spots some farmers struggling to load their uncooperative flock of sheep into a trailer. Tom, always up for an adventure, especially if it helps someone in need, immediately jumps into the chaos and joins the Romanians in hauling sheep around by the ears or the back legs until all are successfully loaded up and ready for transport. Perhaps less than dignified in the doing, but great in the telling afterward.
-- Nicole Raymond, resident animal-lover, and to whom most warnings concerning street dogs and our interaction with them are directed, has taking to not only feeding but also naming the many dogs who inhabit our host family's courtyard and the nearby street, only one of which belongs to them and is meant to be there. That would be Orion. The others include Jasper, Rascal, Maxwell, and Freida.
-- There was no running water during the first part of our stay, which meant that washing dishes became a complicated ritual involving drawing water from the well, boiling the water in the kettle, and then very carefully washing the dishes in a basin to keep any water from escaping down the drain, as it wasn't connected to any pipes, and then emptying the basin out in the yard. It also meant no showers. The water did eventually get fixed, but as it was soon discovered that the septic tank was full, we remained unable to use the drains and the routine didn't change much. The team took all of this with good humor. As one of our dear friends from the church there put it as she was first outlining the living conditions for us, "Whatever. You're missionaries." Missionary = Adaptable. Absolutely.
-- Some of our friends in the village want to take us to a lake a few miles down the road for the afternoon. They say we can get there by horse cart. The team is, understandably very excited about this. When the cart arrives, however, we discover that it is about 2 feet wide by 6 or 8 feet long, pulled by the one little horse, and still needs to carry seventeen people plus the driver. What follows is much squishing and rearranging, sometimes more closely resembling a game of human Tetris than a hayride, but eventually everyone is on the cart. Sure, some people are on top of other people, others are hanging on for dear life off the back, and absolutely no one is at all comfortable, but we are all on the cart and headed to the lake.
-- Several people discover, particularly Tim Bailey, that they are somehow acquiring extremely itchy bug bites. Many, many extremely itchy bug bites. It is not long before the culprits are revealed: fleas. Not that surprising given that we spend all day out working in the dirt followed around by stray dogs and haven't showered in a while, but still amazingly not fun. Despite our best efforts, the fleas managed to stow away in our gear and continue to plague us even now, here in Constanta. Liberal amounts of lavender oil are now being applied to most everything, however, so perhaps that and the cold weather will finally drive them off. We live in hope, anyway.
Constanta,
the here and now.
Swimming was a favorite activity our first few days here in Constanta, with the Black Sea just down the road and weather so sunny and warm. That ended rather abruptly when the rains rolled in and the temperature dropped, but it was an amazing experience while it lasted.
Tom has gone back to Scotland for a few weeks to be with his family, but before he left he took the time to have one last heroic moment, one that Nicole has made sure will always be remembered as Tom's Puppy-Saving Adventure. Apparently, while journeying with some of the other team members to the grocery store in the rain, Tom noticed a pair of clearly distraught young girls trying to get at something in a ditch. Tom, never one to just stand idly by, went over to see what the problem was. It seemed one of the girls' very young puppies had managed to get away from his mama, crawl into a hole in the side of the ditch far enough that the girls could not reach him to pull him out, and then got himself stuck. So Tom, also unable to reach the puppy through the small hole, widened it enough so that he could crawl inside and retrieve the puppy, which aside from being cold and scared was just fine.
Our time here is split between the YWAM base and a small farm the base helps maintain in one of the outlying villages as a retreat. Each week four people go out to the farm to do some practical work, helping get everything ready for winter. The rest stay here and do ministry things, some helping the local YWAM staffers with a Kid's Club program and others going to work with the kids at some of the local children's homes. Last week's farm group was Tim and Caroline Bailey, Lea Wagner, and myself, Kimmy Curran. We moved firewood, took care of the chickens, put the vegetable beds down for the season, climbed a tree to knock down walnuts, and generally got a very good idea of why the farm works so well as a retreat. Those who stayed here did several programs with the kids and helped with some practical work at the boys' home, and by all reports were generally successful. This week's farm group is Jonathan and Charlotte Ellis, Elias, and Geoff. Those here at the base will continue to work with the Kids' Club, and some people will go to the girls' home to do a program with those kids. If all holds together and the plan doesn't change again, we will take the kids from the boys' home and the girls' home out to the farm for a cook-out on Saturday. Should that work out it promises to be an amazing day.
Barring any unforeseen difficulties that prevent another post from being written, this blog should update a bit more regularly, at least while we're here in Constanta. Thank you all for your prayers and support, and for your patience :)
God bless.
Technical difficulties conspired with this blogger's geographical isolation to prevent this post from occurring any sooner. My apologies for the delay.
As I write this from the YWAM base here in lovely, seaside Constanta, the team has been here in Romania for nearly four weeks, about half our time here. Fall finally blew in, chasing away the warm, sunny weather we had been enjoying up to this point, but also bringing much-needed rain to the region. For a team that's been living in Scotland for some time, this was nothing but a return to the status quo. We pulled out our fleeces and our rain gear without breaking stride. :)
While following this blog you may have noticed, dear readers, that most of the posts are largely summaries of our adventures. Many details are glossed over or merely alluded to -- if not omitted entirely -- for the sake of brevity and time. Today, let us look at some of the stories that have previously escaped mention. (Unfortunately, current circumstances prohibit the inclusion of pictures, but I'm sure they will all find their way onto Facebook eventually.)
Bucharest,
work projects gone awry.
The last post from Bucharest mentioned that we would be doing some practical work for our host church: painting, grape-harvesting, etc. Sounds simple enough, right? It did not say that it took two whole days to paint the tiny, living room-style sanctuary because nobody realized until we were on the fourth coat of paint that the reason the paint refused to cover the walls like, well, PAINT was because it was not the kind we were meant to be using in the first place.
Also not spoken of were the details of the grape-harvesting, which involved picking, sorting, and washing more than three large trashbags full of Romanian wine grapes, all while trying to avoid the bugs and spiders prone to raining down on your head if you were picking or running up your arms if you were sorting. It began to seem very clear to all involved why most of us are here on migrant worker visas. When all the grapes were dealt with, several of the ladies (including your intrepid blogger) decided to celebrate their victory by stomping a tubful of reject grapes, as one does.
Sighisoara and Soard,
or Fleas, Sheep-Wrangling, and a Dog Named 'Orion'
(A list this time)
-- Tom Fite, while walking across the tiny village of Soard to our construction site with Elias MacDonald and Geoff Holcomb, spots some farmers struggling to load their uncooperative flock of sheep into a trailer. Tom, always up for an adventure, especially if it helps someone in need, immediately jumps into the chaos and joins the Romanians in hauling sheep around by the ears or the back legs until all are successfully loaded up and ready for transport. Perhaps less than dignified in the doing, but great in the telling afterward.
-- Nicole Raymond, resident animal-lover, and to whom most warnings concerning street dogs and our interaction with them are directed, has taking to not only feeding but also naming the many dogs who inhabit our host family's courtyard and the nearby street, only one of which belongs to them and is meant to be there. That would be Orion. The others include Jasper, Rascal, Maxwell, and Freida.
-- There was no running water during the first part of our stay, which meant that washing dishes became a complicated ritual involving drawing water from the well, boiling the water in the kettle, and then very carefully washing the dishes in a basin to keep any water from escaping down the drain, as it wasn't connected to any pipes, and then emptying the basin out in the yard. It also meant no showers. The water did eventually get fixed, but as it was soon discovered that the septic tank was full, we remained unable to use the drains and the routine didn't change much. The team took all of this with good humor. As one of our dear friends from the church there put it as she was first outlining the living conditions for us, "Whatever. You're missionaries." Missionary = Adaptable. Absolutely.
-- Some of our friends in the village want to take us to a lake a few miles down the road for the afternoon. They say we can get there by horse cart. The team is, understandably very excited about this. When the cart arrives, however, we discover that it is about 2 feet wide by 6 or 8 feet long, pulled by the one little horse, and still needs to carry seventeen people plus the driver. What follows is much squishing and rearranging, sometimes more closely resembling a game of human Tetris than a hayride, but eventually everyone is on the cart. Sure, some people are on top of other people, others are hanging on for dear life off the back, and absolutely no one is at all comfortable, but we are all on the cart and headed to the lake.
-- Several people discover, particularly Tim Bailey, that they are somehow acquiring extremely itchy bug bites. Many, many extremely itchy bug bites. It is not long before the culprits are revealed: fleas. Not that surprising given that we spend all day out working in the dirt followed around by stray dogs and haven't showered in a while, but still amazingly not fun. Despite our best efforts, the fleas managed to stow away in our gear and continue to plague us even now, here in Constanta. Liberal amounts of lavender oil are now being applied to most everything, however, so perhaps that and the cold weather will finally drive them off. We live in hope, anyway.
Constanta,
the here and now.
Swimming was a favorite activity our first few days here in Constanta, with the Black Sea just down the road and weather so sunny and warm. That ended rather abruptly when the rains rolled in and the temperature dropped, but it was an amazing experience while it lasted.
Tom has gone back to Scotland for a few weeks to be with his family, but before he left he took the time to have one last heroic moment, one that Nicole has made sure will always be remembered as Tom's Puppy-Saving Adventure. Apparently, while journeying with some of the other team members to the grocery store in the rain, Tom noticed a pair of clearly distraught young girls trying to get at something in a ditch. Tom, never one to just stand idly by, went over to see what the problem was. It seemed one of the girls' very young puppies had managed to get away from his mama, crawl into a hole in the side of the ditch far enough that the girls could not reach him to pull him out, and then got himself stuck. So Tom, also unable to reach the puppy through the small hole, widened it enough so that he could crawl inside and retrieve the puppy, which aside from being cold and scared was just fine.
Our time here is split between the YWAM base and a small farm the base helps maintain in one of the outlying villages as a retreat. Each week four people go out to the farm to do some practical work, helping get everything ready for winter. The rest stay here and do ministry things, some helping the local YWAM staffers with a Kid's Club program and others going to work with the kids at some of the local children's homes. Last week's farm group was Tim and Caroline Bailey, Lea Wagner, and myself, Kimmy Curran. We moved firewood, took care of the chickens, put the vegetable beds down for the season, climbed a tree to knock down walnuts, and generally got a very good idea of why the farm works so well as a retreat. Those who stayed here did several programs with the kids and helped with some practical work at the boys' home, and by all reports were generally successful. This week's farm group is Jonathan and Charlotte Ellis, Elias, and Geoff. Those here at the base will continue to work with the Kids' Club, and some people will go to the girls' home to do a program with those kids. If all holds together and the plan doesn't change again, we will take the kids from the boys' home and the girls' home out to the farm for a cook-out on Saturday. Should that work out it promises to be an amazing day.
Barring any unforeseen difficulties that prevent another post from being written, this blog should update a bit more regularly, at least while we're here in Constanta. Thank you all for your prayers and support, and for your patience :)
God bless.
Your Evening News,
Celtic Way DTS once again reporting from Constanta.
One more week has come and gone here in Constanta. The weather remains cold and Scotland-ish, but the base has heat, so we're happy. The wind is still kicking up the surf down at the beach, which lends a whole other level of drama to its beauty. Being an east coast girl myself, I'm a sucker for a pretty coastline :)
The week went quite well on all fronts. The team that went down to the farm accomplished all of the tasks assigned to them to finish getting the place ready for the winter. They returned unscathed and with very few stories that in any way involved mice. Things always went very well for the people who stayed in town as well. By all reports Kids' Club was awesome and the children really seemed to enjoy themselves, and really paid good attention and seemed to get something out of the stories and programs. The girls at the girls' home were amazing. They were very excited to have us visit, and we had a great time spending the days with them, playing games and fixing dinner, and then doing stories or short teachings and crafts in the evening. The girls engaged with the programs really well, always coming up with good comments and questions afterward. All in all, it was a very good week.
Our plans for a cookout with the kids from the boys' and girls' homes did not end up working out. Instead we all headed out early Saturday morning to go to a farmer's market in one of the nearby villages that had been recommended to us before going to spend a few hours at a home for children with special needs.The farmer's market was pretty neat, until you got to the (very large) part of it devoted to livestock, where it became mildly horrifying.But enough about that. Let's talk about the children's home. There were about twenty kids who turned out for the program. We played games like Hot Potato and Musical Chairs, sang some silly songs, and then spent some time colouring and making paper butterflies and doing some face-painting. The kids had a great time, and so did we. It was a very special day.
Today (the 24th) is also a special day as it marks the passing of Elias MacDonald's 21st birthday! To celebrate Elias requested a music night / jam session with everyone from both bases, including our many talented musicians. Everyone had a great time playing and singing along to everything from Gospel to ABBA to Broadway to The Beatles and back again. Musical accompaniment included guitars, rice shakers, keyboard . . . and even a clarinet, just to mix things up some. A truly awesome way to celebrate.
Our plans for our last few days in this city are about as definite as they ever are (which is to say, not at all), but are likely to involve more grape-harvesting (yay!), some final touches out on the farm (which may involve slaughtering some chickens), and a party with the kids from the Kids' Club. Thursday is set aside as a team hang-out day to give everyone a chance to say goodbye and get their gear together, and then we will all catch the train back to Bucharest some time Friday morning. By the time we get to Bucharest we'll only have about two more weeks here in Romania. In some ways it's hard to believe we've been here as long as we have, and in some ways it feels like we've been here forever. Romania is a pretty amazing country.
God bless :)
One more week has come and gone here in Constanta. The weather remains cold and Scotland-ish, but the base has heat, so we're happy. The wind is still kicking up the surf down at the beach, which lends a whole other level of drama to its beauty. Being an east coast girl myself, I'm a sucker for a pretty coastline :)
The week went quite well on all fronts. The team that went down to the farm accomplished all of the tasks assigned to them to finish getting the place ready for the winter. They returned unscathed and with very few stories that in any way involved mice. Things always went very well for the people who stayed in town as well. By all reports Kids' Club was awesome and the children really seemed to enjoy themselves, and really paid good attention and seemed to get something out of the stories and programs. The girls at the girls' home were amazing. They were very excited to have us visit, and we had a great time spending the days with them, playing games and fixing dinner, and then doing stories or short teachings and crafts in the evening. The girls engaged with the programs really well, always coming up with good comments and questions afterward. All in all, it was a very good week.
Our plans for a cookout with the kids from the boys' and girls' homes did not end up working out. Instead we all headed out early Saturday morning to go to a farmer's market in one of the nearby villages that had been recommended to us before going to spend a few hours at a home for children with special needs.The farmer's market was pretty neat, until you got to the (very large) part of it devoted to livestock, where it became mildly horrifying.But enough about that. Let's talk about the children's home. There were about twenty kids who turned out for the program. We played games like Hot Potato and Musical Chairs, sang some silly songs, and then spent some time colouring and making paper butterflies and doing some face-painting. The kids had a great time, and so did we. It was a very special day.
Today (the 24th) is also a special day as it marks the passing of Elias MacDonald's 21st birthday! To celebrate Elias requested a music night / jam session with everyone from both bases, including our many talented musicians. Everyone had a great time playing and singing along to everything from Gospel to ABBA to Broadway to The Beatles and back again. Musical accompaniment included guitars, rice shakers, keyboard . . . and even a clarinet, just to mix things up some. A truly awesome way to celebrate.
Our plans for our last few days in this city are about as definite as they ever are (which is to say, not at all), but are likely to involve more grape-harvesting (yay!), some final touches out on the farm (which may involve slaughtering some chickens), and a party with the kids from the Kids' Club. Thursday is set aside as a team hang-out day to give everyone a chance to say goodbye and get their gear together, and then we will all catch the train back to Bucharest some time Friday morning. By the time we get to Bucharest we'll only have about two more weeks here in Romania. In some ways it's hard to believe we've been here as long as we have, and in some ways it feels like we've been here forever. Romania is a pretty amazing country.
God bless :)
