triumphant return

When we were leaving camp it was almost easy to leave Vetca. We always left and it was a place of so many emotions. When we left the intern house to get on our bus to start our 24 hours of traveling, it was pretty difficult. We had seen all the orphans for the last time, and I resisted tears during the goodbyes. We saw the Romanian volunteers for the last time and I barely blinked. Leaving the other interns felt different. These people knew me for my faults and for some of the things I do decently, like yelling. They knew me as a Christian. They encouraged me daily and reminded me about God constantly, something I definitely need in my every day life. And as we were leaving I just felt like I was going on a long mission trip, not leaving from a mission trip. I felt like I was leaving home. Saying goodbye to the guys was the hardest part. I had been searching for a long time about what it meant to be a man. Those guys all had something different, but all were men and I learned so much from them about that. Brian Briley really showed me what it was to be a man of God and a man who loves his wife. The bus ride was pretty blurry at first.

We got Bucharest and it was setting in that we were leaving and not just going on a long car ride. I got to hang out with Jake in the airport and sit next to Carrie on the first plane ride. Carrie was awesome to talk to because even if I wasn't visibly showing the emotions I felt, Carrie was, and I felt comfortable talking with her. On the next flight I sat next to Jake, something I really wanted. We took some sleeping aid pills and passed the heck out for 6 hours. Shout out to The Ronald, Jake's dad, for providing medicine for the summer. I definitely needed sleeping pills some nights and Nasonex on other nights to stop the snoring. Jake and I snacked and watched crappy Owen Wilson movies and chatted. Thanks for that Jake. We flew into Chicago which was exciting for me because I didn't have to fly anymore. The other people returning from Romania had connecting flights, and I never found out for sure, but I think theirs were delayed a while because of storms and stuff, sorry guys.

I was so pumped coming back and getting through customs to get to see Jackie. After some confusion, she parked the car and got out and we gave some pretty big hugs and some nice kisses. I felt like I was returning triumphantly from something to my fiancee. It was great. Just as I was on top of the world completely and utterly satisfied, God reminded me, you aren't returning, you're on a new mission trip, in America. It was nice for God to refocus me and not to let me step back into my old ways before I left.

I got back on a Monday and on Wednesday I had a job interview at a high school where I did my student teaching. I loved it there and all of the staff made it an amazing experience. Going into the interview I didn't feel stressed or worried like with my previous interviews. A lesson I learned in Romania was that God will take care of your future. I nailed the interview and 3 hours later I got a call asking if I wanted to join the staff. I got hired as a .6 advanced freshman ancient world history teacher, which means that I have 3 classes and the rest of the day I will be subbing around the school district. It is pretty incredible that God set this up for me. Not only will I get to teach, but I will get to sub around and see if there is another content or age group that I could work with. God is good.

This will probably be my last blog until something momentous happens which reminds me of Romania or if I return to Romania. Keep waiting for me to post all of my pictures. I can't find my camera cord and as soon as I can, all of the pictures from the last 2 weeks of the trip will be uploaded for you people. Thanks for reading. God bless all of you.

Week 6 at camp

To keep from going on too long like I've been doing, I will start this right away.

The team leaders for Romania (Romuhneeah):

Me - amazing, obviously

Ioana - already on my team once and of the two volunteers I got closest too. She did really well that week and it was awesome to have her on the team.

Melissa - from Florida who had a daughter on the team from Florida who was in 8th grade. Was great to have because she mothered all of the kids and had a silent wisdom that I lack completely.

Loredana - a 19 yr old volunteer who had worked with the Reghin kids before and knew how to deal with their behavior.

The kids:

Sandor(19) and Imola(22) - a couple. Sandor lives at Reghin and Imola lives in town but she used to live at the orphanage at Reghin. They were high functioning and social and took care of the rest of team because they were like a family and were so great. Both of them were amazing to have

Violeta (17?) - Violeta caught my attention from the moment we got to Reghin. She burst into tears of fear or sadness three times in the couple of hours we were at the orphanage. She doesn't know what age she is. Her Romanian is broken and its hard for the translators to understand her language or her logic. I pray for her future as well as Rodica who is on the team because for the most part they will not be welcomed outside of the orphanage and may end up in an insane asylum if nobody take them in and if they don't make it on the streets. It broke my heart to hear that many of those kids do end up in state psych wards.

Rodica (22) - Rodica obviously had special needs. she was very sweet and had a decent temper for the most part, but she would snap and try to punch other people if she didn't get her way. she had to go to the doctor a lot and didn't like to participate in the games for our team. she wasn't very animated the whole week so i didn't think that she wanted to be there. but on friday i saw her cry when the bus left

Iosif (11) - cute boy who has a horrible history of abuse from his father. he and his brother petre were pretty much inseperable during the week and when they got together they caused some mayhem. it was hard to keep track of Iosif, but he did get competitive for us. I learned that sometimes you have to look past initial impressions of a behavior and realize that sometimes kids aren't being annoying because they are trying to be annoying. melissa mothered this kid all week and he really responded to her motherly love and her cuddling. that was pretty great.

Alin (14) - young boy who was silent for the most part. he opened up as the week went on and had a good time. he'll be the boy with the yogurt on his face and the huge smiles when i put pictures up. he was good for us and was pretty easy to make excited. it makes me both happy and sad to see kids like Alin at camp who really buy into the whole camp thing and just love their week.

Our team got 2nd place! It was pretty neat. While we went into the week with the mentality that it would be the hardest week because the kids were special needs, it ended up not being the hardest week. I would be lying if I said it was the most rewarding week, but it was a good time.

There was one girl, Simona, who was nonverbal. She didn't speak. But right when she got off the bus at camp and I touched her back, and she smiled, I knew that this girl was special. I spent some time with her when I got the chance and it was good to see her smile.

At camp we had the Florida team who was made up mostly of 18 and 17 yr olds. Those kids really stepped up and worked with the kids from Reghin, most of whom were older than the Florida teens. The Florida team blew us all away with how hard working they were and how ready they were to play with the kids. They did spend time with the Romanian volunteers as well which is good because they are slightly older than the volunteers and are good Christian role models.

Reghin was great. At the end of the week we didn't get to go to the Weekend because of some behavior problems throughout the week and concern for safety among other concerns about the pool. It was a sad end to camp. I miss it and wish I could hike up the hill at night to look at the stars. I'll miss Imri and his boy, Csabi. I'll miss lining up and cheering our team's name loudly. I'll miss singing those songs with Ovi and I'll miss the volunteers. Hanging out with them was a joy and something I liked to do. I will type a separate blog about leaving Romania and coming home. I'll miss Vetca and the beautiful surroundings.

Livada's Casa Kids and UK

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New James Blog – Week 5 – Casa Kids aka Livada Kids

This week in Romania was another great one and was just a continuing testament to how much work is being done through all of the servants here. This week was extraordinary because the kids we had were from Livada’s group homes. I’ll be calling them the Casa Kids. They used to be in an orphanage 4 years ago but now are in the care of Livada. Their houses are great and their care takers care about the kids and are not doing it just for the money. All of the Livada kids have a superior experience to the state-run orphanages and they are so well-behaved. Also, there is about 30 of these kids as opposed to the 60 that we normally have. Us interns were very excited going into this week because of the anticipated rest.

I got to be on Team UK this week, my first week having a repeat team. There were four teams so my team couldn’t do any worse than 4^th place. And at the end of the week, after competing our hearts out we won the whole week. Our kids were so excited about that their victory that they were still wearing their fake plastic medals two days later. The team leaders this week:

Me

Erin - the other intern on my team who is almost the opposite of my camp personality. Loud vs. not as loud. She lead the team in a different way than I did. It was nice to have a second intern on the team.

LeAnne – from Little Rock Arkansas with the Grace Lutheran Church team that came for camp this week. She was great to have on the team because she was on fire this week for the kids and for God. She learned a great deal of Romanian before the trip which was good because we didn’t have translators this week.

Cathy - from Little Rock Arkansas with the Grace Lutheran Church team that came for camp this week. If our team had a mother figure, it was Cathy. She was very comforting to the kids on our team. It’s great to have someone like that on the team to compliment other people and someone to cool down with the kids so that they’re not constantly in a state of excitement.

Rebecca – American who works with Casa Rebecca kids and lives in Targu Mures. She knows great Romanian and knows all of the kids very well. It was great to see her be excited for the kids and with the kids as we won competitions this week. She is an obvious leader and just took over lots of times when we needed her. And having another American to relate to is great as well.

Mira – a Romanian educator who works with the Casa Kids and is very dedicated to them. She legitimately loves them and knows what kind of background they come from. She is also from a similar situation, which is great for the kids to have someone to relate to. Mira was creative and led the kids to do more exciting things than I would have been able to do. She was great to have this week.

Daniela – She was a bit more quiet and reserved at camp this week. She wasn’t a practicing Christian which was a push we made for this week. You could tell that the middle of nowhere in Romania was not the ideal place for her to be. Nevertheless she stayed with our team and took care of the kids who maybe started to stray away from the group.

The kids – the most important part:

Levi – 9 or 10 years old – kid with glasses on our team who was great but had some difficulties with behavior and some other issues. His sister was Kati on our team who also was socially awkward. Levi was great to have because he was between little and big kid stages. He didn't want to be little anymore, but still liked to be held and some of the cute stuff. In our team video he played Paul and danced to the YMCA that we dance to every morning. He also wore the Fox 40 whistle, a pretty big privilege.

Kati - 13 or so - girl with such an expressive face. She was at the stage where she was getting socialized and maybe felt awkward or insecure. She didn't like having her picture taken. Some of the other girls picked on her. She was great to have on the team and was an encouragement because she reminded me that these kids are in special care and God has chosen them to not live in the orphanages any more and to have better lives.

Daniela - 8 - cutest girl in the entire continent of Europe. She has beautiful blue eyes and is sweet for the most part. Like most very pretty kids she can be a brat, but because of the great care she has with Livada she is much better off and isn't abused. She was great because when we played the baby food game we won and she even ate the baby food for extra points at the end when she didn't want to. Just look at the pictures of her, she's wonderful and a beautiful little girl.

Stefan - 9 - another little kid who was super enthusiastic. If I wanted to adopt one of the young boys from the Casas, it would most definitely be Stefan. He has a wonderful attitude and would always try to play soccer with the big boys and wouldn't give up even though he was half of their size. They respected him because of that too. They let him play and excluded some of the other boys from playing. He loved to be picked up and thrown around. Not that being picked up isn't a favorite past time of most of the orphans here, but his laugh was great and he was super positive and screamed for our team.

Maria - 16 - a clear leader among the kids who knew some great English. She is part of a large family at the Casas and she is the second oldest and the obvious leader before the oldest girl who is embarassed at ther family. Maria loves her brothers and sisters and takes care of them. Erin sponsors Maria so it was good to see them become closer as the week went on. Maria played Fiona in our video and stepped up to do very well in activities for us when she didn't exactly want to participate. It was amazing to see her attitude switch from apathetic teenage girl to excited kid at camp throughout the day.

Kristina - 14 - became one of my favorites as the week went on. At first she was shy but she opened up by the end of the week and was full of so much energy. We entered her into the body building with balloons competition. My team never does well in that event, but this week we dominated because of how excited Kristina was. There is a video that I will add eventually which shows her awesome moves and the wonderful butt that someone made out of balloons. It is hilarious. She would always say, don't touch me, you are a stinky boy, to me. It was awesome to have someone that age have the same sense of humor as I do.

Cornel - 14 - my boy. I decided to sponsor him this summer after meeting him and finding out that he needed somebody to sponsor him. He is an amazing soccer player who is not as gifted athletically as some of the other boys. He reminds me of myself. He also plays some computer games and is busy being a 14 year old boy who is trying to figure out who he is. This week he had to step up and be a leader which was a great experience for him. Cornel is in need of a male role model and someone to give him advice. Any time I would tell him something to do, he would do it. He listened to whatever words I said, and hung on what advice I gave him. For example, during the game poop deck where you have to run and not be faked by the leader, I told him just to listen to the person and not to look up when he could be faked out. He ended up winning and told me that he won because I told him that. I imagine the feeling I got when he told me that is like that of a proud father. It was great to see him grow. He also wanted to be more Christian and more manly. I could see him starting to think about prayer and to think more about God as something real in his life. Cornel is awesome.

We won. Enough said. My team rules.

Friday we went to a gym because the Weekend was filled with a giant rock festival that we didn't want to interact with because it might have gotten some of our kids or the people there in trouble. The gym was fun and we played lots of games to pass the time. We played a big game of soccer and it was so much fun to hang out with the older boys.

Saturday we went to print pictures of the kids to pass out to them. I took some pictures of the kids and some of them told me they wanted prints of them to have. Jake and Brian got some prints of our mustache model shoot. If you haven't seen those pictures yet, I would suggest that you find a way to look them up on facebook. The pictures are great. Brian and Jake got poster sized print outs of our album cover shot in black and white. Pretty hilarious stuff. When we got to the casas it was wet outside so no soccer. But we hung out with the older boys and played some video games. We hadn't played any video games since America, so it was fun to play some Goldeneye and Need for Speed. I got to hang out with Cornel and I am so glad that I've made connections with the kids at the houses. One girl, Ibi, loves me for absolutely no reason and gave me a journal with her name on it. Little Daniela told me she loved me in English. It was great.

Sunday was Christmas in July. We decided that Christmas was a necessary part of any mission trip and the best way was to have a white elephant/Yankee swap Christmas party.

But before Christmas, I got to go to Ludus to see the babies and to Zau for the kids. That was my last visit to both places and it was incredibly sad. A team of teenagers from Florida came and I was kind of their tour guide for both places which was neat, but it was sad to leave those babies. I know that the blind 4 year old girl may not be in the best place for her, but I hope that someone can find some room to pray for her with me that she would find happiness and that God would use her to affect other people to draw them closer to God. When we left and went to Zau, I was so excited. Last time I was greeted like a rock star. This time was no different. I had kids who I'm sure remembered nothing about me other than my face run to me and climb over me. I got to see everybody from my France team and I got to hug them and throw them around. We played games and I held their hands. I don't remember everything from that visit but I know that when heaven rolls around and I meet those kids there I'm going to have some of the same feelings that I got when I went on Sunday. Unfortunately, the rain started while we were there so we went inside their castle. The kids all got chocolate bars from the Zau staff and the kids were giving away their chocolate to us Americans. It was so amazing to see that their spirits are led to give and not just to receive. And when they give, they give something that is special to them like chocolate that they most assuredly get whenever their is a group of international people there that the staff want to impress. Zau was so sad to leave. If I said that I didn't tear up giving Lidia and Erika their hugs, I would be a horrible liar. I will always miss them and pray for them.

Christmas night was last night and we all had our Sunday night dinner and Bible study. We got Chinese food which felt appropriate for Christmas. Our Bible study was intense and was hard, but was good because we all prayed over each other. After that, we had our Yankee swap game. I bought a really bad Romanian CD without knowing what type of music it was along with some candy to make the gift worthwhile. Yarabi, the band, were techno and was not the best gift at the exchange, but it was fun to watch everyone be sly and steal gifts from each other. I ended up getting a counter decoration which looks like something that my mom would buy thinking "Oh this would look so cute near my pantry. " I had an opportunity to trade it and I refused. The gift also came with some candy too. Everyone was so happy last night and it hit me yesterday that I really will miss the people here.

This week we have the Reghin kids. We went to Reghin today and I knew from the start that it was going to be hard. The kids are older and have special needs. There aren't any of the fluffy cute kids that I've been blessed to have throughout this summer. My team is Romania, which is super amazing. My kids are going to be tough to work with, but it will be beyond rewarding. There is a couple on my team, a girl who is sweet but doesn't say much and another girl who burst into tears at least 3 times in the 3 hours we were there. Please please pray for me this week more than any other week. I need patience. I need strength and resilience. I need my heart to be softened for these kids. My heart can't be hardened just because the trip is winding down. Pray that God would keep my heart fixed here and not prepare me to go home quite yet. Pray for these kids, that their futures would be secure with God. The kids who don't find places to go after they are done with Reghin get placed in asylums. Pray that God would provide a place for them. Pray for safety at camp. Pray for the teenagers who are here from Florida so that they can be prepared for camp. Pray for all expectations to be shattered. Pray that this week of camp that everyone is there for God and they will be on fire for God. We need prayer this week very badly.

I leave on August 4th and I thank everyone who has read so far. I will post more pictures as time goes on. Thanks for the prayers and the emails and the comments on my blog.

Week 4 - Florin did something at The Weekend

This week was with the Sancrai kids who live in town outside of Targu Mures which is appropriately named Sancrai. They live in about 12 group homes with about 8-10 kids in each house all together. Some of them came from one of the largest orphanages in Romania in the town of Ludus, called Big Blue. I don’t know why, but it was closed about 6 months ago and all of the kids from Ludus were placed in other homes such as Sancrai.

Before the week we took a mini-vacation together to Sovata, a salt lake in a town about an hour from Targu Mures. The lake was a place where the Romans used to relax and enjoy the water. Around the lake were spots for people to lay out and get some sun, but there was hardly any room because of the fat guys in Speed-O festival that was going on that Sunday. When we found a spot we got into the water and every little cut on my body started to tingle and sting because of the salt water. It helped the cut on my toe and some scratches and bug bites. It was my first experience swimming in really salty water and it was really great. It took little effort to float to the top of the water. There are a large number of Romanians who can’t swim at the pool, but they could swim at the lake because it was nice and easy to float. When we tried to touch the bottom of the lake with our feet we tried to sink ourselves and got a meter or so down and our feet felt the water get hotter. It was different than what I’m used to in Lake Springfield or any other lake that I’ve been where it gets colder when its deeper. Geothermal things are so interesting. Sorvata was a good time and I got to work on my pasty white tan some more.

Team Brasilia

On Monday we went to Sancrai and I met my team of kids, volunteers, and Irish people, who were from a church called The Edge in Ballymahinch Northern Ireland. My team of leaders:

Me

Andrada – really sweet 16 year old Romanian volunteer who has a passion for little kids and worked wonders with a little cute 5 year old girl during the first week. I really saw some great things from her and she told me that she didn’t come to camp for the money, but came for the kids. I got to know her very well and sit next to her at meals. Awesome.

Sorina – another 17 year old Romanian volunteer who was hard working and connected well with the girls on my team. She did a wonderful job this week and got the award for volunteer-of-the-week.

Adela – 17 year old Romanian volunteer who was working her first week this week but seemed like she had been working with kids for a long time. She was energetic and always helped. Just like the other two volunteers, she knew excellent English.

Leanne – a great 16 year old girl from Northern Ireland who was very quiet throughout the week but had a great sense of humor when I would poke fun at her for being quiet. At first I was worried that she might be hard to work with, but as the week went on I saw her open up to the kids and loved them.

Sharon – one of the leaders from The Edge who was 38 and was wonderful to have on a team with me. She was always excited to be with the kids and connected with a couple of the girls on a deep level. When we had our morning meetings to pray Sharon would always pray and acted like a matriarchal leader that our team needed.

The kids:

Ana Maria – 17? – very quiet girl who wasn’t very interested in competition, but was very sad at the end of the week because she connected so much with the head translator Alexandra. She was quiet and very nice.

Calin – 18 – a.k.a. “chili bowl” – our older “problem child” who was energetic and our athletic leader. He was a good break dancer with some of the other kids from Sincrai. He smoked and didn’t like to be quiet. He was rude, but wanted to be loved. He had a sweet side that I saw occasionally and had to remind myself of constantly. He influenced some of the other younger boys to do either good or bad.

Alex – 15 – one of the younger boys who was influenced by Calin. When I told him to do something he did it. He was at the stage of life where he was trying to find someone to look up to. He was impressionable and sweet when you wanted him to be. He had one of those sweet European mullets.

Roxi – 13? - Came from a not so great family situation. Her brother and sister are some of the more badly-influenced kids at camp and Roxi was very sweet and kind. Every morning she had a big smile and was happy to see me and always said hi to me

Loredana – 18 – older girl who for whatever reason loved me. She was always excited to cheer in line and was a great encouragement to me. If I wasn’t cheering very loud Loredana would poke me and tel me to jump around and start screaming Brasilia! Bra-sil-ia!

Tereza – 18 – another older girl who ran around camp all week chasing Jake and had a huge crush on him. She was sweet and was never ever a problem. She cheered for our team and was great to al of our leaders. She had a great time at camp and I wish I would have gotten to know her better.

Ana – 14 – a girl who was pretty and dated one of the older boys from a different team. She and Sharon were together throughout the week and became very close. Ana told Sharon at some point that she loved her more than her own mom. Sharon being as great as she is, took her under her wing and comforted Ana when her boyfriend broke up with her towards the end of the week because of lousy teenage boy reasons if you know what I mean. On Friday, Sharon talked with Ana through a translator and Ana made a decision to become a Christian and to allow God into her life. She was great and I was so happy that Sharon and Ana became so close.

Florin – 6 – young baby of our team who is absolutely adorable. But because he is so cute he always gets his way and consequently is a big brat. So during the week it was hard to control him. There were plenty of times that he was being an annoying 6 year old on a team of older kids. There were other times that he was great. He loved to sit on my shoulders. At one point during the week he and I fought with one of the other big guys who put a little kid on his shoulders. It was a pretty fun game of chicken. There is a pretty great story about Florin that you’ll read in a paragraph.

So my team was very cohesive. While last week was hard because my team didn’t want to “play” this week was great because my kids were constantly yelling and wanted me to yell. It was easy to be the energetic crazy one this week because I was surrounded by kids who wanted to be there to act like kids. We were a good team, we did decent in the competitions and we made a good video about Brazil which included “The Thong Song.” We ended up getting 7^th place but still had smiles on our faces. I was very happy this week even though it was the worst that I’ve done thus far in the Olympics.

The Florin Story

So on Friday we go to the Veekend with the kids. It’s the giant pool that I’ve blogged about before. I picked to have Florin because I know that he would be a challenge to watch. I could run around with him all day and just chase him wherever he went.

Right when we got to the Weekend, Florin took off and ran away. I knew it would be a long day, but I was excited because I was ready to run around. So he was being a very good boy playing with the ball in the pool and lounging around. The first thing he did when he got into the pool was pull down his shorts a little bit and take a look at his cash and prizes. It was such a funny 6 year old thing to do and I laughed. It was turning out to be a fantastic day. He got back in the pool again to play and one of the first things he did was pull down his pants again. I was standing next to Jake and I pointed out that it was pretty funny how Florin was so interested in himself. Then I saw him pull down his shorts to start taking a pee. I would have yelled at him but every other kid in that pool had been doing the same thing and its just funny because he’s Florin. Then I saw what I thought was a toy float to the top of the water. My mouth dropped and Jake and I looked at each other because we both knew the truth. Florin had pooped in the pool. He pulled up his pants, turned around, pointed at his floating fudge dragon and laughed as if someone else had done it. I didn’t know what to do, and I must have said that 5 times before I jumped in the water and grabbed Florin and took him back to our towels where he would get in trouble. As for the floating turd, I learned that there is a fundamental difference between American and Romanian pool culture. Whereas everyone in America would scream and jump out of the pool, nobody got out. Everybody just avoided it. The pool staff took their sweet time before they got around to getting rid of the evidence. Nobody left the pool and some unknowing Romanians swam around in an orphan’s poo water. Florin was in trouble for a long time. But after lunch he was a good boy again and we got to play by the side of the pool together. It was definitely something I won’t ever forget.

This week was some of the volunteers’ last week. Next week there will be so few kids that we won’t bring any Romanian volunteer translators, so my last week of camp is my last chance to get to know the volunteers well. It was sad to say goodbye to them, but I’m really happy to have met all of them. On Friday I went out to the Irish Pub to have a Pepsi with Ioana and Onuka, both volunteers that I have worked with. It was great to talk to them and spend time with them. After the other interns, I’ll miss the volunteers the most when I leave.

Paul and Fiona, the camp directors who have had a tremendous impact on the community of Mures are leaving to go to Ireland this week. On Saturday there was a going away party at a bowling alley for them. It was great to see everyone come out to Paul and Fiona's party. Orphans, community people, Americans, Irish, and lots of other people were there and it was just a testament to how much this organization is doing here in Romania. It's a little known organization, but it is doing so many good things. It's sad to see them go, but they have been an inspiration to me and to many others because of their serving attitude.

Another great week, and I’m glad I have another two weeks left here. For any of the interns who left after 4 weeks, we talk about you all the time and miss you a lot too. I miss home, and thank you to everyone who is still praying for me and supporting me. You guys are great.

Here's a song that's popular here and is actually a pretty good Romanian song:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yHbPnzmmLBU

more pictures, finally updated