Romaniamissiontrip's Xanga

Castlemania '08

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:32:34 GMT

Today we took the day off. We went hiking up very high mountains in search of adventure. Fortunately for us, when castles are the adventure one is seeking, it really isn't too hard to find one over here. I mean, they are pretty big and usually situated up high on a mountain. Honestly, one does not have an excuse for not finding one.

Anyways, I can't remember the name of the first castle we went to. It mostly wasn't there, however. The tram up the mountain was not working, and so ended up hiking up. The trip was beautiful. We were largely in the shade and were surrounded by old moldy-mossy rock formations. I would call it a wall. But yeah it was really cool. At the top we were surprised to find signs saying "warning vipers" or something to that effect. Fortunately I was able to convince some of the team members who didn't know what a viper was, that it was a small harmless bug. :P Did I mention in yesterdays blog that I found a giant beetle? it was as big as my thumb and had these mean looking 1/2" pincers. I so wanted to bring it home with me. To bad I didn't have a glass jar. This was the only time I came close to imitating Janet's love for felines. Speaking of which, Janet happened to find some cats in the second castle we went to.

The second castle was in better condition than the first one. However, it suffered a fire about a hundred years ago. Thus, it was a little empty furniture wise and what not. Anyways, the really funny part was that the drawbridge was constructed with some styrofoam painted to look like a brick. I thought this was pretty hilarious. It's almost like the TLC shows where one family goes to their neighbors house and tries to make it look like a million bucks with $25 or something around that number. Beyond the fact that the second castle had some resident cats, it also had 4 tourist traps (shops), luckily I dodged all four. Unfortunately, this will show when my gifts are getting divied out. Sorry fam.

The one cool part about the second castle was the fact that at one time they imprisoned 3 turkish people there . Although this isn't cool in and of itself, the cool part is the story surrounding it. Apparently they were promised freedom after they dug a well 28 meters down by the kind of the place. when they almost had finished he died. His wife made them finish but decided to kill them instead of let them go. One asked to be able to inscribe something before he died. he wrote something to the effect of "you may have water but you have no soul." Then some other romanian translated it to something else harmless. Anyways, I found it funny. Later taters.
Bryan, over and out of here. (the rest of the team too).

so it Luckily the team members we hiked up

Janet Loves CATS!!!! Deal with it! ;) Correction: She loves Romeo (her precious cat).

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:54:46 GMT

Hello all of you faithful readers. Unfortunately, we are not faithful bloggers. Have no fear; Bryan (and Janet) are here. We are going to fill you in on the many wonders and wonderful-ness that we have been blessed to partake in on the past few days. Our humblest apologies on behalf of our team, nevertheless.

Let's begin with Sunday. According to Janet, "'up and at 'em (atom ant), eggs are up' begins the morning." We ate breakfast and went to Church. I thought that this week's message was particularly delightful, but I must admit my own bias--the people speaking were from the U.K. There is something different about their sermons. The seem to be a bit more intellectual or something; i.e. the person speaking suggested a shift in Christ's thought towards the Samaritans. I would need to take a look at it myself, but the idea of Christ changing his mind is a bit unorthodox in my humble opinion. After church we got ready to lead church at Jackie's church that afternoon. This started at 3:30. It included flanelgraph, a wonderful presentation of the change purse by Matt (according to Anita and Mama Rose, he is the best one in all their years using it), songs (directed by Janet--and my we sounded delightful), and also some 3-5 minute sermons by Janet, Paige, and myself. The church itself was pretty interesting. It just got "completed" that week. When I say completed I mean it could hold a service in it. It was basically bricks and drywall, with a roof put in--but it was full. I counted at least 60 individuals, about 40 of which were children. One guy was playing the accordian and singing loudly in Romanian. It didn't take long to discover that pretty much all Romanian songs have 7-8 verses, or so they seem. Anyways, church went well. Afterwards, we were honored by one of the families in the congregation by a homecooked meal. Towards the end of the meal, the man of the family put his arm on my shoulder and announced that the message that I had given was special for him.

I had given a sermon on a song that I had happened to stumble across that morning. The song was 'All Are Welcome', which had been tucked away in my Bible from my church and I about which I had totally forgotten about. Anyways, I felt lead to discuss it albeit I felt it would be awkward. The awkwardness involved me encouraging them to be more welcoming as a community to others. This was especially awkward as I had not been there before and had no clue what they were like. I only knew that they were Gypsies. Gypsies are basically looked down upon, so it seemed really bizarre for me to tell the group at the bottom of the totem pole to reach out to others. I did it anyways and hoped for the best. Returning to the specialness that my sermon had for the man, he said that he hadn't heard that song in a long time but had wanted to share it with the congregation, but they didn't know it. More significantly however, he said that he had dreamt about that song that very night. Weird. Now I felt even more awkward, because I am only too aware of how unspecial I am, especially in the sense of religion. I feel like I want to tear it down so much, questioning what's what. But yeah, for me to have been used by God felt awkward at best. I also wasn't sure as if I believed him. I do now, having talked with Jackie since. Essentially, all I can say is that even if he was lying, albeit I'm not sure what he would have gained by doing so, Jackie described how she was similiarly used. Thus, even if mine wasn't legit, I don't want to say that it cannot happen in general.

Enough of that though. I don't like to hijack this blog with my own life and thoughts, but I thought that event was especially meaningful.

Monday:
Woke up. Went to Bed. It was a fulfilling day.

ha. fooled you. On monday we went to a drop-in center for street people early in the morning. I will let Janet discuss her thoughts on this... The center is run by a couple from Scotland. We came up on the center and it looked more like a secret garden. I walked through the iron gate coming off the quaint little street into a flowered courtyard covered in ivy. The house was covered in ivy and there were freshly planted marigolds in the windowboxes.
If I had kept my thoughts on these things I might not have been so disturbed by what happened next. Inside the house was painted a daffodil yellow and there were tables and chairs all around and in the front room there were bigger tables with coloring books on them. We were there for the mother and children drop-in time. (This was for mothers and children who lived on the street to come in and have a cup of coffee, have a shower, etc.) Then a woman walks in covered in bright colored clothing from head to toe. She has 2 older girls with her, a younger girl and a new baby. We were then told by Katie that this was Nando, Bobo and TsuTsu's mother (note from Bryan: Nando, Bobo and TsuTsu are orphans at Oaza that we have gotten to know and love). This was the woman who doesnt want those children. I couldnt believe it. I knew that they were practically orphaned, but to see the woman standing there in such a cheery little room knowing that her 3 children are waiting at Oaza (a children's home), hoping for her to come back for them. It broke my heart in a way that I find hard to put into words.

Thanks Janet. After this, I was privileged to go visit two older women who are pretty much isolated in their communist bloc-style apartments. The one, who's name I cannot remember due to it, was such a sweetheart. I really enjoy opportunities to help older people. The other one, Katrina, was also nice. Essentially, Jackie has been helping these two women (probably others as well, I didn't really inquire, although I probably will tomorrow). The first of which almost died of starvation. Brief note, since it came to mind. Jackie was telling us on the ride over to the widow's apartment of some six year old that had gotten syphilus. Just breaks ones heart. I'm sorry this seems really tangential and what not, but these past days have been a whir. Later that day we hung out with 4 other orphans and just did crafts and jump-roped and played frisbee.

Today (Tuesday): Today we went to play with some mentally challenged children. I believe there were about 20 in all. It was uncomfortable at first but then I got into the swing of things. On one level it really isn't too difficult to bring some joy into their lives. I basically spent the first half an hour making animal noises and saying "whee"--apparently that's a universal phrase--to one girl as she swang on a swing. In case you were wondering I am quite proficient at meowing- meows were her favorite, mooing, quacking, and making chicken noises. Basicaly like the cadbury bunny does. I also danced with the kids. Oh my goodness, you would be surprised how good some of them are. It's quite uncanny. One was even showing me dance moves!!!!!!! But yeah, the awesomeness sorta began to wear off as the hours moved on--we were there over 6--and were outside in the sunshine (it's about 80 degrees here). I got sunburned on the top of my feet. Go figure. :( After that, some of us went swimming. I forgot to bring my swimsuit so I naturally just followed the old adage, when in Rome do what the romans do. I went swimming in the nude it was pretty good. And for any of you who have yet to discover the enjoyment of skinning dipping, I highly recommend it. I jest (slightly) on all parts of this swimming discussion. However, I did swim and I did forget my suit.

After the swimming we went out to a missionary's house for an awesome BBQ. The chicken was delicious after todays long work with the children. We all climbed a mountain, well Janet didn't climb it. I had to carry her up it and then she sorta fell down it. Don't worry. She's as pretty as ever. I promise this will get updated tomorrow. We love you all. Please pray that we will continue to keep on trucking. I think many of our bodies are starting to feel the effects of this hard work in the sun we are doing. (I accidentally overslept a 20 minute nap yesterday night, it turned into about a 10 hour nap!!!).

But yes, Later taters. Have a good one and God bless.

The Hot Springs at the Castle

Sat, 31 May 2008 17:39:47 GMT

Today we had the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful day off...which was greatly needed after completing all the hard work at the Shalom House (Oaza ministry). Our team met Jackie (one of the American missionaries who now lives here) at this castle in a village outside of Arad. We were all very excited, as it was very hot and would be able to go swimming. When we arrived at the hot springs...we found the "swimming pool" to be a dark organish/black color. It was very interesting, as it came directly out of the ground, no purification. It was straight mineral water. The good thing about it was..is that it made our skin softer. However it was by no means refreshing as it was pretty hot. It was relaxing just the same. It was nice to be able to relax as a team and enjoy the sun. Later that evening, Paula (another American missionary) took us out for a treat. She took us to an American coffee shop called Three Bean Coffee Co. It was owned by an American, so all of the food and drinks were what we would have back in the US. It was so nice to be able to taste the American food again. I think all of us needed a break from the Romanian food for just a little bit. It was such a wonderful treat. As always, we were all enjoying ourselves; making silly jokes and what not. There was a joke going on about one of the girls who came out with us-Nicole who graduated from Roberts this past December and has lived here since Jan. (last year she went on the Romanian missions trip). It had been prophesized by someone in Romania that Nicole had to be engaged a year from the date the man had said this- which just happen to be in about a week. To be funny..our little jokester Bryan decided to be funny and took a rubber band and made it in into an "engagement ring." We got pictures of the whole thing, and decided to play a trick on Dr.Rose. After eating, we took a trip over to the flower shop to pick up a rose to really play out the whole thing. After we left the flower shop we ran into a little mishap..or should I say..someone ran into a little mishap. Janet being her excited little self..was running to the front of the group to capture the special moment...taking pictures in front of the church. While running, Janet hit a little bump and took a nose dive for the pavement. We were all very concerned, as Janet was laying on the ground- none of us were sure that she was ok. Matt and I who were walking behind Janet, saw the whole thing happen. Much to our surprise, Janet was ok...all she was concerned about was taking the "engagement picture." If seeing the accidnet occur, Janet's wounds should have been much worse than they were. It was only a scrap on the knee, hip and hand. But thank goodness for the wonderful nursing skills I learned at good ole Roberts. I nursed her back to health in no time and she was as good as new. She was feeling a little sore, but everything was ok-and that's all that mattered! When we walked in the door, we all played our parts of the wonderful surprise of the "engagement." It only took about 2 min. before Dr.Rose knew it was all a joke. But it was fun in the mean time. All this trouble to play a little ole joke.

We have such a great group, we are a big family each contributing in our own way. We all seem to be having such a great time together, and working hard to help out the ministries who are need of our help. God is really opening up so many great opportunities for us to experience. We are learning most importantly that this trip is not about us, but for God and all his glory. Not only are we blessing the lives of those we work with, but we too are receiving so many blessings.

Lots of love

-Emily and the Team

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Thu, 29 May 2008 19:26:14 GMT

Well it has been another exciting two days over here. Yesterday we had our hardest day of work yet. With the OAZA open house rapidly approaching we did as much as we could to get the house all ready to go. We started by disassembling another enormous bed and hauling it up to the attic. Then Paige, Bryan and I went outside and began work on digging a ditch. Now digging a ditch is probably not the worst thing in the world, unless someone has dumped enormous concrete blocks where you are trying to dig Thankfully no one threw out their backs and after a few hours we finally had a decent looking ditch.

After another delicious lunch of PB&J some people finished up painting while Paige, Bryan, and I again braved the 90+ degree weather. We leveled some dirt out in the yard, but eventually Anita decided it was time to call it quits...we didn't want to have to rush to a Romanian hospital for heat stroke

We finished our last official day with the kids with some more crocheting, as well as a few rousing games of Pick-Up-Sticks and Jenga, which I think all the kids love.

We left the house around dinner time and headed over once again to Mama Maria's. I don't think it is possible to describe here how amazing this woman is. This time I think there were ten of us eating (Jackie and Nicole joined us), and we still couldn't finish all the food. Last night's menu was soup, chicken, potatoes, and salad. Bryan, Jackie and I braved some of the hot peppers, which we all immediately regretted

After a delicious desert of fresh strawberry something or other (whip, foam, smoothie? I don't know what to call it) we headed back to the hotel.

Today was a really taxing day for all of us. We spent the day sun bathing next to a thermal pool, reading, and stuffing our faces with a sheep/pork sausage type thing. I think we all had a great day and it was a nice break from the past few days of work. Dr. Rose made sure she got pictures of us "slaving for the Lord in Romania".

After a tough day of swimming we came back and started planning our programs for the next few days. Them Paula came over and picked us up and took us downtown again. She surprised us with a trip to Three Bean Coffee Co...a coffee shop owned by an American! Most of us were pretty excited as it was the closet to American food that we have had in a while. Now it's time for bed...we are leaving for Mocrea (the mental hospital) in the morning. We will be updating again soon and we miss you all.

-Matt and the rest of the team

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Tue, 27 May 2008 19:25:49 GMT

Well I think everyone would agree that the past two days have been rather exhausting. OAZA has their open house coming up on Saturday, where they are showing the house to everyone that has worked on it in the past year...and that means that we are being put to work

Yesterday we showed up in the morning and Scott was waiting for us. Janet and Susan started painting while Paige, Bryan and I helped Scott move a bunch of bricks over to the Joy House (we have been primarily at the Shalom House up until now). After we dropped off the bricks we picked up a bunch of computers to bring back over to the other house. I guess Paula and some others are going to be starting up some computer classes for community kids around the house. There was only one computer over there the other day but hopefully by tomorrow there will be more than 10 up and running.

After we dropped off the computers the rest of us joined Janet and Susan who were still painting. You'd be amazed at how much painting five people can get done in one afternoon. After some more PB&J's for lunch (surprisingly I don't think any one is sick of those sandwiches yet ) Bryan, Paige, and Janet kept painting while Susan, Dr. Rose, Anita, and I kept crocheting with the kids (truth be told, I don't think I have developed my crocheting talents enough to help any of the kids, but they seem to be getting along fine without my abilities ).

Yesterday I had a traumatic experience when one of the kids accidentally dropped my camera. I was getting close to a nervous breakdown without my camera...but Paula Dunn (who has been absolutely amazing to us since we got here) and came thorough again and got my camera fixed.

After OAZA we went over to Mama Maria's again and had another enormous dinner. This time there was more soup (Janet is calling it Chicken-Veggie-Sour-Cream-Soup) and it was once again delicious. After the soup we had huge plates of Chicken and Rice and Corn. After dinner we got to meet Idina's friend Nora who is a nurse in Romania and she told us a lot about what health care is like over here. Apparently Mama Maria was not satisfied with stuffing us to the gills with dinner, so after Nora left she brought out two enormous plates of homemade donuts. They looked absolutely delicious so of course we ate dozens of them on full stomachs. I am surprised we are not all in food-induced comas today.

Today we went back over to the house and got working again. Janet (who loves painting so much that I am under the opinion that she should take up interior designing when she is not teaching) continued painting the kitchen with Bryan while Susan, Paige, and I tore up the ground out front in an attempt to level it out. If anyone had been watching, I'm sure we would have looked as if we were doing nothing more than swinging shovels around and pushing piles of dirt...but after a couple of hours it miraculously looked pretty decent. Hopefully there will be some turf down for Saturday.

After lunch (can you guess what we ate?) Susan and I undertook the Herculean task of moving a multitude of wooden pieces up into the attic. I'm not sure how many of you spend your days in attics in 90 degree days, but I can tell you that they can get quite toasty. Somehow (after an hour of sweating more than I ever have in my entire life) we managed to get most of the wood upstairs, while the others continued to paint. We then sat down for some more crocheting time with the kids.

We left around 5 and when we got back Paula ordered us some pizza. For some reason Dr. Rose thought the total was 91 lei so we just gave the guy 100 to cover the tip. However after looking at the receipt we realized that the total was 74...no wonder the guy was so happy when we told him to keep the change

After consuming almost three enormous pizzas (one of which a delicious Romanian specialty of ham and corn) Paula took us downtown for ice cream. Now we are back at the hotel, ready for our beauty sleep. Hope everyone is doing well back across the ocean...we will see you soon!

- Matt and the rest of the team

Monday, May 26, 2008

Mon, 26 May 2008 18:26:49 GMT

Sorry this blog is a little late...and I will most likely not be as entertaining as Bryan, but I will try my best!

On Saturday we went to a park in downtown Arad with all of the Oaza kids. After we got off the bus and arrived at the park, we had lunch. In the morning we made over sixty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and at the end of the day we only had two left over! They were pretty delicious! After we were done eating all of the kids were ready to play. The park was so nice! There were several playgrounds and ping-pong tables, but I spent most of my time play "cat and mouse" (or basically tag) with three of the boys. After they saw that I was going to really run after them and not let them win, they wanted me to race them over and over and over and over again! The entire day was quite the work-out for me! We also brought several balls so the rest of the team was playing soccer or ping-pong or helping the younger kids across the monkey bars and so on.

Later in the evening we returned with the kids to the Oaza house and spent some time with them there. Then we walked to Mama Maria's house for dinner!... She made the most delicious meal of the trip! We had soup, sesame chicken, potatoes, onion rings, cucumber salad, and cake for desert!! Yum!

Sunday morning we attended Emmanuel Church with the Oaza kids. The service was primarily spoken in Romanian, but luckily there was a translator so we were about to understand what was said, and Janet sang a beautiful solo during the service! After church we went out to lunch with Laura, the founder of Oaza, and then we went to the house to spend more time with the kids. First we played some games with the kids. Bryan is a master a Jenga...the entire tower was resting on one block and Bryan pulled it out from the bottom and the entire tower dropped without falling!! Matt is not sure that it agrees with the laws of physics. Then we tried to teach the kids to crochet and knit. The kids were very fast learners...even some of the younger ones!!

But I am going to try to upload some pictures now

: ) Susan

The Many Adventures of Janet Scheer and Crew.

Fri, 23 May 2008 19:30:18 GMT

Once upon a time... well, here we are. This is the time, the moment of adventure and new beginnings and of certain endings. I'm not sure what all they are, or rather, what they all will be. However, that's the purpose of this razzle-dazzle xanga site. To inform the all of you back at home of what we are discovering. Sounds like fun.

Anyways, the trip has been pretty good so far. Lots of new sites and adventures already--not to mention blessings along the way as well. Budapest was cool, architecture-wise and culture-wise. I'll let others fill in certain memorable aspects of Budapest along the duration of this blog. For now, I just wanted to comment briefly about the churches we visited, one of which was the Basilica of St. Stephen. The neat part of this one was the fact that it held a relic. The relic was a roughly 1000 year old hand of St. Stephen, a leader of Hungary who was latter sainted. Also, Janet tried to pet every cat within sight. Ms. and Mr. Scheer, please don't tell Romeo (Janet's cat, for everyone out of the loop).

Onto Romania. We got here yesterday, via the train, mid-afternoon in the rain (or early morning for you all back home--its a seven hour time difference). The train ride was a bit exciting. Beyond the fact that our passports received a beauty treatment with the application of extra country stamps for leaving Hungary and entering Romania, and that we had to get some people out of our seats, Susan had this really weird ESP moment. More or less, she had this dream that Mama Rose came into our car and said "It's going to be cold in Romania" and like about 25 minutes later Mama Rose came into our car and said "Hey, I'd like you to know that it's going to be cold in Romania." What are the odds of that????? Crazy-ness. Anyways, I just hope that Susan's future ESP moment is equally harmless. Like, what if she dreams that Matt or I break our ankles or something cartwheeling or something. (Note: although we were practicing a bit today, we have yet to break our ankle. It will most likely be me getting more grass stains on my shorts--should've packed some green shorts). But yes, returning to the train adventure, the train was a bit late and they tried to leave the stop at Arad Romania before we got off. Luckily our friend Jackie yelled at the train people and we didn't get left on the train. I think Mama Rose tried to toss a few of us off the train grabbing our luggage (helping of course, albeit frantically) as we went off the train. Anyways, the rain cleared pretty quickly and we went out to eat pizza. After that we ate some ice cream. This was quite delicious (the ice cream was really good in Budapest too! ).

This morning we went to Oaza. As soon as we got there, there were some cute little children outside waiting to greet us. They gained like 10 extra cuteness points when they spoke English better than myself. Children are amazing language wise. Anyways, we soon were upstairs in their house having fun with the children, giving them piggy back rides and picking them up "as a baby," as they like to call it. After draining a bit of our energy it was time to get to work. We went outside and started moving a pile of scrap wood and bricks and metal to the other Oaza building (there are two) with one of the missionaries pick-up trucks. I already knew that European cars were small but I had not really thought about the size of the trucks. Needless to say, the bed in the trucks here are exceptionally small. I think maybe 5.25' x 4', if that. Anyways, after about 3 trips we got most of the pile cleared away. The kids wanted to help, so I tried to let them but it was a little frustrating as there capabilities were limited with some tasks. Janet played with the neighbors kittens. When we finished we had some pretty good lunch. After lunch Janet played with the kittens some more. I led the crew putting another load into the truck. Then a few of us (Paige, Anita, Mama Rose, and myself) went to the other Oaza building and played Jenga with some of the older children, teenagers. This was fun. I'll let you guess who won, or rather who didn't lose. Then I got to play ping pong with two romanians. They were pretty good. I'll let you gues who won, or rather who didn't lose. They have ping pong tables set up in all the parks, which is awesome. However, they all have metal nets. This is crazy because there is no such thing as a net ball hit by yourself, that lands in your favor. It just bounces back at you. Sometimes with a 'real' net the ball hops over if the net gets hit. By the way Dr. Mrs. I'm on top of my game. Beware.

Ok. gotta go. Susan is kicking me off so that she can e-mail her sweet precious father. there you go. Blessings to all. You too Mr. Carr. Pictures later. That's the other paparizzi minded student missionary job. (That was most of it anyhow). Later taters.

B⁄ cubed *sigh no supersript.

May 13, 2008

Tue, 13 May 2008 22:27:21 GMT

We are all busy with exams and all the activities that come at the end of the semester, but by Sunday afternoon we will be on our way. We have a wonderful team this year:

Susan Carr (freshman), Paige Humber (freshman), Matt Dearstyne (freshman), Emily Jerge (sophomore), Bryan Blankfield (senior), and Janet Scheer (senior). Barbara Rose and Anita Ford are the leaders who have been doing one form or another of this trip since 1996. Here is our group during one of our spring team meetings (minus Anita, who lives in Indiana).

Anita will pack the bags on SAturday while Barbara is participating in commencement exercises. There will be 9 jam-packed team bags weighing about 50 pounds each. They contain items such as cough syrup, vitamins, tums, pain relievers, craft supplies, blankets, flilp flops, Correlle dishes for two Oaza houses, school supplies, 35 plastic shoe boxes and items to stuff in them and wrap for Christmas boxes for the widows, tons of yarn and needles, makeup and jewelry to be used for programming, enough bandaids for all of Romania, socks and underwear for the children, etc., etc., etc.........

We have made our lists and will check them twice and thrice and ... Do we have our passports, tickets, insurance cards, ID cards, etc., etc., etc.?

We covet your prayers as we start this exciting adventure. We remember the words of St. Francis of Assissi, "Spread the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words."

We may not be able to blog until we get to Romania on Thursday, May 22. After that, we'll try to keep you updated with narrative and pictures, since our Romanian hotel is supposed to have wireless internet connection. We'll see!