Romania Stats

17 Americans

20 Days in Romania

1200 slices of white bread eaten

160 bottles of water

24 hours of air travel

2 birthdays celebrated

30 liters of Fanta consumed by Kip

1300 pictures of Emma and Anna

1 toilet broken (and repaired) by Libby and Megan

20 days of Fan Ministry from Brenda

8 mangy dogs named by Collin

1 (at least) Romanian heart broken by Kesh

50+ hours of video footage taken by Jim

200 Romanian words learned by Alex

30 tattoos designed by Brandon

17+ talks from Rick (including one Romanian radio show)

1 American boy band (Nate, Jasper, Kesh and Alex)

90 pieces of luggage arranged by Jason

15 hours of singing from Kristin

1 British psychiatrist played by Nate

5000 phone calls received by Emi

30 times Ian was mistaken for being 5 years older

12 bowls of ice cream polished off by Jasper

4 times Vio was mistaken for an American

14 members of the team are en route to Portland at the moment. Meanwhile, Jason, Nate and myself are staying for another few weeks to do some traveling in Europe. It was difficult to leave Romania and some on the team are already making plans to return. We're all excited to share stories and pictures with everyone, and stay tuned for that 50+ hours of video footage to be turned into an awesome video. Thanks for following along and praying for us on our journey.

Ciao!

All American Boy Band

We just returned from camp and are tired and more than excited for the pizza that's coming in an hour. If you see anyone from the Romania team in the next weeks, ask us about white bread, pink toilet paper and Count Vlaaaadimir.

We appreciate your prayers through this week of camp--the Lord worked in some amazing ways through Rick's teaching and through our conversations with our new Romanian friends. It was truely amazing to pray and worship together with these fellow Christians halfway around the world.

We've learned that Romanians have extremely competative spirits, serve hot food in the extreme heat, sing with gusto, and pray with fervor. We've made relationships that we hope to continue when we return home.

Camp Week: The Quest For Truth

We're on Day 3 of our camp with 6 different churches from the Arad area and we're spending lots of time baking in the sun, eating white bread and learning a lot about Romanian competativeness. We were expecting around 80 campers and ended up with 140 people! It's been fun getting to know the Romanians in our small groups and rooms, having conversations about cultural differences and learning from one another.

The theme of the camp is The Quest for Truth, and we've been following Louisiana Jones and Georgia Jones (Indy's goofy cousins, aka Nate and Kesh) and their interactions with Count Vladamir and Fido, two Romanian vampires (Alex and Jasper) who try to impede their Quest for Truth. Rick has been speaking in the evening, guiding us on our Quest by unpacking Postmodernism, Scienctific Naturualism and other religions.

We appreciate your continued prayers for God's work in the hearts of the campers, the conversations we'll be having and that we can be examples of how Christ lives. Unfortunately my internet is a bit spotty this week, but I'll try to put up some pictures on the next post. Until then, Ciao!

Camp Week: The Quest For Truth

We're on day 3 of our camp and everyone

Thursday, Friday, Saturday

On Thursday we met with Lee, the founder of Networks whom I wrote about in a previous post, and worked with some of the kids in a local gypsy village. Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures because they want to protect the villages from becoming tourist attractions.

This Friday a group of us started repairing the play structure at the church who is housing us for the week. We've replaced the old wood, repaired the roof and started painting on Saturday.

Saturday morning was spent visiting the orphanage building and Christian clinic connected to Maranata Church in Arad (where Emi's father is the pastor). Emi's dad also took us to Revolution Square, where the Revolution in Arad began. He shared stories from 1989 and also from his time as the mayor of the city from 2000-2004. The first thing that caught my eye when we walked into the square were the words "Via, Veritas, Vita" on the municipal building. These words of Jesus: "the way, the truth and the life," were added to the building during Emi's father's time as mayor. A city that was once under Communism now has Jesus' words on their most important government buildings. Praise God for change.

Wednesday: Revolution Sites and Soccer Matches

On Wednesday Emi's father took us to Timisoara, a neighboring town where the 1989 Revolution began. We stood on the street where the riots began, saw buildings still marked with bullet holes, and visited the Revolution monument and cemetery, where hundreds of victims, all killed over a period of five days, are buried.

In the evening some of the guys played a soccer match: Romanians versus Americans. I've never seen so many sweaty people in one room. When asked to comment about the game, Collin says, "I have no comment."

What You've All Been Waiting For: Pictures! Tuesday

On Tuesday we visited a local orphanage where we played with the kids and thoroughly enjoyed jumping into the pool on this sweltering day. After spending just a few hours with them, Alex wanted to adopt all the children, but since international adoptions are illegal, one of our interpreters who works at the orphanage has decided to adopt him instead.