Back in 2006, our young adult class began raising money to go to Romania on a mission trip. Long story short, we never got the opportunity to complete our mission trip, but Romania remained a part of our church family's heart. Well, God opened up the door for Mary Grooms and me to visit Romania and see the ministry He is doing there.
As I mentioned in my last blog, we left for Romania on Thursday morning SUPER EARLY. Our first leg was from Dallas to Toronto and we had a pretty long layover there. We decided that we didn't want to wait around at the airport, so we bought a subway ticket and headed into Toronto! This was Mary's first time out of the States and her first time to ride on the subway! It was a great way to get us out of our comfort zone to prepare us for 2 weeks abroad. We headed to High Park, which was about as far as we could go within our time limits, and had a delicious lunch. We tried to walk down to Lake Ontario, but didn't really know where we were going and had to head back to catch our flight before we actually found it. You'd think it wouldn't be hard to miss since it's a giant lake, but the park was much bigger than we thought.
The terminal had a super sweet iPad station where you could pass the time while waiting on your flight. While we were sitting, we met a lady who had lived in Romania for a few years, so we asked her all sorts of questions about the culture and her experiences. We boarded our long flight across the ocean and were on our way to Germany. Mary and I were pretty far away from each other on this flight, but I guess having some time apart before we spent the next 13 days together wasn't a bad thing. :) I chatted with the German man and his grandson that were sitting next to me on their way to spend time in Germany. When we arrived at the airport in Frankfort, we had our first real dose of culture education while trying to navigate to where we were supposed to be, "but the sign says go THAT way." Fortunately, we made it through all of the customs and security and to our terminal with minimal stress. We only had one more quick flight from Frankfort to Budapest, Hungary where Brother Gheorghe was picking us up. Again, we weren't sitting together, but I had a lovely conversation with the man sitting next to me who was on his way to a wedding party in Hungary. We arrived safely and again, navigated our way through a new airport and picked up our luggage which, too, arrived safely. We met Brother Gheorghe and headed to his home in Sacalasau, Romania. It was a 5 hour trip with a stop at the border to get our visas and then another stop for pizza. :) We slept most of the way because sitting on airplanes is exhausting.
We spent that evening looking around their little farm and getting to know the Cormoses. Their son, Daniel, and his friend Quijuan were visiting for the summer and gave up their little guest house for the two weeks Mary and I were there. We also had to pack our bags to leave for camp the next day. We woke up bright and early Saturday morning, picked up some of the church members and youth, and headed southeast to where the camp ground is located, close to the city of Brasov. It was about a 9 hour trip. The scenery was beautiful and the church members sang hymns in the car since we didn't have a radio.
We arrived that evening and explored the cabin and the stream that was right outside the camp. The boys mowed a soccer field and the kids began playing. Mary and I were kicking the ball around, and she attacked me!! The first day we're there, and she tackled me to the ground and left me with a nasty bruise on my arm! It really wasn't that big of a deal, but I gave her a hard time about it all week. :)
On Sunday morning we had a service outside and spent the remainder of the day playing volleyball, soccer, ping pong, and basketball, exploring the surrounding area, and getting to know the kids (even with a language barrier). I'll tell you one thing, those kids can play some soccer. They're so quick. It was fun to watch them. We had a night service that evening with Bro. Gheorghe teaching. That's also the night that we met our mouse that lived in the wall of our bathroom. Mary and I shared a room with Anna and Julia, Brother Gheorghe and Sister Mia's nieces. They live in Colorado and were in Romania for a few weeks to visit family. All four of us just looooved getting to know our mouse friend. On a couple of nights, the mouse actually ran across my face. IT RAN ACROSS MY FACE. Yeah…
Everyday of camp consisted of 2 Bible teachings, sports, and visiting Romanian Historical Landmarks. The campground is centrally located for easy (for the most part) access to many historical sites. There would be a Bible lesson in the morning, games (volleyball, soccer, ping pong), a trip to learn about Romanian history, and then another Bible lesson in the evening. Of course we had some good food 3 times a day, and we learned that bread is held in high regard in Romania. They eat it with EVERYTHING and it's homemade (and DELICIOUS)! The Cormoses take the kids around the country because most of them would never get the opportunity otherwise to learn about their nation's rich history. So each day we all learned new things about Romania and about God's Word.
On Monday we loaded up pretty early after breakfast and went to Bran Castle. This is the site that was made famous by Bram Stoker when he wrote
Dracula and forever changed the face of Romania. Apparently this is the inspiration for the vampire character, so it's known around the world as Dracula's castle. Dracula is supposedly based off of the actual ruler Vlad the Impaler who wasn't really a vampire (because come on guys…people can't turn into bats) and who only actually visited Bran Castle once. It was a great day learning about Romanian history with the kids. After we returned to the camp, we had an evening service, and Mary taught about Ruth and did a great job!
On Tuesday, only the people that don't get carsick were allowed to go on our adventure. Since many of the people in the village where the Cormoses live do not ride in cars very often, a lot of them get very car sick. On this day in particular, we were going to be driving up the mountain and back down, so it was a zig zag road. In fact that's what this specific road is known for. It's called Transfagarasan Highway and it goes up through the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking and it was so cold up in the mountains! There was even some snow still on the ground!
After we came back down the mountain, we stopped by Poienari Fortress, which is where the real Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) made men rebuild the fortress and then supposedly his wife jumped off the top during a raid. All I know is, we climbed up 1,480 steps just to get up there and then climbed back down all of those steps.
After we left the fortress, we stopped by Curtea de Arges Monastary and toured the beautiful hand-crafted church building. There were a lot of legends about the building of this church, and again, we enjoyed learning more about the Romanian culture with the kids and church members.
On Wednesday, I had the privilege of teaching in the morning. It's always interesting to teach with a translator. It makes you think of different ways to say what you want to say. The whole theme for the week was salvation. It was a lot of fun to teach the students and share what was on my heart. We wrote out the word for sin in sidewalk chalk and had the kids write different sins on the ground. The kids didn't know what to think as I began to try and sweep the chalk off (symbolizing our efforts to take away our own sin). It wasn't until the water was applied (the living water of Jesus) that the sins actually went away. Then we wrote the word ISUS (Jesus) and the kids filled in the letters with the things God produces in our lives after we are saved.
That afternoon we visited Fagaras Fortress which had a full history of the area. That evening, Mary taught Part 2 of her lesson on Ruth and the richness of Jesus being our redeemer. She explained to the kids about Ruth's story and how we can use it as an illustration of Christ. Mary did a fantastic job on her lessons and the kids really had never heard the story of Ruth. It was a privilege spending the time in Romania with her.
Our trip on Thursday consisted of traveling to the city of Sinai to Peles Castle. It was absolutely incredible. I mean you lose words to say when you enter a place like that. It's all hand-crafted and so ornate that you just don't know how to describe it. Standing there in awe reminded me of when Solomon had the temple built. The detail and work that went into the design and creation of the temple was something unimaginable to me. When I see places like Peles Castle, it brings the Bible into a new light. We read over the details of Solomon's temple a lot of times, but have you ever tried to picture the grandeur of the gold and carvings and columns? Seeing this place brought it into perspective at how awe-struck people were of the temple and how awe-struck we should be at our God. We shouldn't always have the words, but instead sometimes just relish in the magnitude of our Heavenly Father.
When we tried to leave to come back to the camp, the van wouldn't start. This was extremely nerve-racking since we were parked against an embankment and could only push it so far forward because of other parked cars. So many of our people began to try to give the van a little jump start back and forth (and almost running over one of the kids in the process) until finally the van cranked. We were able to travel back to the camp and enjoy fun and games before our evening service taught by Brother Gheorghe.
We woke up Friday morning to adorn our red, white, and blue to celebrate Independence Day! The last 3 Independence Days have been spent outside of the country. Every time I leave the country, I learn more and more about the US of A from a different perspective. If you ever get the chance to leave the country on a trip of some sort, do not pass it up! It will open your eyes to a whole new level of understanding the world. We had morning services with Sister Mia teaching the lesson. Then our outside journey was to the nearby city of Brasov. This is one of the larger cities in Romania and it was so much fun wandering through a very European city. We toured the Biserica Neagra, or Black Church. It got its name because it partially burned down in 1689 and so the brick turned black. It has since been cleaned, and it is currently a Lutheran church that you can tour during the week.
After we came back to the camp, the kids played some soccer. It was then time for our evening service and I had another opportunity to teach. Since our focus for the week was on salvation, we spent a large amount of time in Romans 10, John 8, and Romans 6, focusing on being free in Christ! After our evening service, we had a bonfire and just hung out with the kids. At this point, we had learned a few phrases in Romanian and a few of the kids knew some English phrases. We really loved getting to know the kids that the Cormoses minister to.
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| Mary must have braided everyone's hair that night. |
As we were preparing for bed, we had a very long visit from our mouse friend. He ran around the room for a little bit playing peek-a-boo with us. I finally was able to capture a picture of our little friend before he ran out of the room. We closed the door and stuffed a towel underneath it to ensure he didn't return that evening. It was the best night of rest I had because I wasn't half awake making sure he wasn't running across my bed…I'm sure he found a way back in and probably sat there laughing at me, but I didn't notice. :)
Here are a few more pictures from our week at camp:
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| This is where we came to get our clean water everyday. |
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| The younger boys' table for mealtime. |
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| The American's table for mealtime. |
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| The oldest girls' table for mealtime. |
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| The older girls' table for mealtime. |
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| The young girls' table for mealtime. |
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| The older boys' table for mealtime. |
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| The younger girls cooked when the older ones left to go into town one day. |
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| Our friend who sat at our table and taught us Romanian. |
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| Our table for mealtime. |
On Saturday morning, we woke up and packed our things back in the vans to travel the 9 hours back to the village. Our van waited around for a little over an hour to meet the next group who was coming to camp for the next week to exchange the keys. On our way back, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some snacks for our travels. At this point, we no longer cared about what foods were bad for us because we had eaten enough carbs to put on 10 new pounds (remember the delicious bread I mentioned), so when we came out of the store, it looked like this...
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| Crammed in the front seat with our roomies! |
After dropping everyone off and returning to the Cormoses' house, we were exhausted! We hung out for a little bit just debriefing about the week and then went to bed. It was easy to stay up late because it didn't get dark until after 10PM since it's so far in the northern hemisphere (I've give you a science lesson later if you really want one), so we still didn't get in bed until pretty late. We woke up the next morning and headed to church. We were able to attend services at both of their church plants with a short lunch in between. We had such a great time fellowshipping with the church members and getting a glimpse of how the missionaries work in their community. We even sang a song at the second service!
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| Mary helping Sister Mia with lunch at the Cormoses' house. |
On Monday we had a rest day and enjoyed the hot springs at Felix, a thermal waters spa park with Anna, Julia, their mom, Daniel, his friend Quijuan, and his cousin Alin. Again, we got a dose of European culture and had several discussions about the …um…differences… between American culture and European culture. This was also a great day of reflection of our trip as a whole while enjoying each other's company. When we left the water park, we visited the rare water lily that only grows in the thermal waters. It was then back to the house to pack our bags to get ready to go.
Tuesday came bright and early, and we rode with Brother Gheorghe to Budapest, Hungary. He took us there and helped us get a hotel room and taxi set up for our flights out the next day. On our way to Budapest, we were able to share our appreciation to Brother Gheorghe for all that he allowed us to be a part of. We were also able to ask him a few more questions about the culture and their ministry there. Staying in Hungary for the night was interesting. Mary's flight was at 6 AM and mine wasn't until 6 PM, so she left the hotel at 4 in the morning and I stayed until check-out time at 10. I hung out at the airport in a little coffee house reading until it was time to head through security and on to my next 3 flights to Kenya. First stop, Austria, then to Ethiopia, and lastly to Kenya!
I cannot truly express how thankful I am for the opportunity to travel to Romania and fellowship with the Cormoses. They are doing a mighty work for the Lord in their community. Their warm spirit was so welcoming and they taught us so much about serving Christ.
Please continue to pray for the missionaries all over the world who are serving for the furtherance of the Gospel.
In Christ,
Ashley
