Romania.

Since Caitie has taken the task of telling you about the people we were working with on the first week I have been set the task of telling you about the stuff we got up to. So we arrived on Monday night after a fairly short journey to OM Romania (short for us Transiters)  and were greeted with a hot meal which was prepared for us by Michael.   We were also introduced to a wonderful Swiss couple named Markus and Rebecca who we would be working a long side for the next two weeks.

The next morning we meet two local pastors, Sorin and Fausto, whom Caitie has told you about. The first thing we needed to do was go shopping so we were taken to a second hand clothes store and we were able to buy some clothes (the main purpose: appropriate church clothes). Then we drove to a family's house, John, Amelia, and their daughter Eunice, and we were set to work. (John has a sick daughter named Eunice please pray for God to heal her). The boys were set to some practical work sorting out bricks that could be reused for some sort of building work and the girls were set to do all kinds of different housework from doing laundry to sorting out vegetables .

               BEFORE                                                                                                AFTER

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 At 5pm we stopped working for the day and went with Fausto and Sorin to local villages to promote the kids program we would be doing the next few days. So the next day we all did separate tasks: I stayed behind and helped Michael cook for the team; the girls (except for Caitie) went back to John's house and helped with tasks that still needed to be done there in the house; and Mpumi, Caitie, along with Fausto and Matt took apart a kitchen that was inside the church. This included stripping the walls of tiles, taking out brick half-wall, and just getting rid of part of the ceiling. Afterwards, we all came together as a team and planned for the kid's club that was taking place for the next 3 days. When we had finished planning, Mpumi and Fausto went and gathered the kids and started the program. The next hour and a half consisted of games,songs,bible verses and the creation story.

 It was really exciting to see the turn out of kids that showed up and how eager they were to all be there and hear what we had to say and play with us (despite the language barrier).  Over the few days, our message went from Creation to man's fall and our Sinfulness, to the story of Jesus and the Salvation He offers us.  The last day was the most exciting to watch these kids. 

The day after the girls had finished doing all their tasks at John's house and we at the church had finished in the church kitchen so we moved on to the task of cleaning the school which was in an awful state. The school had a horrible smell to it,had broken glass everywhere from windows that had been smashed,sheep poo, a load of old communism style uniforms and rubble. We had the task of clearing out the school of all this stuff. This took us two days to complete this task and we were all feeling satisfied when we completed the task.

           BEFORE                                                                                                      AFTER

Romania!

Well hello again!

I very much think that Romania has become one of my personal favorite places we've been able to serve in thus far.  And for several reasons.

First of all the people were AWESOME....we met such phenomenal people there.  I think I'll put pictures up of all the cool people here.  But only from the first week in Brasov, or more specifically - Ghimbav and Bod. The second week in Amara will come next :)

Michael Jordan (you know, like the famous American Basketball player....well this guy is pretty much as opposite of him as you can get lol).  He is the leader of short term missions in Romania and was our main coordinator for everything we would be doing in Romania.  He has a good servant's heart and great heart for missions.  He was a good leader. In our time with him, we also got an abundance of good quotes from this quirky guy.
             Mpumi: "Girls, were you cold last night like                           you were the night before?"
             Girls:  "No, it was a lot better"
             Mpumi:  "You hear that Michael, the girls                  were warm last night! Isn't that good?"
             Michael: "I don't care" (I think he was                                      smiling when he said it)

            *12 or so people were crowded around a table talking with one another, Michael gets a phone call, raises his hand sharply addressing everyone "SILENCE!"    bahahahahahaha!!

Then there was our favorite Swiss couple, Rebekka and Marcus.  They will be serving in Romania for a total of 3 months.  Marcus has a small farm with 18 cows and Rebekka is an primary/elementary school teacher. They're pretty much the coolest/sweetest couple you'll ever meet.  The more you get to know them, the more perfect of a couple you realize they are and just warm your heart......wow ok sorry, that got a bit sappy. But in addition Marcus and Mpumi got RATHER close - HUGE bromance going on there.  Sorry Rebekka!  To show a bit of Marcus's character I would like to include a short video about him.....hehehehehe!

Sorryn: We didn't get to work AS closely with him as some of the others, but it was great to work with him none-the-less.  He's one of the leader's at OM Romania who has a long term vision for Romania.  The vision has helped the start up and work within the church we worked with in Bod as well as an after-school-school he wants to start up in order to help improve the education level of the kids in Romania  He's pretty much one of the best role models a person could ever have.  Especially on a mission level. Just saying.







Fausto (and family):   This is probably the coolest Mexican I've ever met.  He's not staying in Romania for much longer,  but the work he's done here with his family is invaluable.  Plus he's probably one of the funniest missionaries I've ever met (those people exist?!?! what?!?!).  We were able to help him in the work on church as well as the kids programs we put together.  But he also took us to his house and watched the Avengers projected on his wall (much better than the laptop we've all gotten accustomed to).  His daughter gave Rory a much needed haircut.  AND he came to visit us in the middle of the night before we left.  Oh good times.

On the day we (Mpumi, Marcus, and I) went to the church to do some demolition, Fauso brings in this guy Matt saying "I brought the muscle for the day".  Uh...yep.  As Yoda would say - Good hard worker he is.  But he, Mpumi, and Fausto were quite the trio (as this video will show).  Even though he wasn't working with us directly, he was still a good addition to our little team that week.

We also met this wonderful Paraschibu family.  Their daughter has Lyme disease and we were able to bless them by doing chores around the house that are a little hard to tackle while simultaneously working hard to take care of Eunice.  Their whole family are wonderful, sweet-hearted people (I sound like a southern woman right now...my apologies).  But John, Amelia, and Eunice are fascinating people that honestly truely enjoy listening and talking with people.  They instantly make you feel at home.




If our Romanian friends are reading this.  Thank-you for making such a large impact on me and my team by all you've done with and for us. :)

Italy for a second time!

I firstly want to apologize for very little blog activity. You will have the pleasure of reading about our second time in Italy and our journey to Romania in this entry.

 Hello from Romania! For the last week TT7 have been in an OM base named Forta Rocka which is located in Northern Italy. We meet up with Transit Team 6 in the editing house as Caitie and I called it then travelled to Italy. We arrived on Monday afternoon and that night we were joined by John,James and Meagan from Lifehope. We were informed on Monday night what we would be doing during the week which consisted of team building,relaxing and some training. 

So we woke on Tuesday morning which was our day of for the week which consisted of exploring the local area and being told the history of the area. The history of the area was that it was the only part of Italy which was Protestant but they were not known as Protestants but as Valdesiens. We were able to visit a building that was used to educate and send the best men out to bring people to Christ. We were also to visit a cave which the Valdesiens were able to hide from persecution. These men and women were incredible people of God and were great examples of taking the gospel all over the world and the willingness to die for their faith. 

A Training base for the Valdesiens

Learning about the Valdesiens

Dinner with everyone

Being reunited with TT6 and John,James and Meagan was a real breath of fresh air for everyone. It consisted of lots of laughter,smiling and just great fellowship. I (Rory) think I speak for everyone in saying that we all needed a break and a time to just to be able to reflect on our time on Transit so far. We were all able just to connect able to connect with James or John or Meagan which was amazing. Thank you three for being there and being a listening ear.

On Wednesday we were introduced to David who works for OM sports ministry. He was asked by John to take us through some team building activities. It was very interesting because he put us through an activity to see where our priorities lie. I kept going back and picking up a sleep mask because I love my sleep! David noticed this and at the end gifted me with it and it has proved very useful so far.. Thank you David! Another activity we did David was that he made myself and Taylah blind,Caitie and Mpumi mute and then Grace and Jung Un were there normal selves. Then David set us three tasks to do the first one was to get a tiny marble across the room with tiny pieces of wood which everyone was given. It proved to be very challenging. The second challenge was for Taylah and I to throw bottle caps into buckets to score points. Of course it was a challenge because we were blind so we had to depend on our team members to direct us either by telling us or positioning our hand and helping us throw in a certain angel. This activity was extremely fun. The next activity was to balance a ball which was on top of hoop which was on top of our head and then do a mini obstacle course this was difficult to do because I was blind.

Part of David being with us was to teach us about team conflict and how to deal with it. This may seem like a bit of a downer but it was good advice and it helped us a team to resolve some differences and advice on how to deal with differences better. Don't worry this didn't ruin our trip and make everyone depressed. On the Saturday we went for Gelato with everyone and my word it was the greatest Gelato all of it was homemade. 

Then we as a team spent the afternoon with John discussing team issues and then we all went out for pizza. Good pizza and good chats were had. If you manage to get a pizza which has asparagus on it buy it and enjoy it!

On Sunday we left on early morning to travel to Hungary which would be our entry point into Romania. So we were traveling to Budapest where we thought our beds for the night were which was with OM Hungary but we went completely passed where we thought we were going. So we contacted our OM contact telling her where we were and we were good hour and a bit from her so we decided as a team and with her advice that we should stop at a service station and sleep in the van for the night. This was fun and I think a good and challenging team building experience.

So I'm signing off now. Thanks for reading. Keep us in your prayers. Lots of love.