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.