Ruth School, Parks, & Shopping

Hello everybody! I hope you all are having a great start to summer now that school has let out where most of you live. I feel like I'm always saying this, but...I've had such a busy few days! :) Friday, Saturday, and today especially were filled with activities, ministry, and of course some fun.

Thursday was not so productive and fun. We weren't able to go to the Ruth School as we had hoped because they were on a field trip. I had also planned on going to a clinic in order to get a checkup to ensure that I have no communicable diseases and such in order to receive a slip of paper that is one small part of the paperwork I need for my six month volunteer visa. (Wow, what a sentence!) Unfortunately, the clinic we went to was not open and yesterday I actually found out that it wasn't even the right one to go to in the first place. :( So that took an entire morning and by early afternoon I hadn't accomplished anything. Later that afternoon, however, I did manage to do a few intern bingo challenges. So I guess the day wasn't an entire waste. :)

Friday was much better! We (Me, Ana, and Ruth) went to the Ruth School and spent a solid four hours playing, coloring, and watching a movie with the kids there. At the end of our time, we managed to squeeze in a few pictures.

This is the entire group we worked with. Excuse the black borders...I pulled these pictures from messenger. :/

The outside of the school.

After Ruth School, Ruth and I walked through Tineretului Park again on our way home. It was about to storm, which made for some very pretty pictures.

Saturday was a day of running errands and shopping for camp, which begins in 3 short weeks on the 27th! It's coming quickly. :) We went to lots of huge stores in the Bucharest area, including Jumbo, a department store selling craft supplies, toys, dishes...pretty much everything! Here are some picture of it.

We scored some decor for camp, which has a jungle theme this year. We're going to use the jungle to illustrate the fact that Jesus is the Way and the true path to follow, which is mentioned in verse like John 14:6 and Proverbs 3:5-7.

On the drive home, we went past the Arc de Triumf, a model of the one in Paris.

I also wrote a different kind of blog post Saturday for the intern blog at Stepping Forward Ministries' web site. It's on worrying and peace and you can go check it out by clicking here.

Today we ran more errands (after watching a podcast sermon) and Ruth and I also visited another park. The first place we went was Carturesti, a bookstore of sorts selling mugs, art supplies, books, clothes, etc. It's a super interesting shop and I kind of fell in love with the smell. :)

I thought these teapots were so cute!

After Carturesti, Ruth and I split up from Cami and Ellie (another intern) and found our way to Cismigiu Park ALL BY OURSELVES. We were on foot and in a part of the city I was super unfamiliar with, so I shall brag on us a bit here. ;) It was a nice part of town, so here are a couple pics from the walk.

Of course, Cismigiu Park followed the example of all other Romanian parks, in that it was gorgeous and woodsy and perfect.

Here is the sign. I've heard that people like to see signs, so there ya go.

Here is me, so I can prove that I actually was in fact present in all these pictures. Hi Mama!!

That about wraps up the past few days! Tomorrow morning (Monday) we're (Me, Cami, Ruth, and Ellie) are going back up to camp to start preparations. We'll only be there until Wednesday, so expect a blog post that night, and not much communication until then.

Praises:

-The car is back!!!! We were able to drive places and it is such a blessing.

-Ruth School visits were awesome. The kids hugged us like crazy and we loved spending time with them.

Requests:

-My visa paperwork. Man, I can't wait to put this as a praise. It is such a trial but hopefully will all be finished in the next three weeks before camp starts.

-Productive days at camp.

-Safe travel to and from camp.

Thank you all for praying! As always, please do comment on this post and let me know you read it. :) I seriously, honestly do not care if I know you AT ALL. I just love hearing that you care about what I'm doing for six months of my life. ;)

Love,

Maria

First Orphanage & Apartment Visits

Hi everybody! Hope you're all doing well. :) I've had a very busy few days since arriving back to Bucharest from camp Sunday.

Monday morning Ruth and I got up early and made a plan in order to knock out the most possible Bucharest Bingo challenges possible. In the end we did five total challenges, all of them in Herastrau Park and the surrounding areas. Herastrau is super pretty, so here come a TON of pictures that I hope you'll like.

 

 

 

 

The challenges we completed in about two and a half hours Monday morning included: riding the metro alone to Herestrau Park, taking a walk through the park, locating the busts seen above and googling one person depicted (we did the last one, Mihai Eminescu, a Romanian poet), and finally, finding an aviator statue at a nearby place called Aviatorilor and looking up its meaning (it is a monument to pilots). All in all, it was a very productive morning!

However, the productiveness did not end at lunchtime. :) That afternoon, we visited four places: three apartments where some of the kids are now living, and a maternal care center for young mothers. My favorite experience from that afternoon was reading The Jungle Book to Manea, a young boy with special needs.

Ruth, Manea, me, and Ellie reading The Jungle Book.

Us three interns riding the very warm tram :)

We ended Monday with the knowledge that we walked over eight miles, mostly due to the fact that Cami's car is in the shop. :(

Tuesday was slightly less eventful. The car was still not finished, so we couldn't visit two apartments that we had hoped to go to. However, we did go to the Ciresarii orphanage and managed to get a list of all the kids who can come to camp in the summer! Then we briefly visited the kids' rooms, but I am very sorry to report that I have no pictures of that time. :(

Wednesday-Sunday will be another busy few days with visits to the apartments, orphanage, and working at the Ruth School. I can't wait to tell you guys all about it!

Praises:

-Visits to the apartments and orphanage went very well

Requests:

-My Visa paperwork (I am heading to the doctor to certify that I have no diseases Thursday, so prayers are greatly appreciated for that)

-Roxana. This is a young girl who we visited at the maternal care center who has a six week old baby. Please pray for her situation.

-Manea (pictured above). He has had trouble with aggressiveness due to changes in his medicines. Pray that the doctors would have wisdom in knowing how to help him.

-Pray that the car would be finished soon at the shop. :)

-We are going to the Ruth School Thursday and Friday. Pray that it would go well.

I will probably post again Sunday before I head to camp for another few days Monday. Talk to you all then! As always, I LOVE READING COMMENTS, so please comment. :)

Maria

Camp weekend!

Hey everybody! First of all, I want to say thank you for all your comments on my first post! I love reading them. :) So I just got back to Bucharest after spending Thursday-Saturday at camp. It was a very productive time and I'm super excited to share with you what all happened.

The tale of my weekend begins with an altercation between myself and this elevator.....

This elevator is fairly average by Romanian standards. It fits two people comfortably, 5-8 uncomfortably and experiences regular bouts of mechanical/electrical failure. It had been working "wonderfully" when I arrived, and so, since I was taking all my luggage to camp (two large checked bags and one carryon, plus a backpack) I decided to take the elevator instead of the four flights of stairs.

My first ride down carrying my small carryon and one large suitcase went fine. The ride back up was great, too. Then I got into the elevator to start my last trip down, with only one suitcase. This time, the descent began in a way that would have certainly freaked out anyone with no experience in the field of Romanian elevators: a blackout. As soon as I pushed the ground level button, the lights went out and remained so for about 5 seconds. I was pretty much unperturbed by this, as it had happened to me before. But then, the elevator stopped. I opened the inner doors (they are manually operated) and immediately noticed something off--I was stuck directly between level one and ground level.

I gathered my thoughts for a few seconds and began wondering how to get out of this predicament. Thankfully, my cell phone had service, so I texted Cami (who was upstairs getting her own stuff together) that I was stuck in the elevator and was wondering what to do. She didn't respond. A few minutes later, I heard someone on the ground level trying to open the outer door (which is also manual). It wouldn't open. Then, the person spoke. It was a Romanian man, and our conversation (also in Romanian) went a little like this:

Him: Is someone in there?

Me: Yes, I'm between floor 1 and ground level. The elevator is not moving.

Him: Push the ground level button again.

Me: *pushing button repeatedly* It's not working.

Him: Hmm...try to push this door open. I'll pull.

Me: Okay. *pushes door, door doesn't move*

Him: I'll have to call the administrator (of the building). Wait there.

Me: *waits there for a few minutes*

The administrator came and somehow got the door open, and I had to climb down a few feet because the elevator was still above the ground level. It was fun, and the two men found it very amusing that an American girl was stuck in an elevator and had to ask a bunch of questions about where I was going and what I was doing. Thankfully Cami came down then and we left for camp with no more trouble.

So that was how my trip to camp started. :) The ride was fairly uneventful, and I got treated to some pretty great views on the way.

I do apologize for how long this post is getting and I haven't even gotten to camp yet. So. Sorry. :) Anyway, we got to camp at like 1pm Thursday, and had a relaxing afternoon showing Ruth around and getting a plan together.

Friday morning we got up pretty early and started to work. There is a super long list of things that need to be done in the next 5 weeks before camp starts. The first thing Ruth and I did was saw boards to a length of 60cm to make shelves for the new trading post. It's in a different spot because the old trading post is now my room. :)

It's super tiny but I have my own space and I love it SO much!

Ready to saw some boards!

I sawed 33 boards total.

Next, it was time to nail the shelves up. We luckily have a nail gun at camp, so the task was made a whole lot easier.

As you can see, the power associated with a nail gun went straight to our heads.

The rest of the day, we did lots of other jobs. We cleared out the tractor barn, moved all the usable items to different locations, threw the junk away, took the six huge water barrels out of the water tower for cleaning, organized the trading post, and other odd jobs. It was a busy day! At night, we took some time to rest and read...

It was very nice to stretch out after a long day's work!

Saturday morning we took a trip into a nearby city called Panciu to go to the Saturday market. This market sells everything from clothes to chickens. We bought fresh cherries and strawberries to have with lunch that day. Here are a few pictures.

The main street of Panciu.

The entrance to the indoor part of the market.

The indoor produce/flower market.

Some of the fresh veggies.

Strawberries! They were so juicy and sweet.

More produce.

When we got back to camp, we had two main jobs to do that afternoon. We strung wire through over 100m of pipe for plumbing and used the sawmill to saw 6 logs and 18 posts. It took about four and a half hours to finish all that.

Well, that brings me to Sunday (today) in which we drove back to Bucharest! This afternoon I'm going to be making my schedule for the coming week, which will include visiting all the childrens' apartments, the orphanage, the Ruth School, and of course working on my intern Bucharest Bingo and notebook. 

I'll most likely post again at the end of this week unless I have something interesting happen to me again. Who knows, the elevator may break again.

Praises (in reference to the previous post's requests)

-Jetlag is gone!

-We had a very productive weekend at camp

Requests:

-Visa paperwork is still ongiong

-Visits to the apartments and orphanage would go smoothly

-Visit to the Ruth School would go well

Thank you for reading and for your prayers!

Maria

The first few days...

Hello everyone! I know you've been waiting for a post, and I apologize for making you impatient (ahemm Mama). :) I arrived in Romania at 12pm Tuesday (your time), so I've been here about a day. Here's a picture of the apartment building where I'm staying and my room.

My stuff is just the suitcases (the other things were already there).

Today was orientation day! I slept pretty good for the first night. I got my intern notebook to fill out, and part of what I'm doing is a "Bucharest Bingo" game. I have lots of challenges to complete, like these:

My bingo sheet after today!!

As you can see, I've done a lot of going and doing today. :) This morning we went to Sun Plaza, a huge mall, to do orientation at a Starbucks (lol) there. Then we went over to Piata Unirii to exchange money for Ruth (my friend who is staying for 5 weeks). We headed back to the apartment around noon.

At about 1pm, Ruth and I headed out to Piata Obor, a huge indoor and outdoor market that sells everything you can imagine. We had four challenges to complete there, but the one I was most proud of wasn't even on the list: navigating in the metro system and figuring out how to switch lines. :) Bad news though: I didn't take any pictures at Obor. Sorry!! I'll most likely head back there at some point, so then I'll take pictures.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading up to camp for a few days, so I will not be active online or through text messages. I'm really looking forward to being at camp again and helping with getting it ready for 7 weeks of kids' camps. :)

Here are some current prayer requests:
-Easy time zone adjustment
-Efficient, productive days at camp this weekend
-That getting my six month visa paperwork would go smoothly (I have to go a bunch of different places to get all the paperwork)

Love you all, and thank you for your prayers,
Maria