Romania 2011 Day 7: Romanienglish Has Set In

Romania 2011 Day 7

Day 2 of VBS. With lessons learned from Day One and now with the prospect of good weather the team awoke early for devotion, breakfast and eager to get on the road to VBS. Well that is everyone except for the Ayoubi sisters who slept in a little. I must admit they did a great job of getting ready in about 10 mins flat. But then the panic set in as they couldn’t find the room key. Having ransacked the room they asked me to go and ask Kayla if she accidently picked up the key when she had left the night before. I drove over to the church but Kayla had no clue where it could be when I asked her and so it was back to the hotel to ransack the room once more. Still no key. The only option was to leave the room open but take all valuables with us. When we got to the church, Hannah asked Kayla if she had the key and Kayla proceeded to take it out of her bag. Sometimes having an English accent kills you or maybe Kayla was just enjoying watching me drive back and forth.

Pucioasa grew to 42 kids today and matched the kid count at Fieni. When the team got to Fieni at 9:30 a.m. there were 15 kids already at the church singing songs with Marian. He said they had been there since 8:30 a.m. even though it did not start until 10 a.m.. Both Pucioasa and Fieni had great days except for the minor argument Michelle and Izzy had in the middle of one of the skits because Izzy thought Michelle had gone wrong but Michelle knew she was right. Luckily the kids just thought it was part of the story with an angel and a shepherd arguing. We just explained we were using the Message version of the Bible. In Varfuri they also grew to 30 kids and now armed with the plan of hamming it up got the kids to really interact today and they all had a great time.

The good news for VBS is that Don found a leaf blower and so we were able to do the weather

balloon trick and I got to pick up some gas for the fire eating. Unfortunately the area was out of premium grade gas and so I had to use low grade gas. Apparently my request for gas companies to come out with new flavors did not get taken up and instead of cherry bubblegum I was back to low grade gasoline taste which I have been burping up ever since.

Russ and Don also got started on the building project but when you also have to taxi everyone everywhere, both our team and the Romanians, the work was constantly halted. This is the one area we have significantly under estimated for the last two years. There really is a need for a building team to be solely dedicated to building.

After VBS it was regrouping in Pucioasa for lunch before heading over to an old people’s home to hand out quilts. The ladies and gentlemen in the home absolutely loved the quilts and you could tell thoroughly enjoyed having us visit and sing songs. These are the kind of experiences that make Mission trips so rewarding.

Tomorrow we will be doing an afternoon VBS in Vulcana Bai and so we also went over to Vulcana Bai today to hand out flyers for theVBS. At one house there were two chihuahua-sized dogs in the garden.

Savannah accidentally pushed the gate and it opened and the two dogs ran out. Kayla let out a scream that sounded as if she was being mauled by two dogs that were Pitbull Rottweiler mixes. It was quite a sight to see Kayla running away screaming with two tiny dogs looking at her from their drive way.

Tonight we split up as a team again. One part of the team went to the second and last

night of the women’s conference. The other part of the team went to have a BBQ at the church. The women’s conference had 40 women turn up tonight and was again received so well by the Romanian ladies. The men on the other hand ate a pretty much all meat BBQ and then spent a bunch of time shooting balloons with a blow dart gun. Florin was like a kid a Christmas as he set up different targets including a moving target. The thing was that he was a great shot and was hitting everything.

Now if I give you these two scenarios:

1. Put on a skirt and go and meet with all women and after, go and look at wedding dresses, or
2. Have a meat BBQ and shoot balloons with blow darts with all the men.

Which scenario do you think Savannah would choose to go to? Yep - Savannah was at the BBQ arm wrestling the pastors and other Romanian men. That’s my girl!

After the women’s conference I helped Nicu drop off a lady in Varfuri and on the way home Nicu wanted to show me some different neighborhoods. In one section there were a bunch of kids who were playing in the street that Nicu wanted to come to the VBS. Luckily I had my bag of tricks in the car and so for about 20 minutes we did a bit of street ministry. One of the mothers who was rather stand offish at the start was having a hard time explaining how the tricks were done and even resorted to smiling after one.

The end of the day led us back to Vienna to unwind. It might have been because there was no rain today but the bugs came out tonight with a vengeance. Instead of Whack a Mole we were playing Whack a Bug. After about 30 minutes there were hundreds of dead bugs on our table. I think the waitress was a little embarrassed by all of the bugs and so she came and brushed them all into one pile and then proceeded to just brush them into Damien’s lap. I think she was just trying to clear the table but it was kind of humorous to see her just brush them at Damien and continued to do so even when he stood up. Well it was humorous for all of us except Damien.

One of the common occurrences at about this time in the Missions trip is that you start speaking English like a Romanian. “I go shop now, yes” “How you say ...” etc. Sue already has the traces of her New Jersey accent and now she is adding Romanian English or Romanienglish as we like to call it to her repertoire as the bugs “dovebomb” into her drink. The other thing that happens is that a Romanian will translate a Romanian phrase into English but the translation doesn’t quite work out. Someone from our church had sent a gift for Marian and his wife Simona. When I gave the gift to him he asked me to tell the person that he would pray that this person “would see the face of God”. Now there are two alternatives to this. First, it was a phrase that translated badly or second Marian wasn’t very impressed with the gift and he wanted the person to die and so he prayed that the person would see God’s face which in the Old Testament says would take that person’s life. Let’s just hope it was the first of these options.

Little by little you can see people feeling the affects of tiredness so please pray for continued strength and vitality as we finish up the last two days of VBS.

Matthew 18: 3-4 "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”