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.”

Day 7 – Church on Wednesday (like most normal churches)

Day 7 – Church on Wednesday (like most normal churches)

I am not sure whether we had another mosquito in the room last night or whether the mosquito bites that had been inflicted on me the night before were just coming out. At the latest count I have 36 on one arm and 11 on the other. As least I know I will be leaving a part of me here when I go home.
Today the roving team headed back out to Varfur. There were 31 kids and a couple more mums. In speaking to Niku this is a village that is ready for an evangelical. He was so uplifted to see the response from the village towards the VBS and not only that, the mayor of the town seems to be open to having Niku start a church there.
Again in typical fashion the plans change on the fly. Our time in Vulcana Bai on Thursday is only supposed to be from 10 a.m. to noon, not 2:30 p.m. and so Niku me if we could go back out to Varfur on Thursday afternoon. I let Niku know that the VBS material would be finished today but I could go out and do a series of object lessons for them. In the end as I started to prepare a 2 hour program Niku changed his mind. In a way I would love to have gone back out because the instant interest from this area is something that needs to be grasped to.
In the afternoon we had some free time except for the fact that nothing had been communicated to the people in Vulcana Bai about the VBS tomorrow and so a team of people went there to hand out flyers. Barbara and I got to accompany Alex to Targoviste and while there he took the time to take us to a couple of places. First, we went to the old fortress which was in ruins but was being rebuilt. The only thing open to the public was the tower and in that we learned some of the history of Romania and of Targoviste. Romania used to be a country made up of three regions all ruled by a prince. Then about 400 years ago it was united under some man named Mihai who has his head buried in Targoviste. I am not sure what happened to the rest of the body but they only seem to care about where his head was buried. The capital was moved from Targoviste to Bucharest and remained a monarchy until the end of World War II. Sometime during this period is when Vlad Tepes ruled as one of the regional leaders in Targoviste. His name Tepes means “stake” and because of his father being called Dracul, Vlad Tepes became known as Count Dracula. He lived upto his name by putting a stake through people. At the end of World War ii the Russians came in and installed a new ruler who was a communist. They took the wealth from the rich and gave it out. Despite everyone having a job and being able to have the essentials in life they could not handle the lack of freedom that existed under the communists. Eventually in 1989 the communist leader of Romania was killed in Targoviste.
The strange thing about the ruins was that the wall had been built up and then inside these walls a number of ruins had been uncovered and the buildings were being rebuilt. However, the tower was rebuilt but on top of the site where the church used to be. The church was being built somewhere else. So essentially they were building a series of new buildings to cover up the ruins.
Second, we went to visit an area in old Targoviste which has been re-done to create a shopping/restaurant area only open to pedestrians. I was actually very nice so we sat down to have a coffee. And then the rains came in. So we jumped into another café and had another coffee. I told Alex if we kept doing that we would be wired for church. It did stop and we returned to Puciosa for evening Church.
At church I started to get some of the emotions of this trip as I realized we only had one more day in Puciosa. This trip again has been a blessing to me and it is hard to think it almost done for another year. Niku had asked all of the VBS kids to bring their parents to the church for the service and had promised I would do fire eating (not inside during the service but afterwards outside. This was going to be the 3nd time for me to eat fire. In Varfur I did the fire eating and was rather challenged with the wind. I only singed one side of my beard. Then in Puciosa after the service I did the fire eating. At one point I push one of the burning rods on to my tongue which lights my tongue on fire so I can light the other rod. Unfortunately I did not have enough liquid on it and I had to push down very hard to have the flame burn on my tongue. It never is a good feeling when you take a fire and push it onto your tongue but I got through it.
Tonight Barbara and I and Russ and Tiffany went over to Solomon’s house and met his family. It is very strange to see a family over here all with strong Christian values and all getting along together . Solomon is one of 11 children of which one died at birth and the eldest died from leukemia 10 years ago. As Solomon talked about this brother who was about to die when Solomon asked him to teach him music, you could see the tears in his eyes. This was how Solomon got the passion for music but also the heart for Jesus. After eating, Solomon introduced his mother. With Solomon on the accordion and the mother either singing or playing the harmonica and the rest of the family singing, we were serenaded by them. Folks, I think we have found the Romanian equivalent of the Parkin family.
Philippians 3:13-14 – “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”