English camp in Romania

Wow, I can't believe it's been a year since I last wrote about camp.
At the end of June, my friend Katka who was leading an intern team in Romania wrote me if I wanted to come for their last camp. I've always wanted to discover Romania because I'd heard great things about it and so when I got invited to do a camp there, it didn't take much deciding...and it was a good decision.

So we set off with two other girls from Czech, Lucka and Lauree and picked up one more guy, David, in Budapest, since he came from Croatia where he's living for half a year now. He looked very familiar to me and soon we found out that we did a camp together in 04. Funny how some of our ways just cross randomly.

We drove almost all the way across Romania to Galaţi, where we met with Katka's team and the youth we were going to do the camp with. They gave us a quick culture-sensitive course and off we went, another seven hours of driving to the campsite. First cultural note: Romanians are very optimistic, especially on the roads. They see 100km/h where there is 50km/h and three lanes where there are two. Alright then.

I was basically only in charge of games and sports and had no big responsibilities outside of that so I could just enjoy the free time activities like playing Dutch blitz, coming up with skits to introduce the Mexican-American night or playing soccer in pouring rain. Second cultural note: Romanians are super-competitive and they'll play sports in any kind of conditions! I like that.

Wow, I'm still amazed and thankful for all the leaders. I don't think I've ever seen so many diverse people from so many cultures click together like that. It gives me a great hope that when people come together with a heart to serve, it will work no matter if they knew each other or not. The atmosphere was just very friendly from the very beginning and stayed smooth all throughout. Third cultural note: Romanians are generally very humble and they will share their best with you.

It was such a great experience to do what I've been doing in my country somewhere like Romania. The students were all so open and friendly, I feel like I have sixty new friends there.

It's always encouraging to see what ministries are going on in different parts of the world. Thanks Romania, I hope our paths haven't crossed for the last time.

Praying for you guys in Galaţi that you can continue the work that was hopefully started at this camp.


on the way back, we stopped in Budapest...wandered around till morning