IT'S CHRISTMAS! Time for parties, celebrations and concerts!! That has certainly been the case here in Romania, the kids have been having fun making santa beards from cream and puffs, playing games, learning about the real meaning of Christmas and eating sweets etc.
It was also fun to see the excitement from the kids as they performed for the first time at the school celebration. They were so nervous and were really serious and took great pride in giving their best performance. I am so proud of them all.

More Music Fun

We are now into our 6th week of the music programme in our new orphanage. Here is an update in pictures.

Musical statues!

Beginning to sound and look like a choir

Learning about rhythm

Learning about musical instruments

Learning about percussion instruments

Practicing handbells for our Christmas performance.

After the first few weeks of instrumental lessons, we finally started the band this week. The kids were all so excited and turned up early to set up and begin. It’s early days, but I’m sure that the band will be ready to make their debut performance at Christmas.

Sleepover

Last Friday some of our girls graduates came to the teamhouse for a sleepover. After wonderful Lasagne and rather interesting looking popcorn balls, we had fun together plucking eyebrows, doing nails, getting new clothes from "The Pipera Store" playing bunco and watching a film. Great times!

New Shoes

As the weather changes here in Romania, it is time to bring out the warmer clothing and indeed shoes. In our last team, there was a young boy (himself adopted from Romania, although now living in America), who raised over $5000 to buy shoes for some of the orphans in Romania. This team and staff visited several orphanages we work in here in Bucharest and in other parts of Romania to deliver shoes to around 300 orphans. It was fun to see their reactions while trying on different styles. Thanks team and in particular Andrei!

Music Fun

It's that time of year again. Our programmes have started at the orphanages. This year we have added a band programme to our already exisiting music programme at one orphanage and have started a music programme at a second orphanage. It is so amazing to see the kids enthusiasm and progress and how seriously they have taken learning music so far. I cant wait to see how much they progress this year.

Holiday in Australia

After the fun and craziness of summer camps, came holiday time. I headed for the cooler weather of “winter” in Sydney, (a welcome change to the heat and humidity of Romania), to visit my brother and family, who I haven’t seen for 3 and a half years. I spent the first week with them on my own and was joined the following week by my parents. After nearly 30 hours travelling and 4 countries later, (ie. Romania, England, Singapore, Australia), I finally landed in Sydney. My three beautiful nieces were in bed when I arrived but the two older girls had managed to stay awake to say hello to me. I had fun getting to know them better and catching up with my sister in laws family and some of her friends, who I have come to know from my previous visits there. I have many great memories, especially of the funny things that the girls said and the things we did together. It was a long journey for such a short time but worth every minute. I miss them and love them all so much.

Summer Camps

We have just finished a full summer of camps for 140 children from 5 different orphanages. Each camp was specifically designed for a particular age group and had a theme, “Under the Sea”, “The Circus”, “Animals” and “International”. The kids had so much fun playing water games, doing crafts, playing on the zipline, watching skits, making “smores” at the camp fires, sleeping in tents and swimming at the pool party and barbeque on the last day. I loved seeing the change in the kids, from when they first arrived and were a bit shy of the kids they didn’t know from other orphanages to when they left having made new friends.

Boys camp

This week 11 boys from 3 orphanages met the challenge of hiking in the Carpathian Mountains. There was great excitement as I picked up the boys from Rosiori de Vede and Alexandria at the metro station. They soon had everything packed and were on the way to Snagov to practice putting up tents and getting all the information they needed for their trip. The trip itself was a great success, the weather was a little chilly but it only rained once and the boys got to experience the beautiful scenery of Romania and God’s creation. Like the girls camp, they had a scavenger hunt and other fun activities in between many meaningful conversations and one boy (that we know of) made a commitment to the Lord. On Saturday Jen and I drove to Sinaia to collect them. I was expecting them to be tired and quiet – Oh No!!! They were so excited and desperate to tell of their adventures. The only complaint was that there was not enough Romanian bread!!! – not an easy find up a mountain!

Girls camp

Over the past 2 weeks, we have held two girl camps at our Girls Transition House. At each camp, the 12 older orphanage girls were divided into small groups of three and together with some of our staff and summer team volunteers were involved in deep discussions about some really important topics. The theme of the camps was the lies that women believe about themselves and how believing in the Truth can set you free. Several of the volunteers and staff shared their testimonies and some of the girls even shared some of their very difficult stories. In between these difficult discussions, many fun activities were planned such as a pool party and barbeque, a scavenger hunt and a day trip to Sinaia in the mountains to visit Peles Castle, the home of King Carol. On the last day of each camp, to make the girls feel special, we had a spa day at which each girl was given make-over, manicure, pedicure, and had their hair styled. They also had a “tea party” with special food and were encouraged to wear the new outfits they had chosen the day before and at the end we had a fashion show, where each girl in turn walked down the catwalk.