Scotland trip May 2010

At the end of April, I took my 5 American missionary friends to visit Scotland for 4 days. We had a great time visiting Edinburgh and the Castle, buying Scottish souvenirs in the Royal mile, taking the Glasgow City Bus Tour (the first time for me – I learned a lot too), shopping in Argyle Street and a day trip to Loch Lomond and Inverary Castle. The Americans even learned some new Scottish vocabulary and apparently, Glaswegian is more difficult to learn than Romanian!! Lots of fun, fellowship and food with these friends and some in my church, who very kindly showed us true Scottish hospitality. Thank you all for a wonderful trip.

reward trips

This Month we took some of our kids at the Orphanage on special reward trips. The first trip was for the “little monkeys” music class. We took them to a puppet show of “Pinocchio”. Along with the puppets, grown up actors and actresses, danced and sang, bringing the story to life. The kids were spellbound. Afterwards we took those kids and the kids who had earned all their points in class to Macdonalds for lunch and then to the park. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was amazing to see some of the smaller kids who were scared to cross the rope bridge even with help at the start of the visit, confidently run across it by themselves by the end of the trip. Later on in the month, we took the kids in the Art class to visit Cotroceni Palace and Museum. This is the residence of Romania’s President. We had a guided tour and the children were really interested in what they saw and heard even asking the guide questions. After the tour we had a picnic lunch at the Botanical Gardens. They children took great delight in feeding the fish there, I am just glad they didn’t fall in!!

Special days during Easter Holidays

During the Easter week holiday, we had special classes / projects for the orphanage kids at the Girls Transition House. We took the kids involved in the music classes on Monday and Tuesday mornings. With the older kids we did a project on music which tells a story and with the younger kids, we did a project on the Carnival of the Animals and then took them to the Zoo on the Wednesday afternoon. They had such fun chasing the tiger (the tiger was inside the cage and the kids outside!), squealing at the snakes and teasing the monkeys. I was led by “my little Alina”, between the reptiles and the tropical fish over and over again, each time as if it was her first time seeing them. She was so excited, she couldn’t take it all in. The trip was finished off with some ice cream!

Easter

Last week was Easter in Romania. After church on the Sunday, most of the graduates, our current girls, a small team from America and the Heart to Heart staff celebrated at the Team House. We had a meal together and an Easter egg hunt in the garden of the Team House. On Easter morning before church, the staff hid loads of eggs, some painted, real eggs, some small plastic ones filled fill sweets and some small plastic ones filled with tasks which, if completed they would receive points for. The points could be redeemed at the “h2h store” for items such as bedding, toiletries etc. These graduates are in their 20’s and a few even early 30’s, although you would have though they were teenagers. The competition was so strong and the cheating, well……. I have to say as they returned the real eggs to me – I went around hiding them again!!

New Director

Since returning to Romania after my furlough, our prayers have been answered, in that the old Director of the orphanage has been removed and we have a new man who really wants the best for the kids. He has already made a lot of changes – for the better. The kids really like and respect him and he is very willing to work closely alongside with Heart to Heart. Praise God for this answer to prayer. One of the good things he has done so far, is to celebrate the kids’ birthdays. Every month there will be a celebration, a party with all the kids and staff present and all the kids whose birthday is that month will get gifts. The first one was last month and all the Heart to Heart staff were invited. We all sang “Happy Birthday” in English and Romanian to the birthday kids, ate lunch, had cake and “hung out” together. It was a lovely day and some of the kids who don’t know when their birthdays are, were given a date on which their birthday will be celebrated. The orphanage now has a much more organised and happy atmosphere.