Sup America!

Aight, here we go, your home puppies (Sarah, Sami, Abby and Ali) giving you the 411 on current Craiovan affairs. Looking back, a lot has happened in the past 24 hours, including major struggles in the technological area. Our efforts to provide you with an entertaining video have fallen short. Sorry guys, but on the plus side, Betty (our host sister) has Sami’s entire camera roll on her computer. So without further ado we present you with Craiova on August first, 2014.

Sami Z here- how’s it going Wisconsin? So our wonderful Friday in Romania started with a spontaneous trip to the post office, just a few blocks down the street from our apartment. Addresses in hand, we were pretty pumped to send out some postcards to friends and family. To our dismay, they were all out of postcards, so instead we took a group pic and headed over to Daniel’s for breakfast (cereal accompanied by bread, peanut butter, cheese, homemade jams, and plenty of tomatoes and cucumbers). Then we started preparing for the coffeehouse planned later in the evening. In a mad rush to practice worship and talent show acts and get together all of our supplies, I found time to hangout with my pals Kitty and George (the Vieru hamster—not quite sure of the name so I just went ahead and called him George). Despite the time crunch, everything came together quite nicely and it was a fantastic evening. I really enjoyed reconnecting with campers from last year and, most of all, Elvis’s singing. He’s going places, I tell you. We played plenty of games, had a photobooth—which the Romanians absolutely adore–sang some songs, and consumed one too many biscuits. We finished the night off with (a lot of) shoarma, and it was a favorite among most. So much love came out of that day and just an overall excitement for camp on Monday. While reading Proverbs 2, I started thinking a bit more about how this trip has/is impacting my heart and what wisdom I can pull from this amazing experience. Going on this trip a second time, I find that I can focus more on reflecting on the trip and the things that God is revealing to me rather than spending a large portion of my energy on experiencing everything for the first time. It’s extremely exciting and I can’t wait to see what God shows me. We’re all thinking of you and hope everything is great back home!

Sarah Z tapping in where Sami Z tapped out. My day closely followed the picture Sami painted for you folks, but whereas she spent some quality time with George, Trent and I ventured into the City Center on a quest for a ukulele and harmonica so we could do a lil something something for the talent show at the coffeehouse. The City Center is exactly what it sounds like – the urban center of this stellar city Craiova. Although I had an idea of the local life earlier due to our spontaneous post office run, I was able to better grasp the dynamics between Romanians as we searched for an adequate music shop. The people were pretty observant of us – despite attempts to play it cool the Romanians could obviously tell we are foreigners. (The Wisconsin accents are in full affect and stick out like a sore thumb, I assure you.) After the musical quest was conquered, we took a taxi to the coffeehouse for our second meeting with the orphans. It was such a precious time. I sat between two orphans – Leilea and Marianna, some RAD ladies let me tell you. The entire evening they were so considerate and deliberately went out of their way to serve me. It was tremendously humbling. Something that really stood out was the moment my cup began to get low, they would immediately fill it back up. Between the laughs and broken conversations we shared, my cup was consistently being refilled. As they filled my cup, the Psalm came to mind, “My cup overflows with blessings.” I feel so humbled by the love these people are showing us. This entire trip is overflowing with blessings.

Ali here! My day started the same as my roomies, post office, devos, lunch (Lief started a sneaky food fight with Toni which may or may not have spread a little bit… only peas and tiny bread balls though so not much food was wasted) and then the coffee house craziness began. Everybody split to do their own thing and I ended up in the car headed to run back to host homes to grab things previously forgotten (in my defense, I didn’t know the coffeehouse was that night or that the projector in my room would be needed). When we got back to the Ethos neighborhood, everybody was running around doing their thing so I got to sit and help balance sound during the worship practice, a way to help without getting too much in the way. I had helped plan the games for that night, but besides that I didn’t know what to expect at the coffee house. When the taxi pulled up at the restaurant, there were already some campers waiting. We walked through a courtyard and entered a nice room filled with tables and a front space that would be our stage. The welcoming team for the night set up a photo booth, and after all of the Romanians got their nametags everybody was over getting their pictures taken. It didn’t matter who you were or who you knew, everybody was grabbing people for pictures and randomly putting props on/around others. The moment one picture was done people were being pulled into the next one. It was such a cool way to bond and there was such a positive energy. When we were told we had to stop taking pictures everybody was upset, but the games that followed made up for it and helped us bond even more. After that was the “talent show” which included Alistair singing in Romanian and ended in everybody dancing the Macarena. The worship team then led some songs and we ended with last year’s camp theme song, which got everybody fully involved singing and dancing. As some of our teammates packed everything up I got the chance to hear Elvis’s singing in English (one of the campers) and to meet Costi. It was a really cool experience for all of us and we all bonded really well. After that we went to dinner and back to our host homes for some much needed rest (and maybe some candy too).

More pics to come!

Much love from Abby, Ali, Sami and Sarah

Shout out to MVP and Katherine for being awesome and Mad-town, nobody could ever replace you as a roommate, but we have had a ton of fun in our host home. I love you both and can’t wait to see you when we get back!

Shout out to the birthday boy Trent! Happy birthday dude!

Shout out to Ben for rockin’ that Hawaiian shirt today!

S/O to my (Sami’s) dog Boo, you rock that cone of shame.

Another S/O to everyone back home praying and thinking of us (and being so patient with our very delayed blog post).