If you’re reading this it’s too late…for a title

Sup dudes, aka hello fellow comrads and aquaintences, Tree and Noah here to give you the low down on the latest throwdowns (don’t worry there weren’t actually any throwdowns, we just wanted to rhyme) 😛 (tongue out emoji). Friday meant the end of camp, but not the end of all of the friendships we had formed. Faces beamed as pictures were taken left and right, topped off with a huge group picture. It was another round of who wore it best as all 90 of us somehow happened to be wearing the same camp shirt. Funny how things like that happen.
The bus came when it wanted, giving us an extra 2 hours to enjoy the beautiful scenery and presence of our new and dear friends. A bus ride filled with 80s music, camp songs, round after round of “who high-fived me?”, and when possible, sleep entailed, closing the door on camp 2017 🙁 (frowny face emoji) We arrived back at what now feels like home at 7, completing a quality 6 hour travel day that was thankfully accompanied by air conditioning. We ended our night with a final game of mafia and then welcomed the embrace of our beautiful friend, sleep.
Today began at 9 when we made our way to a local market to explore hidden treasures of Romanian. The market was alive with the cry of birds, the sound of bartering, and broken Romanian as the 20 of us tried to figure out how much a wooden spoon with a crying laughing face emoji would cost. There were many impulse buys as bags filled with spoons, mugs, and chicken shaped pitchers. Our pools of sweat turned to actual pools when we ventured to Aqua Plus, a facility with pools upon pools that provided much needed cooling in the brutal heat. Living up to our Americanness we got yelled at for being too loud, which was justified as none of us had ever seen Pat get her hair wet by choice before. It was truly a “lit,” as the young ones say, game of Marco Polo. It even made a Romanian spectator so entertained he had to run over to his wife and explain our game, so we clearly must’ve been really fun to watch.
Our day ended on a high note when we met with the campers for a reunion in Romanescu Park, a beautiful space boasting a zoo, row boats for rental that we took full advantage of (which included getting soaked by the fountain), and a lot of neature (neat nature). We shared laughs over stories from camp and tried to capture a fraction of the joy we had the past week with as many pictures as possible. As the sky faded to black we put the bookmark in all of our new friendships, saying goodbyes with the hope we would pick up the conversations in the future.
And with that we SHOUT OUT
To Katrina for letting me write this while she was a team player and folded team laundry. To Sammy: Lavi and Cabs helped free my legs of some excess hair today… Noah I’m missing my fill-in older brother, its not the same having other people constantly making fun of me… Katrina Ali: oita, among others, misses you, but she has nothing on how much I miss random mosquito bites My (Noah’s) Fam: I love you guys lots Brian wreck-those-socks: this is a little late but: you got me good. I was shook To Halle B: hilarious. To Raymond: I wore a tank top today and tried to keep my arms down. – Dan To Ben and Jenna: Your friends say hi. To Jenna: I hope you’re having fun at Kernel. To Mom and Dr Anderson: thanks for the bird update, you better take some pictures for me. I saw a cool Romanian hawk today. To Rose: the 80s jam sesh was, well, jamming. It would’ve made you smile (or something like that but we forgot exactly what Marilyn told us to type… awkward giraffe)

13 thoughts on “If you’re reading this it’s too late…for a title

  1. Two blogpost in the same day! Yay!!! We will be praying for solid moments of sleep as you take the long midnight train to Budapest! Continue making each other smile and making fun memories! Can’t wait to hear about how God used each of you on this trip and how God changed you!

    Hug Morgan P. for us!
    Love–Mom

  2. Sounds like you’ve fot 4 weeks of fun and adventure into just 10 days! I can only imagine the fun game of Marco polo in the pool and the fun time exploring the marketplace! We miss you Mattea. Your brothers need some older sister bossing around!!!!

  3. YESSSSSS! Thanks for filling us in! Praying for your last day in RO and for good processing and conversation while debriefing (oh and a train ride with AC…) Love you mucho!!!

    • I often don’t know what I’m doing, but when you’re around, I’m at least having fun.

      👌😘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

      • Also I’ll ignore the fact that you put Sammy’s shout out before mine….

  4. Team– Wow! Sounds like you have been going nonstop. Thanks to all the bloggers for giving up some precious sleep to keep all of us up to date.
    I hope the next couple days provide some amazing opportunities to reflect on everything you’ve experienced together, and individually…the fun and light-hearted moments and the challenging and heavy-hearted ones. I’m sure each of you has been touched by this experience in different and lasting ways. I look forward to hearing about some of those moments when you return.

    Embrace these last days. Praying for all of you.

    Noah–We are definitely ready for you to come home! Al is some kind of only child! 😜 Love ya! ❤️

  5. Thanks to all of you for bringing all of us along through your posts. They’ve been fun reads and a great encouragement to us back home. As I read your posts about leaving camp I thought you might be able to relate to something Paul said as he maintained his long distance relationships with some former campers:

    “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” 2 Corinthians 3:2-3.

    The Romanian campers are your letter to Romania. You are their letter back to us. You have been written onto each others hearts by the Spirit. Take comfort that what is written by the Spirit is eternal.

    P.S. Thanks for being our letter.
    P.P.S. Bria, you need to come home. Dobbie the cat misses his Mama and is driving us all crazy as he tries to fill the void.
    P.P.P.S. None of us deserve Pat and Larry Brady. Their commitment and leadership to this project are astonishing.
    P.P.P.S. What’s wrong with 80’s music?

  6. Hey Eden. hope you’re feeling better!! I can’t wait to see you briefly on wednesday and hear all about your adventures, and then sadly see you off to Korea. I am so jealous of your super eventful and ambitious summer but admire your ability to make it all work like you always do. have a lovely debrief in Hungary!

  7. Miss you, Noah!! Continue the journey, creating memories and look forward to seeing you when you arrive back in Wisconsin!! Love, Gma Judy

  8. The thing that stood out to me – besides the 80s music – was the word “relationships.”

    Lots of power in that.

    Cool post. Thanks peeps!

    Process deeply and travel well!

  9. (From leah) Hey Hannah, the Pennsylvania family made it here safely and everyone is missing you! We have been puzzling, eating good food, getting all the ladies on the sofa, and playing a new version of Crossbows and Catapults where we try to catapult the pieces into uncle Matt’s mouth (which we succeded). Tomorrow we are going to the Neil’s for some pool time and a grill out, and then on Tuesday we are having Papa’s 70th birthday celebration. Luckily you won’t miss the girl’s night & sleepover on Thursday. Hopefully you will make it through even with your jet lag 😉 We are all praying for a safe return for your team and we can’t wait to see you!

    (From dad) Love you so much, can’t wait to see you! We rented out your room, but it’s to pay for your college so…

    (From Nana) Missing you! But we saved you some dessert 🙂

  10. HANNAH ITS NATIONAL SISTERS DAY AND WE ARE APART 😦 So happy national sisters day

  11. Team-Safe travels and hope you get some rest from what sounds like an exhausting & life changing time in Romania.
    Athena-Saw Uncle Jason & Aunt Julie. Not to worry we have not touched the Singaporean food treats they gave you.:)

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