CROQUET ANYONE?

Just for the fun of it, I sent a croquet set to Romania last week. I have a feeling this will be the Livada kids' first adventure with the fun game of croquet. It's a shame that the cost of shipping things is so prohibitive! There are so many fun things they would enjoy. They also recently received bikes, so I have a feeling maybe they will be more enthralled with their bikes right now -- but they'll get to the croquet eventually. It has always reminded me of miniature golf. I sure hope they enjoy it.

Anca is translating some books called character books. Each one has a short story about topics that will be very helpful to the kids -- topics such as courage, kindness, honesty, etc. There are SO many fun possibilities for things that will be of help to the kids as they go about learning "life lessons".

For some fun pictures showing both the Casa Nadia and the Casa Ana kids on vacation at the Black Sea, go to the blogs at www.khornsby.blogspot.com and www.acrownofbeauty.blogspot.com Some of the pictures are so fun you just can't help but smile and laugh right out loud!

CLOTHING ARRIVED ! HOORAY!

Received the good news yesterday that the 20 boxes of clothing (more than 600 pounds!) that were donated by my church, co-workers, and friends have arrived safely to Targu Mures, Romania. Seems hard to believe that the ocean shipment takes 8-10 weeks, but that's how it is. My other fear was that the clothing would be WAY too big -- as I'm sure some of it was. I do think somehow that we Americans are just slightly larger than the Romanians are! Anyway, I am grateful to so many people for having donated clothing and to Anca for having done all the work of laundering and neatly folding more than 150 pounds of baby clothing! What a job! I pray that the clothing will be a blessing to the abandoned babies and to the kids at Casa Rebeca, Casa Ana, and Casa Nadia. Some of the larger sizes will be distributed to the teens that are in Livada Orphan Care's care in the mentor apartments.

Thanks everybody!

SAD STORY

Had to add one quick sad story that I found out about last week. One of the little boys at Ludus Hospital fell to his death from an open window from the 3rd (?) floor. Apparently there were some wedding festivities outside, and being an inquisitive 4 year old as he was, he climbed up on a chair that had been left near an open window and fell out. He lived for an hour or so after the fall, but then passed away. Poor little guy. His name was Vasile, or (his nickname) "The Boss". He was the oldest of the kids being kept at this babies' ward, so he was pretty bossy with the other kids -- hence the nickname! I know accidents do happen, but also the ladies responsible for the care of these kids are pretty negligent. This happened on July 1st. I'm sure Vasile is in heaven, and I hope that God can bring some good out of this tragedy!

F.A.Q.s

Quite a few people have asked me the same questions about my trip since I've been back, so I thought I would put a F.A.Q. section. Here goes: 1) Would you go back to Romania again? I would go back in a heartbeat! I loved it!
2) What was your favorite part of the trip? It's hard to pick just one particular thing, but I loved meeting the kids that I sponsor (Adi and Simona) through Livada Orphan Care. That was one of the main reasons I went, and that was definitely a highlight! I enjoyed interacting with the abandoned babies too.
3) Would this be a good possibility for a church mission trip? I think it would be a great opportunity to introduce some different people to the joys of a mission trip. We mainly offer medical and construction trips through my church, and I think a trip to work with the abandoned babies would appeal to a totally different group of people. This is not something that Livada is currently doing, but I hope it might become an option in the future. I could see doing that plus spending time at the Livada houses (Casa Nadia, Casa Ana, Casa Rebeca) as a fun mission trip.
4) What did you think of the sightseeing? Wow! There is some genuine first class sightseeing in Romania. I would definitely go back to Peles Castle in Sinaia, and I would love to go to Sighisoara again. Besides these places, there are painted monasteries, and I would hope to see Bucharest some day too. Romania is very unique that in spite of being the size of the state of Pennsylvania, I believe it has 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites, which is really a lot. One drawback is that they don't really seem to be set up for easily offering day tours. I was hoping to be able to do something like a Grayline tour, but that didn't seem to be available. Maybe I was just not finding it!
5) How did you find the prices? The prices for different things such as hotel, cabs, food, and internet were very reasonable.The biggest expense of the trip was the plane fare.
6) What did you think of the food? Romania is a meat and potatoes kind of place to me. I thought the food was exceptional. The meat of choice seems to be pork, but there were plenty of other things to be had. There were lots of salads, veggies, soups, and for the less adventuresome there's always pizza and McDonald's.
7) Did you have any language difficulties? As always, you have a much more interesting experience when you can speak the language (sounds like a former foreign language teacher, right?), but there was always someone around who spoke English. The young people learn English in school, and most of them seemed to be able to speak and/or understand English fairly well. A few phrases and knowing the numbers always seems like a good idea. A couple times I tried Spanish or Italian and that helped a little!
8) When you refer to the place where you visited with the babies, you have referred to it as "babies' hospital", "babies' home", etc. What exactly is this place? I probably should not call it either one of these terms. It is the upper floor of a regular hospital. Since it is illegal to put a child under the age of 2 years in an orphanage, they have to put the abandoned babies somewhere, so they put them in a hospital. They're in a bit of a "pickle" though, because I don't know what they'll do with these kids. The idea is that they are hoping for domestic adoptions, since international adoptions are banned and they are supposed to be trying to close the orphanages down, not put more kids in them. So where these kids are supposed to go is beyond me. Already there are several kids there who are almost 3 years old, and there is a 4 year old in a crib that is showing the signs of minimal interaction with other people...You are probably thinking that this doesn't make much sense, and you're right! I have no idea what the solution is, but I think the first thing they have to do is make it a criminal act to abandon a baby, if they haven't already done so.

FLYING HOME -- LA REVEDERE ROMANIA

So here it was May 22nd and time to go home already. That time sure did go fast! Left my hotel in Cluj VERY early to get to the airport for my 7 a.m. flight -- do NOT picture O'Hare. There were 2 departure gates. And in case you find yourself in the Cluj airport -- there's no food to purchase, just so you know. Didn't feel like eating so early anyway. So we boarded our prop plane for the Cluj to Milan flight. I'm still trying to understand why it takes so long to go such a short distance. Two and a half hours?! These planes are safer than they look, but many people had very reluctant looking faces. Or maybe they were more afraid of the Tarom flight attendants. They are pretty scary looking too! They still think it's the Communist days, and their service (or lack thereof) was really dreadful. Also towards the end of the flight, I think one of them was in the bathroom smoking which I thought was pretty interesting -- considering they're the ones that are supposed to keep us from smoking! But then I guess smoking is a Romanian hobby! Not much time between planes in Milan, so on to the Alitalia 9 hour flight. Some day I want to fly 1st class!!!...Immigration and customs very crowded at O'Hare. Plus when they saw I'd been to Romania, I had to go through the U.S. Agriculture line. My guess was that it had to do with the bird flu!...I'm glad to put my feet on the ground! My mom and sister were there to meet me. Thank you God for giving me this vacation and for bringing me safely home.

SIGHTSEEING IN CLUJ

Sunday (May 21) I spent the better part of the day walking around Cluj and enjoying the sights. I wandered into an incredibly beautiful Catholic Church called St. Michael's. Mass was in progress, and it was so peaceful and the singing was so beautiful that I stayed until the Mass ended...Down the street the Orthodox Church was so full that not everyone could get in, and the service was piped to the outside so everyone standing outside could hear. Did some window shopping, had a little lunch, and took quite a few pictures. Most interesting statue was of a Hungarian king where the word "Hungarian" was removed. There's a bit of tension between the Hungarians and Romanians. Nothing terrible but just a subtle thing. Too complicated to go into here, but nonetheless it was very obvious that the word had been removed from this statue...Cluj definitely doesn't have the smaller town atmosphere of Targu Mures, but it seems like a nice city with a lot of cool cultural things to do.

GOOD BYE TO TARGU MURES--HELLO CLUJ!

All good things must come to an end, and it was hard to believe that the week flew by so quickly. Saturday is just kind of a blur -- went to Anca's mom's work and she gave me a wonderful facial. What a treat! Went by their apt. and had a lunch before we were off and on the way to Cluj. I had originally hoped to be able to spend some time with some Habitat for Humanity people who are working in Cluj, but things didn't work out. I was pretty tired from our long day Friday and didn't do too much for the rest of the day.

BIRD FLU?

One quick digression -- on the way back to Targu Mures from Sinaia, after we got beyond Brasov, there was a place where we had to slow down to about 5 miles per hour so they could spray something on our car that will supposedly help combat bird flu. They sprayed the tires. We also drove over some big thing that looked like a piece of fabric and was soaked with something. The bird flu is in the news a lot there right now, and I think there were some cases reported near Brasov...I don't think I have any strange disease yet. At least not that I'm aware of!

VILLA HELVETIA

So after talking with the girls while they messed around with their hair, we were off to the restaurant Villa Helvetia. For some reason I was thinking it was a casual place, but it was actually rather fancy with beautiful tablecloths and tableware. They have quite an extensive menu. Bethany and Jannes had big beautiful salads, and I had four cheese pasta that was really great. So I had three restaurants in mind that I wanted to try while in Romania, and I was able to make it to all three -- China Blue, Pizza Mix, and Villa Helvetia. All three were great and reasonably priced.

GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS!

On returning to Targu Mures after our long day, we stopped at Bethany and Angela's apt. for a minute. We had the pleasure of finding Simona, Maria, and Elis coloring their hair. They were SO funny and just being typical teenage girls. And you could just sense what a great relationship they have with Angela. Simona is such a sweetheart and was hugging and kissing me and pinching my cheeks. These three girls are just blossoming under the care of Livada. I hope they realize how blessed and how fortunate they are.

SIGHISOARA IS NEXT!

You would think after the long drive to Sinaia we would head straight back to Targu Mures. But wait! First a quick stop in Sighisoara. It was getting pretty late by the time we got to Sighisoara, but we made a gallant effort to do some (uphill) walking and checked out the clock tower. I have to check my guidebook, but I think most of the stuff in Sighi is from the 16th century. It also attracts a lot of Dracula fans, as it is the birthplace of the Vlad Tepes, whom I believe is the real Dracula.

Anyway, we did Sighisoara in 45 minutes, but I will go back again! I'm not sure that this is the kind of place where you would spend 2 or 3 days, but it is definitely worthy of at least a day visit. There were some interesting looking little shops, and I think there is an open air market one or two days a week.

Thank you to Jannes and Bethany for making the effort to stop when we were all very tired!

GOING TO SINAIA

Next thing Friday -- After picking up a few things to snack on (well, maybe more than a few! :-) ), we were headed off to Sinaia to see Peles Castle. What a treat to have the opportunity to do this! I would never be able to do something like this myself, but thanks to the kind invitation of Bethany and the expert driving of a Dutch friend (Jannes), we were off and running! Sinaia is approx. a 3 hour drive from Targu Mures, if I remember correctly. Oh and what a drive! I was sitting in the back seat occasionally doing some of my own braking, and I think I only screamed once. Almost the entire way is a two lane road with traffic coming directly at you whenever you pass. The only really scary part is through the mountains where it is nothing but one hairpin turn after another. Whew! I've always been very thankful that I don't get motion sickness, and I was especially thankful this time that I don't!...After much driving, we arrived only to find that we were a few minutes too late to get into the Castle. As luck would have it, a very nice security guard gave us a private tour of the outer grounds but could not allow us into the Castle. The good side of this is that I will now definitely have an excuse to go back again! Seriously though, what a beautiful, peaceful place. And the setting is incredible. I'm not sure that I realized previously that Romania had a King and Queen. So we know their King and Queen definitely had good taste when they built this place!

I really enjoyed this and hope I will see the inside on a future visit...Time to head back to Targu Mures. What a nice day though to see some of the most beautiful scenery in Romania. Also had a chance to see some of Brasov.