A Day in Town

Today, Saturday, we drove down to Lupeni where we had the privilege of sitting in one of the Impact meetings. Because it is summer, many youth were gone with their families on vacation, so we had a smaller group. Bu that didn't stop us! Carol opened with a prayer, translated by one of the Imapct leaders, and dove right in to a game of "Cat and Mouse". Next, we the 12 of us divided into teams - one person on each team was to close their eyes, and let the others tell them how to recreate a diagrahm by using matches. This was a fun, yet stressful game of patience, trust, and communication.

After debriefing this activity as a group, we all read the story "The Three Trees". To jog your memory, this story is about three trees who have big dreams of becoming a treasure chest, and large ship to carry a king, and staying on the mountain top, poining to God. All the trees get cut down, and become less than what they had dreamed. But little did they know, God had different and better plans for them: Though one became a feeding box, he was the manger who held Jesus, the greatest treasure. The second tree became the fishing boat in which Jesus calmed the storm (the greatest King). The third tree laid in a lumber yard, later to be put on a hill, becoming the cross Christ was crucified on. It was very powerful to hear the children talk about this story, and connecting it to their own lives.

After the Impact meeting, we headed over to the Impact building to meet the young ballerinas of Lupeni. Just about a year ago, the first ballet class in the Jui Valley began as an outreach to the community. They are off for the summer, but a few of them were able to come today to meet us and the woman from the states who donated their costumes. During our time of seeing the children dance and learnng more about how the program got started, I was able to teach them a line dance! Nikki and I also demonstrated a faster line dance, as well as swing. I thoroughly enjoyed this time, considering it embraced all my passions into one activity (God, children, and dance)!

We are all having a great time here, being a part of what God is doing in Romania.
Please pray for our teams' health, as some of us have had sore throats and stomach problems.

~ Heather

Crossing Cultures

This last Friday we had the privlage of deeply experiencing the Romanian culture in new ways. Since we had finished with the Impact building, we started our next painting project in one of the apartments that Impact owns for its staff. It was great to be able to see how well established Impact is as an organization. Of course, since the walls of the apartment had been painted several times before, we needed to scrape off the old paint. We spent the morning covered in dust and paint chips. Once we had rinsed off and brushed the dust out of our hair, we sat down for a traditional Romanian meal. Our hosts even prepared the meal using tradional methods. We all enjoyed having a more traditional style meal in comparison to what we have been eating so far in Straja. Some of us were also excited about the fact that this was the first vegetarian meal since we have arrived in Romania. We even enjoyed some homemade ice cream for dessert!

The team then began the task of baking traditional american chocolate chip cookies! In Romania, chocolate chips and brown sugar are non-existent, so we had to bring them over from the US. After having the new experience of baking without measuring cups, using a tiny oven, and not having a temperature gauge in the oven, we were able to make four dozen cookies!

To finish our day, we set out for the newly painted Impact building, where we were having a party to celebrate our different cultures. Our new Romanian friends presented some tradtional clothing, and taught us a few dances that have been passed down from generation to generation. In turn, our team shared our hertiages, and some brief history of the diverse nature of California. Nikki and Heather then demostrated a swing dance, and taught both our groups a line dance, or as we called it, "cowboy dance". After the festivities, we presented our chocolate chip cookies, and they shared with us a delicious apple cake.

It was amazing to see how diverse our two cultures are, and yet how much God is involved in each. We all feel blessed to have been able to share our culture and expereience the wonderful Romanian culture as well.

Impact Painting Project

Wow, lots of amazing things have been going on here in Romania. Sadly we have been too busy to blog about it all! In fact, I am updating this blog on my iPhone! Finally found wifi signal that I could connect to. The end of the Viata camp, was a moving experience for all of us. We had spent the week building relationships with several of the campers and leaders, so it was hard for us to say goodbye to them. However, because this was the week of for kids in the Impact clubs to go on Viata, we have been working with several of the youth again this week. Btw, the Impact clubs are the only clubs were kids can not only hang out, but also learn about doing service. It truly is amazing to see the kids transform not only their lives through the Impact clubs, but also their community. In fact, there are now over 170 Impact clubs worldwide! God is doing incredible things. This past week we have been able to support the Impact program by working with the club members and painting their Impact building. After four days of painting, the Impact building is now one of the most beautiful buildings in all of Lupeni. Working with the local youth has really given us a unique look into Romania. While a lot of the area we are working in is a depressive culture, the Impact kids are a shining light. Once we had finished the painting it was such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment to see what our two cultures can do together when we put on a smile and lots of hard work. I also know that the relationships that we have established will last a life time. Sadly since I am on my iPhone I cannot upload any pictures of the building right now. We thank you all for your prayers and we thank you for all of the support you have given us.

Viata Camp- Low Ropes on Tues/Wed.

Finally arriving at the camp Monday afternoon was amazing. The drive from Bucharest to Straja took about 6 hours, so after arriving and settling in for an hour we went down and joined the rest of the camp for dinner. We met a few leaders, but it wasn't until Tuesday morning where we integrated into our groups, which are listed below:

Group 1 (rainbow)- ages 11-14 with Carol
Group 2 (metallica)- ages 15-16 with Tori & Julia
Group 3(wee wee)- ages 16-17 with Paul & Todd
Group 4 (crazy muffins)- ages 17-18 with Nikki & Heather

After breakfast, we all hiked the 45 minutes up the mountain to the high and low ropes courses. When I say hike, I mean HIKE! The mountains here are nothing like the California hills of Ventura County. Our trails are like a city stroll compared to the Romanian hikes. They are steep and slippery, but the view was breathe taking at the top, and we were all in high spirits! (All the singing really helped- Romanians LOVE to sing!! Yay!) We have been so excited to get here, and finally seeing the mountains and skies of this amazingly beautiful country God has created made this a glorious reality. Sadly though, Todd was unable to make it from being sick, but praise the Lord he was well enough to join his team the next day!! =D Please continue to pray for our health and safety- we are doing well, but every little bit helps...

Once reaching the ropes courses, each group split up on their own schedules between the low and high ropes. Heather and my group started out doing trust falls, or as I like to call them, "trust leans" together on the ground. It was amazing to me to see 17 and 18 year olds be so nervous about leaning against each other and letting someone else hold their weight, even for a moment. In researching Romanian society and hearing about what it was going to be like working at the camp, the lack of trust these amazing kids have, and country as a whole hadn't hit me until this activity. It was amazing to see their growth in just a few hours though! From the "trust leans" we worked our way up through trust falls and various low ropes courses where they learned to rely on teammates for encouragement, strength, and perserverance.

One activity that stood out the most that day was called "Spider web." A 'web' about 5 feet wide and 4 feet tall was woven between 2 trees, and each memeber of the team had to get through one of the holes in the web, but they couldn't touch the rope at all, and you couldn't use the same hole twice. It was amazing to see how each of them figured out as a team who should go over in what order, where each person was going to go through, and how they were to be picked up and put through. Even though we didn't know the language, our team made sure we each felt like part of their team, and they learned to trust us so quickly despite missing the first day, andonly hours before they wouldn't even lean on each other while standing on the ground. God does wonderful work in an instant, and even after the first day of camp, this transformation was easily visual.

That night the camp had a huge bonfire on the mountain, full of more songs, laugher, and learning. Each group hiked back down the mountain without flashlights, so some of the teams were hesitant at first, but it turned out to be the highlight of most our nights. We were all physically exausted, but our ATM's (attitudes) were still high and curious for what the next day would bring.

thank you for your continued support and prayers for our team, and the other IMPACT teams around the world!

Much love,
Nikki Garcia :)

On The Road

We made it! What an adventure it has been too! We started our post-Cross Training journey on Friday, and continued traveling until Monday morning. Since our flight didn't take off until Saturday night, we decided to spend the night bonding as a team by having all of us stay at Carol's house. Thank you to the family and friends who joined us! Good times were had by all. We woke up the next morning fresh and rejuvinated, however we still had six hours or so to kill. So we hit the dollar store to stock up on candy and gifts for our "Secrect Pals." Once we repacked our bags, we were finally off to LAX! :-) God blessed us with the fastest check-in and security check I have ever had for an international flight, so this left us with five hours until our plane boarded. Our group, however, has proved to be most resourceful by the finding of "Travel Twister." Who plays Twister in a terminal?!? Apparently we do!! We were so rediculous and were having so much fun, that a number of people in our terminal took pictures! (will be posted later) :)

The next twenty hours flew by as we flew through the air. When we finally landed in Bucharest, we were blessed with a small rainfall. It felt so good to finally be in the country where God had led us, and outside of a small tin can and under God's wonderful sky. After spending the night in Bucharest, we rented a Maxi Taxi - which is Romania's version of the bus. We had an eye appeasing time viewing the beautiful country in which we will be spending our next few weeks. It feels so good to be in the place where God has called us, and we look forward to seeing all the amazing things He is doing here in Straja and Lupeni!

Blessed by Cross Training

I am truly blessed. God has placed me in a team of incredible people. We spent this past week in training for our time in Romania, and it was full of amazing moments. We cried in each others arms, we conquered old fears, and we laughed until it hurt. We sat and soaked in God's Word as various speakers came to teach us about what it means to follow Christ as servants, learners and storytellers. We climb high among the trees and then jumped down, trusting our lives to our teammates below cheering us on. We worshiped on our knees and poured out ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters. We became a family. However, the journey is not over. It is only beginning. I can't even imagine what God is going to do next.

Here is a few ways you can continue to pray for Team Romania.

The Beginning

Our adventure official starts tomorrow with our cross training at Rancho La Scherpa. Our seven team mimbers include Carol and Todd as our leaders and then Heather, Nicki, Julia, Paul, and me, Tori. Our team plus the other teams traveling to Honduras, Turkey, China, and Uganda will be there as well. We will participate in team building activites such as low and high ropes courses, conflic resolution seminars, culture learining, worship, bible studies, and many more exciting lessons. Stay tuned for the stories of adventures from cross training!

Team Romania