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