December 17, 2003

(** Denotes something that I have added for clarity **) - mic January 2, 2006

Today is my second day here in Romania, and surprisingly I am adapting pretty well to everything. Scorenicesti was not as bad as I thought. It scared me that there is running water only 4 hours out of the day; 2 at night, 2 in the morning!

I am extremely happy that there was hot water! Hot water is such a luxury, running water is a luxury, and running hot water 24 hours/day is an extreme luxury, but I think I classify that as a need more than a luxury. When there isn't runnint water 24 hours/day life just seems harder because you have one more thing to worry about.

You can't drink the water, and when there is water everything is rushed. After you are done using the water you have to store it in buckets for later use. That was one of the biggest things that hit me yesterday.

Romania is slowly starting to become more like America. In Bucuresti, there were advertisements and huge light displays everywhere! In a sense it looked like a Romanian Times Square. There were also a lot of cars and not that many good streets, thus the city was pretty crowded.

Bucuresti has a distinct smell to it, I can't explain it now, but here in Slatina it smells like burnt wood (**It smells like the "soba (big romanian brick heaters)" **) Another thing about the city is that there is dirt coverything everything. If you wash your car, the next day it will be covered in dirt (it must be from all the factories).

I thank God for all the blessings He has given us. It is simply amazing, things are just more relaxed in America. Coming to Romania I was expecting the worst of the worst, so I am just neutral about everything now. I am trying to be joyous and to be a servant; I just want God to use me as best as He can.

December 27, 2003

I cannot believe the things I have seen today. There are so many orphanages in Romania. It is unbelievable. We went to Caracal at a mentally challenged orphanage. These were kids who had minds of a one year old or two year old and in bodies of ten year olds. They would get happy and scared at the smallest things. One kid coulnt't even eat a mandarin, probably because it was soft and he was scared of it. Another kid that seemed to have a stronger joyous mind, would kiss your hand and then do the motion of the catholic cross. All the kids wanted me to lift them up because they enjoyed it so much.

They also had a maze for the kids. I couldn't believe it because they use mazes for rats. Yet there was one kid that was confused when he got to the part in the maze where he had to chose left or right. He seemed to naturally go left and was very confused. For him it looked like two choices became three, which is the way he came.

Another case was a girl who was not a midget, but had the body of a 4 year old yet was 18 years old! Another kid looked like a lizard almost and was very afraid when someone approached her. There was also a blind kid who just repeated what was said to him. He kept saying "Ciocolata, Napolitana, Cheama-l pe Florin" (translation = Chocolate, Napolitans, call Florin).

The scariest case was seeing the kids with the big heads. I thought it was a joke when I heard that but when I entered the room and saw someone who had a head bigger than a watermelon, I was shocked. I was just amazed. The kid was skin and bones and the head was so big. These kids live to be 5 years old only. Their heads keep growing because the fluids build up. May God have mercy on them. The kids also rocked their heads back and forth because thats all they could do. Once in a while they had to be turned over. There are 9 cases of this in Oltenia. That is so many. It is so horrible, they are like monsters. May Romanians stop going around and sleeping with each other and giving their kids away to orphanages. They are causing horror.

Journal Entries from Scornicesti Trip 2003-2004

In the winter of 2003, Danut and I decided to go on a mission trip to Romania for the winter. The mission trip would be located around the town of "Scornicesti", which is the hometown of former Communist Leader Nicolae Ceaucescu.

Scornicesti is a small town of about 5,000 inhabitants located in Oltenia, one of the poorer "counties" of Romania. Oltenia is known for it's Poverty and Orphanages. In Scornicesti, they have a few factories where they make jeans, and this is one of the main occupations of the residents that live there.

The city is not well kept, and in fact it looks like a city that has gone through a war (though I doubt it has). Romania in general feels like a country stuck in time. If Romanians are reading this, I apologize if I make your city or country sound poor, but it's fact. For the Americans reading this I would like to say that we, as Americans, live in Extreme Luxury. Kids here drive cars and can go eat out at restaurants every day if they wanted to and still have money left over to be well off. The people in Scornicesti have to worry about what they will eat and whether or not they will have heat for the winter season.

One last fact about Scornicesti, I don't know if this changed, but running water for the faucet or bath works for 4 hours every day, 2 in the morning and 2 at night. They are trying to "conserve" water, though most people fill up their bathtubs with water for daily water use throughout the day (probably wasting more water if anything).

Scornicesti has one orthodox church and a christian church which is hopefully completed by now.

Part of the purpose of the mission trip was to help set up the "Zile de Bucurie," which means the "Days of Joy" translated. This Christmas celebration is a 3 day festival held in the Town's Cultural House during the evening hours. The other purpose of the trip was to visit the many Orphanages throughout the country. The visits to the Orphanages was one of the most shocking parts of Romania and changed my life.

I will be entering random journal entries from my Trip to Romania. I never had the intent of sharing these when I wrote them, but I hope they make sense. There might be more personal stuff that I will not include in the blog. Just so you know, the entries have an overall "sad" tone to them.

-mic